By Jodi Hausen,Staff Writer

FARMINGTON – Students at Dirigo High School in Dixfield will benefit from a $750,000 grant bestowed by the Nellie Mae Foundation to the school and University of Maine at Farmington.

The Farmington college was the only one in New England chosen to receive the five-year grant, Dr. Blenda Wilson, chief executive officer for the foundation, told UMF President Dr. Theodora Kalikow Thursday, according to a statement.

It was awarded on the basis of the school’s overwhelmingly successful enterprise, Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs, or GEAR UP. The program was formed six years ago to help middle school students from Franklin and Oxford counties pursue post-secondary educational opportunities.

According to Weiya Liang, UMF/Dirigo partnership director, since the program’s inception, college attendance rates from the area jumped from 37 percent in the mid-1990s to 82 percent in 2005, a fact that did not go unnoticed by the foundation. Last year, the foundation funded four programs in New England, Liang said Friday.

The Nellie Mae Partnerships College Success grant will help narrow discrepancies between college expectations and high school training at Dirigo through a variety of means, Liang said. He’s already recruited about 15 teachers from both the college and high school to collaborate on meeting that goal.

From his work over the last six years, Liang has identified four goals – narrowing the 20 percent gap of high school students that do not attend college; providing high quality math and language arts courses in high school; ensuring students receive assistance with academic, career and financial aid planning and college applications; and changing the culture to advocate higher expectations for students and parents through more parent involvement.

“We want, not only to be able to prepare kids for college, but to prepare them to succeed in college,” he said.

He plans to meet these goals by providing:

• individual assessment of all incoming high school freshmen within the first three months of entering the high school;

• job shadowing opportunities for students;

• seminars for students and parents to teach them how to navigate the system, apply for college and financial aid;

• a dedicated staff member at the high school to provide individualized assistance and coordinate college visits; and

• academic support for students through teaching assistants, peer and college tutors in after-school programs.

“We’re very excited,” Liang said. “This will give us a lot of financial and professional support and will add nicely to the GEAR UP program.”

In September, the university received more than $2 million in federal funding to pay for five years of GEAR UP which can be used only at the middle school level.