Andrew Davis Pledges $20.6 Million to Support First-Generation College Students in Northern New Mexico
Santa Fe, N.M. – Philanthropist Andrew Davis has pledged over $20 million to provide scholarships for Northern New Mexican students who will become the first in their families to earn a four-year college degree. This year, the Davis New Mexico Scholarship, will send 35 New Mexicans to colleges around the West, and this extraordinary gift ensures that they will be joined by nearly 150 others in the next three years.
“I believe in the students of New Mexico,” says Mr. Davis. “The Davis New Mexico Scholarship’s success has shown that students from our community are ready to face the challenge of higher education—now it’s time to keep the momentum going.”
This year, seventeen young women and men from Santa Fe and Albuquerque earned their college degrees through the Davis New Mexico Scholarship. “Without the Davis New Mexico Scholarship, college out of state would not have been a realistic option,” says Angelica Lopez, a recent graduate of St. Edward’s University in Austin, TX, “As a first-generation college student, I went to college without the support of my family and having to take responsibility for my young siblings. The scholarship provided the tools I needed to focus on my schoolwork and get myself prepared to come back to New Mexico to strengthen our communities here.” A Social Work major at St. Edward’s, Lopez has already found work pursuing her passion for helping youth as the College Access Counselor for the Upward Bound Program at Northern New Mexico College. “Now I get to support other students who had similar challenges growing up to the ones I did. I can show them that there is a way to break the negative cycles in their families and communities.”
Photo: Rayana Bonnell, Davis New Mexico Scholar, Loyola Marymount University Class of 2020 (photo credit: Brandon Soder)
To help reach its goal of awarding scholarships to nearly 200 students over the next three years, the Davis New Mexico Scholarship recently added the AVID program at Pojoaque Valley High School as one of the scholarship’s twelve affiliated organizations. “This is a game changer for college access in our school,” says Terry Burks, Principal and AVID District Director. “The Davis New Mexico Scholarship provides a tangible goal for students to reach for, and I know that it will quickly change the college-going culture at our school for the better.”
Pojoaque Valley High School’s AVID program is the newest of a dozen programs and charter schools that are providing college access services to local students as affiliates of the Davis New Mexico Scholarship. “Our goal is to provide a pathway to college for students throughout Northern New Mexico,” says Sam Ritter, the Director of the Davis New Mexico Scholarship. “Andrew Davis’s extraordinary philanthropic vision has provided us with the means, the stability, and the impulse to continue our vital college access work.”
For the thirty-five members of this year’s Davis New Mexico Scholarship class, the ability to go to college knowing they have the financial and academic support of the Davis New Mexico Scholarship is life changing. “Without the Davis New Mexico Scholarship, I would never have dreamed of going away to college,” says Gabriel Alarcón Macías, who will be attending the University of Denver next year. “Between all the help and support my family and I got in Breakthrough Santa Fe, and the opportunity to visit colleges all over the country with the support of the Davis New Mexico Scholarship, I can go into next year prepared no matter what the school year will look like.”
Indeed, Mr. Davis’s gift comes at a time of extraordinary upheaval in higher education, as students and their families wonder what school will consist of in the coming years and months. “No matter what changes come to colleges and universities in this country,” reflects Mr. Davis, “I firmly believe that a college degree will continue to be the most reliable ladder into the middle class for first-generation college students. We can’t predict what the future will hold, but a college degree will remain the best way to be prepared for our inevitably dynamic economic and political future.” Davis New Mexico Scholars, continues Mr. Davis, “are the future of our state—they will be the ones who will help us rebuild our economies and communities even stronger than they were before this pandemic.”
The Davis New Mexico Scholarship currently has over 100 students enrolled in six partner colleges around the West and Midwest. These students receive a full cost of attendance scholarship, as well as academic, emotional, and family support to provide guidance to and through college graduation. To date, the scholarship boasts a 98% retention rate, and has grown to encompass students from throughout Northern New Mexico, from Albuquerque to Espa?ola and Santa Fe to Farmington. For more information on the Davis New Mexico Scholarship, see www.davisnm.org. The Davis New Mexico Scholarship is generously hosted by Santa Fe Preparatory School and was incubated by Breakthrough Santa Fe.