Abstract

Utah Valley University, with partners Weber State University, Utah State University  Eastern, and the San Juan Foundation, proposes to provide GEAR UP services to 4,500 low-income and disconnected youth annually throughout the state over a seven-year performance period. GEAR UP Utah will serve secondary education students and their families in 42 high schools and middle schools, as well as those who continue to their first year of postsecondary education. The target schools represent a broad range of urban and rural schools. These frontier, urban, and rural communities have one thing in common—their low-income students are seriously underserved in comparison to other students in Utah and the U.S. Utah has the third lowest college-going rate in the U.S. at 46%, and low-income students fall even lower at 38%. One in five low-income high school students do not complete high school; those who do, on average, score lower on measures of postsecondary readiness. 

GEAR UP Utah will address these challenges through an innovative student-focused approach that facilitates academic momentum and develops a productive academic mindset among students in an efficiently targeted 100% priority students model. Under this model, all participants will be disconnected youth (historically underrepresented in higher education) and at least 90% will qualify as low-income. GEAR UP Utah's ‘Building Secondary Momentum and Persistence to PSE’ approach pioneers evidence-based strategies to increase momentum and persistence in high school toward college graduation from the outset of a student’s educational path.