FLAGSTAFF — Coconino Community College has received the largest donation in the college’s history to attract male high school students to higher education.
A private donor has offered the college $1 million per year for four years to achieve the goal.
“This transformational gift will allow us to blaze a new path forward and open the doors of higher education for students who may not have been considering going to college,” said Dr. Eric Heiser, President of CCC. “With the resources that this gift will provide, we will be able to focus specifically on those male students who have not re-engaged with community college since the onset of the pandemic.”
Dianna Sanchez, Chief Development Officer for the CCC Foundation, said, “The magnitude of this gift is truly unprecedented for CCC. As the largest gift in the Foundation’s history, it will provide the necessary resources to vastly increase our male students’ chances for success in higher education, degree attainment and employment.”
Nationally, community colleges have lost more than 20 percent of their male students since 2020, Dr. Heiser said, and CCC is mirroring that national trend. Additionally, male students of color are disproportionally not enrolling at even higher rates than their white counterparts. The gift will give CCC the ability to try new and innovative approaches to engaging male high school students, and, with hope, provide lessons and best practices for community colleges across the country.
Sanchez said that identified male students will join the program their sophomore year of high school and will receive direct support from a success coach placed at a Flagstaff Unified School District high school. The participants will also be concurrently enrolled at CCC to begin earning general studies course credit.
Finally, the participants will receive information about navigating higher education, career opportunities and character development.
“We couldn’t be more excited to get this work started,” Dr. Heiser said. “The future of our communities depends on it.”
Sanchez added, “We feel honored to be trusted with such a generous gift, and we are incredibly excited to embark on this initiative to better serve our students.”
For more information about the Coconino Community College Foundation, visit www.coconino.edu/foundation.
About Coconino Community College
CCC has served residents across 18,000 square miles of Coconino County since 1991. The College has the goal of improving the lives of our residents through workforce development and higher education.
CCC provides affordable tuition and offers certificate programs and two-year associate degrees in academic and career fields. CCC also has programs that ease student transition to any of the three state universities, including the award-winning CCC2NAU.
CCC reaches out to the more rural portions of the County and Tribal Lands. Instructional sites offer classes through online, in-person and Zoom video conferencing classes to meet the needs of students in rural and remote areas. More than 20 percent of CCC’s students are Native American learners.