Hundreds of D.C. middle school students in Wards 7 and 8 will be getting educational and financial support from a $21 million U.S. Department of Education grant that officials say will boost college enrollment and graduation rates in lower-income neighborhoods.

Under the six-year program, expected to start in 2024, approximately 480 middle school students will receive an $11,000 scholarship for each of the first two years of their postsecondary education, take college-level courses, and receive guidance from six coaches trained in social and emotional learning.

“We are just delighted to have been selected for this,” said Dr. Antoinette Mitchell, assistant superintendent for postsecondary and career education at the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE). “It’s a significant program… that will truly help our students see themselves as college bound and really enable them to dream about a bright future.”

D.C. is one of six jurisdictions in the country to receive the federal Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR UP) grant. City education officials say it will help students in lower-income areas achieve their college and career goals. The DC College Access Program (DC-CAP) and OSSE will manage the grant funds.

Eight schools in Wards 7 and 8 are participating. Six of the schools are under DCPS: Excel Academy, Hart Middle School, Johnson Middle School, Kelly Miller Middle School, Kramer Middle School, and Sousa Middle School. Two public charter schools, Friendship Charter Schools’ Blow Pierce Middle School and Southeast Middle School, are also participating .

Mitchell says all current seventh graders from those eight Ward 7 and 8 schools are eligible. OSSE says there will be more details on student selection in the coming months.

Mitchell said she hopes the grant will help students graduate high school on time, get into and complete college, and find career opportunities they might not otherwise have known about. Many of the middle schoolers impacted would be first-generation college students.

The grant comes as D.C., like many jurisdictions, faces a rise in chronic absenteeism with 48% of students in the 2021-2022 school year missing at least 10% of instructional days, according to OSSE’s most recent attendance report. It also comes as D.C. continues to grapple with longstanding education disparities, with Black students experiencing a graduation rate just over 73% compared to just over 92% for white students.

Mitchell said that the schools participating in the program tend to have the highest rates of chronic absenteeism and that GEAR UP will improve attendance by better engaging students.

“We’re hoping that this grant will really encourage students to think about school in different ways, to be more connected to schools – their teachers and their peers – to explore careers they might not have known about before, to have experiences that would strengthen their desire to go on to bigger and better things,” said Mitchell.

State Superintendent of Education Dr. Christina Grant said in a statement that the GEAR UP grant will “inspire college dreams in the minds of hundreds of DC middle school students furthest from opportunity,” and “provide the coaching support they need through high school and the financial support they need after high school to make their college dreams a reality.” “It’s important that our middle schoolers can see themselves on campus, too,” she said.

DC-CAP President and CEO Eric Waldo called the grant a “transformative federal investment.”

“With great college counseling, great social-emotional support and enough scholarship money for school, our students can and will succeed,” Waldo said in a statement.