Baruch College Receives $2.8 Million Federal Grant

Largest Federal Grant Received in Support of Student Success

September 27, 2024

Baruch College has been awarded a highly competitive $2.8 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education under its Title V Developing Hispanic Serving Institutions program. The grant project “Maximizing Success through Inclusive Pedagogy and Peer Mentoring” will focus on improving academic preparedness for undergraduate students.

“Baruch is grateful to receive this transformative grant that will maximize our undergraduates’ potential for success through peer mentoring and faculty development,” said Dr. Linda Essig, Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at Baruch College. “This new funding will significantly expand our existing programs and advance new initiatives to help propel students to achieve academic and post-degree success.”

Largest Federal Grant of its Kind

The $2.8 million funding represents the largest federal grant that Baruch has ever received to support student success.

Over the next five years, the grant will fund initiatives focused on improving both a sense of belonging and academic preparedness for low-income and transfer students at Baruch, including Hispanic undergraduates, who represent 26 percent of the College’s student population.

With this funding, Baruch will:

• Revise its First Year Seminar and scale its peer mentoring infrastructure to make peer mentorship available to all first year and new transfer students.
• Collaborate with faculty in gateway courses, primarily in the business prerequisite core, to mitigate equity gaps that are challenging student retention beyond their second year of enrollment.
• Increase four- and six-year graduation rates for Hispanic low-income and transfer students.
• Engage with Baruch’s community college partners to help students there be better prepared for successful transfer and completion of their Baruch College degrees.

Provost Essig added, “This is an exciting moment for Baruch College, and I appreciate the efforts of the many staff and faculty members who collaborated to secure this major federal grant that will benefit all our undergraduate students.”

Under the leadership of project director Dr. Kathleen Gray, Associate Provost for Learning and Student Success, the College is ready to get to work and launch this new initiative to deepen its investment in student success.

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