DACC receives funds for support services

March 30, 2005
By: Anna Herkamp

DANVILLE- Danville Area Community College will receive more than a quarter of a million dollars to help retain first-generation, low-income and disabled students.

DACC will receive $267,986 from the TRIO Student Support Services Program of the U.S. Department of Education, according to U.S. Rep. Tim Johnson, R-Urbana.

The money is awarded specifically to student support programs that target the retention of first-generation college students, low-income students and students with disabilities.

Last year, Illinois received $31,744,191 in TRIO money for 111 projects in higher education. It impacted 30,231 students.

"The whole focus is to increase the college graduation rate of students in previously underrepresented groups." said Penny McConnell, coordinator of the Student Support Services Center at DACC.

"They haven't always been well-represented in higher education. Getting them into a four-year program is the ultimate goal.

"(The grants exist) to get (students) here and help them stay here. If no one else in your family has gone to college, you don't know the ropes - not because you're not smart enough, you just don't have a clue as to how to go about it . There's a lot of talent out there. We can't afford to lose a single talented mind."

DACC uses the TRIO money specifically for counseling services in financial, personal, career and academic capacities. The college also promotes mentoring and tutoring programs with the money.

This is the third time the TRIO grant has been awarded to DACC. Every four years, the Student Support Services Center must reapply for the money in order to qualify for it.

"You go through a stressful grant-proposal writing program. This is the third time we've got one. Each grant is four years. We've got it for eight years (so far)," McConnell said.

She said the college is constantly looking for ways to reach out to students who are not familiar with higher education.

"All money we receive is very important; to lose any of those grant funds would be critical to the students we serve. As time goes on, it continues to be harder to get grants to be funded at state and federal level," said Dave Kietzmann, vice president of instruction and student services.

"There's still quite a lot of grant money but it's very restrictive," McConnell said. "It used to be that they were more open-ended. Now they're very specific grants with accountability measures."

Some of those measures include retention and graduation rates, and the number of students who transfer to a four-year program.

"(These measures) are dictated from the federal government, whereas before, the college could say what they wanted to do with the money. The grant dollars are very restrictive. State grant dollars have dwindled even more than federal grant dollars." she said.

Due to budget crises in recent years, and a growing deficit on both the state and federal levels, grant money for higher education has been cut, she said.

Illinois is among the top four states in the nation affected the most by grant money cuts in the Upward Bound and Talent Search programs, McConnell said. She said the programs have been axed by legislators on the federal level to make up for debt.

U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., recently introduced a bill that passed in the Senate to help restore money to those programs. The House of Representatives also is looking at a bill to help get that money back, she said.

Despite the cuts, she said typically the TRIO grants receive bipartisan support.

"Often it's the Republicans that end up appropriating the money - the opposite of what you would expect."

Illinois ' economy and large percentage of poorer demographics in both rural and urban areas make it essential to have this kind of financial support, McConnell said.

Other universities and colleges in the 15th Congressional District also have received TRIO money this year, including Eastern Illinois University ($234,229), Heartland Community College ($220,000), Illinois State University ($247,472), Lake Land College ($220,000), Parkland College ($267,986) and University of Illinois ($271,074).