Nationwide Bus Tour Launches To Help Increase Latino College Attendance.

The Sallie Mae Fund launched On the Road: The Paying for College Tour, a 22-city, coast-to-coast bus tour, designed to help educate thousands of Latino families about planning and paying for college. The tour kicked off today with a launch event at Belmont Senior High School in Los Angeles, featuring educators and celebrities.

Jose Huizar, president and District 2 Representative, LA Unified School District, Natalie Reyes, Deputy Mayor of Los Angeles, and Harry Pachon, president, the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute, joined representatives from numerous Latino civic and community organizations and more than 200 students from Belmont Senior High School at the kick-off event.

On the Road: The Paying for College Tour is a response to the largest-ever survey of Latino perspectives on college financial aid, which was commissioned by The Sallie Mae Fund and conducted by the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute at the University of Southern California. Results announced in March 2004 revealed that awareness of financial aid options is critically lacking in the Latino community, and that this issue restricts college attendance. Nearly half of all Latino young adults and more than half of all Latino parents were not aware of a single source of financial aid, according to the research. The research also showed that Latino families prefer to learn about financial aid from in-person meetings or workshops, provided by guidance counselors or financial aid experts, said Susan Corsini, vice chair of The Sallie Mae Fund. “This tour was created to directly address this need.”

Motoring from Los Angeles to Miami, the bus tour will involve more than 125 free workshops and community outreach events (major tour stops listed below). The tour will unite local financial aid experts from area colleges, student-focused organizations and Latino community-based groups to bring financial aid information to Latino families how and where they want to receive it.

To support the tour, The Fund will air radio public service announcements in English and Spanish featuring the tour’s national spokesperson, popular Telemundo Network personality, Maria Celeste Arraras, to publicize the free financial aid workshops and availability of information on planning and paying for college in each of the 22 cities.

“So many of our families are not capitalizing on higher education, because they believe that college is not feasible,” said Harry Pachon of the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute. “This is not a Latino problem, it’s an American problem. It’s one that we can solve, by reaching Latino kids earlier in their school careers, to let them know that they have options for college.”