The Ford Family Foundation administers four scholarship programs that annually serve 1,000+ active scholarship recipients attending 100+ colleges and universities throughout the United States. The Foundation has awarded scholarships to nearly 7,000 students since the inception of its scholarship programs in 1994. Given this context, supporting the multi-faceted needs of our scholarship recipients and alumni in a changing higher education landscape is, in and of itself, a unique problem and an exciting opportunity. It’s a worthy problem-tunity. In this presentation, we will discuss our Student Supports portfolio, the evolution of our strategy and opportunities for future collaboration. Key themes for our presentation include: strategies for supporting students during key transitions in their postsecondary journeys, redefining programmatic success beyond retention and completion metrics and embracing social and economic mobility indicators as markers of programmatic success.
