Loyola Marymount receives federal grants

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Loyola Marymount University is set to receive a slew of federal grants totaling nearly $3 million.

The private school in Los Angeles recently landed two awards from the National Science Foundation and one from the U.S. Department of Education.

The largest: a five-year, $1.2-million grant from the science foundation that grooms exemplary math and science students for careers as K-12 teachers in high-need school districts. The other two grants provide funds for low-income and minority students studying science, technology, engineering and math.

The grant announcements came after the school’s October launch of a campaign to raise $100 million to put toward student financial aid over the next three years.

The university touts the grants -– small when compared to the millions that pour into larger local universities, but significant for the small school –- as proof the Jesuit school is being noticed.

‘LMU is doing many things to recruit and then ensure the success of underserved minorities and first-generation college students,” President David Burcham said in a statement. “These successful programs are another place where our rhetoric becomes reality.’

The Education Trust, a nonprofit advocacy group, recently released a study highlighting schools with high minority graduation rates and small achievement gaps between minority and white students.
Mary Nguyen, a policy analyst at the nonprofit, said LMU was one of several standout schools nationwide, noting its nearly non-existent achievement gap between Latino and white students.

“The status quo isn’t inevitable and what schools do matter,” Nguyen said.

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-- Marisa Gerber