The Arizona Board of Regents will receive up to $1.5 million in grants over the next 10 years to continue its plans to expand higher education access in Arizona.
The money, from the Lumina Foundation for Education, will support ABOR’s plans without dramatically expanding its budget.
Lumina is a private, independent foundation focused on expanding access to education beyond high school, according to its Web site.
Arizona is one of seven states to receive the grant money from the Foundation. The money granted to all states totals $9.1 million and will be distributed over four years as part of Lumina’s Making Opportunity Affordable initiative.
Applying for the grant was a two-part process, ABOR spokeswoman Andrea Smiley said.
“We’re looking at what we have and what resources we really need to make more opportunities [for students] into realities,” she said. “Having more [Arizonans] get degrees and improve their quality of life is very important to the regents. We’re ecstatic. This will help us get closer to what we want to do and provide more opportunities for [Arizonans].”
Smiley said Lumina was looking for programs like ABOR’s that involved using public funds to increase college graduation rates and train students in new and innovative ways.
Regent Ross Meyer, a law student at ASU, said ABOR has been discussing ways to increase the number of bachelor’s degrees and lower costs, and the grant will help the Board move forward.
“The first goal is to create a student-centered system that improves advising and career planning that provides a pathway to statewide postsecondary opportunities, which allows for student success tracking,” Meyer said in an e-mail.
Other elements of the redesign include more partnerships between Arizona community colleges and universities, and the creation of new campuses for low-cost bachelor’s degrees.
While there are some projects that will be seen in the next few years, the full plan is not expected to be complete until 2020.
The regents are very excited, Smiley said, because the grant offers important assistance to the state.
The plan is something that will help students who are part of Arizona’s higher education system across the state, Meyer said.
“It allows for the universities to have an even higher incentive to make sure students who come to our universities graduate,” Meyer said.
“This is important, not just for students but for our entire state.”
Reach the reporter sheydt@asu.edu.
