WEST LAFAYETTE— Many Indiana students need help transitioning successfully from middle school to high school to postsecondary opportunities. The U.S. Department of Education (USDOE), through their Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR UP) campaign, seeks to ensure students across the country are prepared for college. The Indiana GEAR UP program (INGU), housed in the Purdue University College of Education, has been awarded $34.9 million over seven years to continue its efforts to support Indiana students and educators.
The $34.9 million grant is the sixth-largest federal grant ever awarded to Purdue University.
Virginia Bolshakova, executive director of INGU and assistant research professor in the College of Education’s Department of Curriculum and Instruction, is the grant’s principal investigator (PI). “I think this is such a big win for the state of Indiana,” she said. “It truly required so many partners and matches to make it happen. It never would have happened without so many levels of coordination.”
The current INGU program received USDOE funding in 2016 for $24.5 million, the largest grant ever received by the college. Since then, INGU has served over 13,000 Indiana students from 10 school corporations, plus over 3,000 educators from across the state. About 97% of INGU students graduated from high school compared to 87% of low-income students statewide, and INGU students enrolled in college at a higher rate than comparison students.
The INGU program has played a significant role in supporting students and educators across Indiana. In 2005, the earlier phase, INGU-1, established statewide programming to recruit and enroll eligible students into the 21st Century Scholars program, an early college promise initiative designed to make college more affordable and successful for students. The program’s efforts were scaled statewide through the Indiana Commission for Higher Education (Indiana CHE), making college and career activities accessible to all eligible students.
The current phase, INGU-2 (2016-2024), focused on postsecondary and career readiness, especially in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), with a partnership between Indiana CHE and Purdue University funded by the USDOE. Purdue’s involvement provided in-depth support to underserved students and professional development for educators. Despite the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, INGU-2 successfully improved academic readiness, with notable gains in SAT scores, high school graduation rates, and college enrollment.
With the new funding, INGU will expand its reach to 14,300 Indiana students in 28 schools across 10 partner school corporations to strengthen academic preparation, college readiness, and career guidance, focusing on Indiana’s 21st-century Scholars.
“Due to the adoption of many of the changes made through GEAR UP — more rigorous coursework, teachers using skills and knowledge from professional development, etc. — we expect INGU students, as well as those who follow them, to continue to have improved graduation rates and to show higher postsecondary enrollment rates than students from low-income backgrounds,” said Bolshakova.
Many students don’t have the academic preparation or career guidance necessary to be admitted into college. INGU helps by introducing academic options and career and college preparation to students, both critical components of college readiness programs.
