What Is the Educational Opportunity Fund?
The Educational
Opportunity Fund (EOF) is one of the nation's most comprehensive and
successful state-supported efforts to provide access to higher education
for students who lack the economic resources and academic preparation
to attend college. Qualified students receive support services that
include counseling, tutoring and academic advisement. A summer program
is held annually for incoming EOF students and is designed to prepare
students for the challenges of college life.
EOF History
In
November 1967, in the aftermath of the previous summer's riots in
Newark, New Jersey's newly appointed Chancellor of Higher Education,
Ralph A. Dungan, directed a memorandum to the presidents of all
state institutions of higher education. In this document, he outlined a
proposed program of special assistance to young men and women from
economically and educationally disadvantaged backgrounds. The
presidents' response was immediate, widespread and overwhelmingly
favorable. Administrators were particularly enthusiastic at institutions
that participated in the federally supported Upward Bound Program,
which sought to help high school students from disadvantaged backgrounds
prepare for entry into college.
The following February, the
Select Commission on Civil Disorders (the Lilly Commission, established
in response to the events in Newark) reported to Governor Richard
Hughes, who subsequently submitted his Moral Recommitment message to the
New Jersey State Legislature. The message called for the establishment
of a broad range of programs to address the basic conditions the
commission cited as contributing to the summer's unrest. Among those
programs was EOF, established by legislation sponsored by then-freshman
legislator Thomas Kean Sr.
EOF set the pace for many initiatives
that are widely incorporated into college life today. Among the many
powerful EOF strategies are pre-college articulation, basic skills
testing and remediation, systematic retention efforts, peer counseling
and tutoring, academic support courses, multicultural curricula, human
relations programming, student leadership development and outcomes-based
program evaluation.
EOF also has been a leader and linchpin in
the higher education system's effort to increase diversity. Although
participation is not limited to minority students, EOF sponsors more
than one-third of the African American and Latino students
attending state colleges and New Jersey's independent institutions, and
more than one-quarter of the African American and Latino students
enrolled at New Jersey colleges and universities participate in the
EOF program. EOF enrolls approximately 12.5% of first-time, full-time
New Jersey freshmen who enter the state's colleges and universities each
fall.
The New Jersey Higher Education website provides more information about the New Jersey EOF program.
