Catholic Schools Foundation Inc.

Through our signature program, the Building Minds Scholarship Fund, CSF assists families who wish to send their children to a Catholic school but are unable to afford tuition, with a goal of never having a student choose another school because of financial considerations. CSF guarantees all funding at the same level for students who are current scholarship recipients in grades K-8, this ensures that these students receive scholarships from kindergarten through grade eight (pending qualification). Our long-term goal is to establish a scholarship continuum from grades K-12. We are also working to increase the number of scholarships distributed and to better target low-income students to allow them to receive a Catholic education.

A related goal is to continue to provide program aid to students and schools in the form of counseling, technology, marketing, and Hispanic recruitment initiatives. Our financial support for guidance counselor staffing at Catholic schools in the Boston area has had a major impact on the well-being of students. Our Hispanic recruitment program is aimed at identifying and recruiting children for Catholic schools from Boston-area parishes. Because of its success, the concept has been shared widely and is becoming a national model for other cities. And by supporting technology efforts at our schools, we help to ensure that our students are gaining crucial technical skills that they will carry into the workplace.

We continue to meet great success as more than $10 million in scholarship funds was awarded to low-income students last year. These scholarships are not merely helpful to the families receiving them, they are essential. During the 2018 campaign year, we anticipate providing approximately $10 million in scholarship and programmatic support for low-income students.

CSF Scholars boast a graduation rate of 100% and 99% go on to attend college. Massachusetts maintains some of the nation's highest SAT scores, but Catholic high school students in the Boston area score even higher year after year on the SAT and Advanced Placement tests than both the Massachusetts public school average and the national average. Last year, our Catholic high school students scored an average of 46 points higher on their SAT tests than their public school peers. With an average student-to-faculty ratio of 11 to 1, Catholic schools are able to meet the needs of many students who wouldn't thrive in public schools.

We have instituted several new programs that allow for access to private Catholic school for low-income children and that promote operational vitality within Catholic school in the Archdiocese of Boston.