<p>"With concerns growing that the recession will make it even harder for low-income students to remain in college, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on Monday announced nearly $70 million in grants as part of an ambitious initiative: to double the number of low-income students who earn a college degree or vocational credential by age 26.</p>
<p>The foundation hopes to encourage other nonprofits, religious organizations and the federal government to join its mission to help low-income students get the education required for steady employment in higher paying jobs, said Hilary Pennington, who will direct the Gates Foundations postsecondary effort.</p>
<p>The statistics behind the initiative are stark. While growing numbers of students in this country enroll in college, most of them never graduate. With large numbers working full time to pay for college and a lack of institutional support for struggling students, only about 25 percent of low-income students earn any kind of postsecondary degree, experts say. The rate for black and Latino students is about 20 percent....</p>
<p>Most of the foundations money would go not directly to students but to programs intended to help them make it through college."
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/education/09gates.html?ref=education%5B/url%5D">http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/education/09gates.html?ref=education</a></p>