Jack Kent Cooke Foundation

History

The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation was launched in 2000, funded by a bequest from entrepreneur and sports team owner Jack Kent Cooke, who died in 1997. Cooke had to leave high school in Canada in 1930 before graduating in order to help support his family during the Great Depression. He later went on to amass a fortune and move to the United States, eventually acquiring the Washington Redskins football team.

In his will, Cooke made provisions for the sale of the Redskins and some of his other assets to create a foundation to help extraordinary students with financial need – similar in many ways to himself as a young man – afford a college education.

The first executive director of the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation was Matthew J. Quinn, serving from 2000 to 2009, when Harvard University psychologist Lawrence Kutner succeeded him. Current Executive Director Harold O. Levy, who is a former New York City schools chancellor, assumed his position in September 2014.

Scholarships and Awards

The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation has awarded more than $152 million in scholarship assistance to nearly 2,200 extraordinary high school and college students. Each Cooke Scholar has a strong record of academic achievement as shown by grades and test scores, leadership skills, service to others and perseverance in the face of adversity.

Cooke College Scholars and Undergraduate Transfer Scholars can receive up to $40,000 annually to cover tuition, living expenses, books and fees. In addition, the students who hold these scholarships are eligible to apply for a graduate school scholarship worth up to $50,000 a year, which is renewable for up to four years. Cooke International Awards at the University of Oxford and University of Cambridge are worth up to $85,000 a year for graduate study.

Scholarships for high school, undergraduate and graduate students include academic advising, access to internship opportunities, funding for study abroad, and opportunities to network with other Cooke Scholars and alumni.

Here is a list of current Cooke Scholarship and Awards Programs:

Cooke Prize

The Cooke Prize for Equity in Educational Excellence is a $1 million award – the largest of its kind in the nation – given to an elite college or university with an excellent record of admitting, supporting and graduating outstanding low-income students.

The Cooke Prize was first awarded in 2015, going to Vassar College in New York. In 2016 the prize was awarded to Amherst College in Massachusetts.

In the 2015-16 academic year 23 percent of Vassar’s freshmen were low-income students (those receiving federal Pell Grants). Nearly 25 percent of Amherst students were receiving Pell Grants.

Grants

The Cooke Foundation awards grants to support strategic initiatives to expand educational opportunities for outstanding low-income students. It has awarded over $90 million in grants to organizations that serve such students.

Cooke Foundation grants support high-quality learning programs that spark student curiosity and passion, augment formal academic instruction, nurture informal intellectual interchange, influence students’ educational and career paths, and help students take specific steps to achieve their goals. Grant recipients have helped many thousands of outstanding low-income students reach their full potential at all grade levels, with the goal of increasing their enrollment in college.

Grants to organizations working with such students in grades K-12 support programs that provide advanced learning opportunities outside the classroom for the brightest low-income students. The support is intended to help such students do well in school and lead to their increased enrollment in enriched coursework, including Advanced Placement courses and International Baccalaureate programs, to prepare them to handle college-level work and improve their chances of getting into a top college.

Grants to colleges and universities help them open their doors wider to academically qualified students from families struggling to make ends meet. The grants provide funding for support programs that help low-income students adjust to college, succeed once enrolled and graduate on time. Grants fall into four broad categories: college access and excellence; academic achievement; artistic advancement; and local support.

Research

In addition to operating its scholarship and grant programs, the Cooke Foundation conducts research on outstanding low-income students.

The foundation’s most recent study, issued in early 2016, is called "True Merit: Ensuring Our Brightest Students Have Access to Our Best Colleges and Universities." The report concluded that top colleges and universities in the United States continue to use outdated and inaccurate measures of student ability to deny admission to many outstanding low-income students. The study found that a mere 3 percent of students at the most selective schools come from the 25 percent of families with the lowest incomes. In sharp contrast, 72 percent of students at the top schools come from the wealthiest 25 percent of the U.S. population. The "True Merit" report calls for colleges to change their admissions practices so that academically qualified low-income students have a fair chance at being admitted to top colleges and universities.

Earlier research by the Cooke Foundation that examined the challenges faced by highly talented students with financial need includes: