Services available for first-generation college students
BY: CONCILIA NDLOVU
Staff Writer
TRIO was formed during the 1960s as an initiative to encourage and support youth from low-income areas and disadvantaged backgrounds with the notion of college becoming a means of transforming generational poverty. According to the Council for Opportunity in Education, “the TRIO programs were the first
national college access and retention programs to address the serious social and cultural barriers to education in America.” TRIO has since expanded from focusing on high school youth to the college setting commonly known as Student Support Services (SSS). SSS has been at Meramec for around eight to 10 years.
“TRIO is a federally funded grant program that has roots nationwide. As a result, there are certain standards and measures that the program has to meet in order to remain funded. Each grant lasts about five years, and each institution that receives the grant has to apply after the five years is up to maintain funding,” said Andrew Smith, one of the advisors in the TRIO program. “TRIO offers a variety of services for its students including academic advising, financial aid assistance, career exploration, transfer planning, mentoring, and financial literacy.”
Smith and his fellow advisers assist students with academic advising, financial aid assistance, career exploration, transfer planning and financial literacy.
In addition, the program has a private tutoring lab for assisting students in math, science, and other subjects. Students can apply to the TRIO by filling out an application.
Bisheng Ahmed, an advisor and former TRIO recipient from SLU herself, said she believes programs are a great avenue for promoting educational success and scholarship opportunities for underrepresented students. “As an advisor, one thing I like is that we focus more on helping students transfer from community college to a four-year school by identifying best-fit transfer schools, deadlines, courses and majors. We usually offer to encourage students to stay on track by running an essay writing competition that rewards the winner with varying grant amounts to pay for summer classes and or other educational expenses,” she said.
Anfal Eltahir and Brad Riaze are student advocates for TRIO who still utilize the services; the latter has also worked as a tutor for TRIO in the past year. “I wasn’t supposed to be here at all,” said Riaze. “I’d been accepted into Missouri S&T, but I wasn’t able to go there due to immigration complications and I was really mad in my first year because I didn’t want to be [at Meramec].”
He said he met a guy named Elijah Thomas, who for eight months persistently invited him to join TRIO. His immigration hurdles and the convenience of working on campus made him cave in.
“It turned out that TRIO is literally the best thing that has ever happened to me. I have since made a great group of friends that have become like my family. TRIO has top-notch tutors, advisors and mentors [who] are different from the general advisers because they know you by name and really give you dedicated personal assistance,” said Riaze.
A student qualifies for TRIO if he or she is either considered first generation, Pell Grant-eligible or registered with the Access Office. Students only have to meet one of these criteria to be eligible.
“TRIO is a great program and what I like most is the one-on-one hour per session math tutoring. They also give walk-in tutoring for other classes and the tutors are amazing, they don’t look down upon you, care about your success and they will stick with you until you understand a [particular] problem,” said Eltahir.
The TRIO program at Meramec is currently seeking volunteer mentors for its incoming freshman. Volunteer mentors would be responsible for assisting incoming students with study skills, time management skills and learning about the different resources on campus. They serve as role models for new students. Anyone interested in becoming a volunteer mentor should visit the TRIO office, Student Center 202.
“I believe students should join the TRIO program because we are a supportive program that helps our students to be successful. Our goal is to help students to graduate with their associate’s degree and either transfer to a university, go into the workforce, go to the military or whatever other routes they decide to take. We have a lot of resources to help the student along with their journey,” said Smith.
