Renowned College Access Organization Opens in Atlanta

NEW YORK - The Posse Foundation -- a youth leadership development and college access program -- will open its sixth chapter this spring in Atlanta, Georgia, thanks to an $860,000 grant through The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation’s Pathways to Success program.


The Posse Foundation is a youth leadership development and college access organization that provides students from diverse backgrounds the opportunity to excel at premier colleges and universities ranked in the nation’s top 10 percent. The program recruits, trains, and sends teams (or “Posses”) of public high school leaders to support each other through their postsecondary experience and to be catalysts of change on campus. The program consists of a unique and comprehensive selection process, an eight-month pre-collegiate training component for new scholarship recipients, on campus mentoring, and career internship opportunities at industry leading companies in various professional fields.

Pathways to Success was created in 2004 to expand educational opportunities by providing high school students the support they need to pursue postsecondary education. The Blank Foundation grant was awarded as a challenge grant, requiring Posse to raise an additional $536,000. The funding from The Blank Foundation will allow Posse to substantially increase its university partner institutions, thus greatly expanding the number of scholarships awarded yearly.

“The support of The Blank Foundation,” says Posse President and Founder Deborah Bial, “has been absolutely invaluable and speaks to their commitment to expand educational opportunities for the thousands of deserving high school students in Atlanta public schools.”

Posse currently operates in five other cities -- Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and Washington, D.C. -- and is partnered with 26 selective colleges and universities. Since 1989, over 1,800 public high school students have won more than $172 million in leadership scholarships from Posse’s 26 elite college and university partners. Once on campus, over 70 percent of Posse Scholars go on to either form new campus organizations or to become presidents of already existing ones. In addition, Posse Scholars are persisting and graduating at a rate of over 90 percent, far above the national average.