Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs ("GEAR UP") is a set of scholarship and outreach programs in the United States of America. It was established in Chapter 2 of the 1998 amendments to the Higher Education Act of 1965

Higher Education Act of 1965

The Higher Education Act of 1965 was legislation signed into United States law on November 8, 1965, as part of President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society domestic agenda. Johnson chose Texas State University–San Marcos as the signing site...

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Early Intervention and College Awareness Program

A large part of the GEAR UP chapter concerns the authorization of the Early Intervention and College Awareness Program to provide a guarantee of financial aid for college to students who obtain a secondary school

Secondary school

Secondary school is a term used to describe an educational institution where the final stage of schooling, known as secondary education and usually compulsory up to a specified age, takes place...

 diploma. Eligible institutions are required to implement the program for one or more cohorts of students beginning in not later than the seventh grade

Seventh grade

Seventh grade is a year of education in the United States and many other nations. The seventh grade is the seventh school year after kindergarten. Students are usually 12–13 years old. Traditionally, seventh grade was the next-to-last year of elementary school...

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• Details of the plan are left to local entities receiving funding, but must include comprehensive mentoring
  Mentoring
  Mentorship refers to a personal developmental relationship in which a more experienced or more knowledgeable person helps a less experienced or less knowledgeable person....
  
  , counseling
  School counselor
  A school counselor is a counselor and an educator who works in elementary, middle, and high schools to provide academic, career, college access, and personal/social competencies to K-12 students...
  
  , outreach, and supportive services, including financial aid counseling, providing information and activities regarding college admissions, achievement test
  Achievement test
  An achievement test is a test of developed skill or knowledge. The most common type of achievement test is a standardized test developed to measure skills and knowledge learned in a given grade level, usually through planned instruction, such as training or classroom instruction...
  
  s, and application procedures, and improving parental involvement.

• Funds can support identification of at-risk children, after school and summer tutoring, assistance in obtaining summer jobs, academic counseling, volunteer and parent involvement, providing former or current scholarship recipients as mentor or peer counselors, skills assessment], providing access to rigorous core courses that reflect challenging academic standards, personal counseling, family counseling and home visits, staff development, programs for students of limited English proficiency, and summer programs for remedial, developmental or supportive purposes.

• All programs of this type must support scholarship grants which are at least 75 percent of the average cost of attendance for an in-State student in a 4-year program of instruction at public institutions of higher education in that State, and not less than the maximum Federal Pell Grant
  Pell Grant
  A Pell Grant is money the federal government provides for students who need it to pay for college. Federal Pell Grants are limited to students with financial need, who have not earned their first bachelor's degree or who are not enrolled in certain post-baccalaureate programs, through participating...
  
   for that fiscal year. Funding may be reduced so as not to exceed the actual cost of attendance, or if the total funding budgeted is insufficient. In order to be eligible for this students must be less than 22 years of age and have participated in the early intervention component of the program. Not more than 10% of the students from a secondary school can be eligible, in a process requiring application and dependent in part on class rank.

• Students are required to attend school within that state unless the state opts to allow portability of funding. They are required to complete a prescribed set of courses and maintain satisfactory progress.

• Agencies receiving funding must file biennial reports, and up to 0.75% of the program funds can be spent to evaluate effectiveness of the program.

• $200 million was appropriated for fiscal year 1999.

Other programs

Other programs amended include:

• Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants

• Leveraging Educational Assistance Partnership Program - including creation of the Special Leveraging Educational Assistance Partnership Program

• Special programs for students whose families are involved in migrant and seasonal farmwork

• The Robert C. Byrd Honors Scholarship Program - $45 million appropriated for fiscal year 1999

• Child Care Access Means Parents in School - supporting campus-based child care at secondary schools

• Learning Anytime Anywhere Partnerships - a project for technology-based education outside of a traditional setting

• Federal Family Education Loan Program
  Federal Family Education Loan Program
  The Federal Family Education Loan Program was the second largest of the U.S. higher education loan programs . The FFEL was initiated by the Higher Education Act of 1965 and was funded through a public/private partnership administered at the state and local level...
  
  

• Federal Student Loan Reserve Fund

See also

Student Aid Alliance