USC Offers Scholarships to Students Who Take Advantage of Tutorials in Housing Projects

THE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA is offering scholarships to school kids who take advantage of tutorials at Los Angeles inner-city housing projects.

Through Century Learning Initiatives for Today (LIFT), a coalition of California development companies, school-age students who live in affordable housing developments participate in supervised tutorials between 4 and 7:30 p.m. in a study hall set up in each development. Students are tutored by paid teaching assistants from the Los Angeles Unified School District and college students from various Los Angeles-area colleges and universities, USC among them.

As an incentive to participate in LIFT, USC offers governmental and institutional grants to students who are accepted to USC with no special treatment. LIFT traces its origins to a fledgling program launched five years ago in a housing development near USC. But the project has recently undergone a dramatic overhaul and spread to five more affordable housing complexes in south-central Los Angeles.

"We’re trying to find ways to make a difference, to supplement classroom experience, to encourage students to take advantage of what’s available in Los Angeles," said Cathie Thomas, USC associate dean for admissions and financial aid and director of financial aid. "This is all about hope."

Each complex has a study hall equipped with tables, chairs, computers and reference books. Before moving into the apartments, residents sign a lease that requires their children to attend at least 80 percent of these sessions. Parents must also agree to supervise at least one field trip a year and attend at least one parental workshop a month. The workshops, modeled on California’s "Healthy Start" program, refine parenting skills and cultivate skills to support academic excellence at home.

"Overwhelmingly we meet with support," said Cynthia Amos, the program’s administrator and a teacher at Foshay Learning Center. Foshay, a K-12 campus near USC, educates most of the Century-LIFT students. "The students are better test-takers and they’re more attentive," Amos said, who tracks their progress at school. "We’ve had 11 kids – four from one building – on the honor role at school."

The housing projects are funded by Century Housing Corp., a non-profit organization that has distributed $150 million for low-income housing since the construction of Los Angeles’ Century (105) Freeway. Government agencies are required to replace any low-income housing lost as a result of freeway construction.

"By making inner-city students more competitive as college applicants, Century-LIFT gets at the problem that affirmative action is meant to solve in a way that avoids charges of favoritism," said Robert Norris, executive vice president of Century Housing Corp. Other Partners include Foshay Learning Center and USC’s School of Education.