Spartanburg area high school students learned Thursday, Nov. 14, that Meeting Street Scholarship Fund, a private scholarship program, was expanding to Spartanburg County offering qualifying students the opportunity for a free college education. (Jessica Holdman/SC Daily Gazette)
SPARTANBURG — James F. Byrnes High School senior Mariela Osorio received her acceptance letter from Anderson University to pursue her dreams of becoming an elementary school teacher.
Then it came time for her and her parents to start thinking about how they were going to pay for it.
“It’s sinking in more now,” Osorio said. “It’s progressing through the year and I’m stressed out about money. You apply to a bunch of scholarships but you don’t know if you’ll get them. So you don’t know if you want to commit yet because of how much money it is.”
Osorio’s mother isn’t working, leaving the family to solely rely on her father’s income from his job at a car parts manufacturing plant. And Osorio still has a 14-year-old sister coming through school behind her.
But a $40 million donation to a privately-funded scholarship program means Osorio and other Spartanburg County students like her no longer need to worry.
Scholarship program that enables debt-free college expands to SC’s poorest county
High-achieving students from lower-income households in the Upstate county will be able to go to college for free, the Meeting Street Scholarship announced Thursday to applause from an auditorium full of area politicians and seniors from the county’s nine public high schools.
The fund started by Sherman Financial founder Ben Navarro of Charleston is now bridging financial gaps to cover the cost of college for eligible students. Donations pick up the tab for tuition, housing, food or other expenses not covered by other scholarships, enabling poor students to graduate from college — many the first in their family — debt free, depending on which college they choose.
How do students qualify? Students must meet five criteria:
• Live in one of the covered counties, which grew to 12 with the announcement.
• Graduate from a public school — in Allendale County, there’s only one high school.
• Receive a state lottery-backed LIFE Scholarship or the more difficult Palmetto Fellows Scholarship. A LIFE Scholarship requires students to meet two of the following three: Rank in the top 30 percent of their class, graduate with a grade-point average of at least 3.0 and/or score 1100 or more on the SAT or the equivalent on the ACT college entry exam.
• Receive a federal Pell Grant, which means they’re poor. In Allendale County, nearly all of the public school students live in poverty.
• Enroll full-time in any of 17 colleges in South Carolina where at least 50 percent of their students receive a diploma — an indicator of students’ ability to succeed.
“The opportunity to be exposed to a good or great education ought not be adversely impacted by one zip code or place in life,” said Josh Bell, the fund’s executive director.
The fund will pay each student up to $40,000 over four years. Applications open Jan. 6, 2025.
‘It gives them a chance’
Businessman and former Republican state Rep. George Dean Johnson, Jr., along with his wife, Susu Johnson, made the donation that will cover costs for an estimated 200 Spartanburg County students annually over the next five years. The couple also was instrumental in bringing a branch of Meeting Street Schools, the Navarro-founded public charter school system, to Spartanburg in 2012.
“My expectations were here, coming up from the floor. They should have been up here,” Johnson said raising his hand over his head to signify the achievement of Meeting Street students. “I got convinced that the poorest child with not a traditional family can achieve great things given the opportunity.”
“We think if you provide this scholarship to proven scholars, it gives them a chance,” Johnson added.
He said, if the scholarship is well received, he and his wife would consider continuing to fund it beyond the next five years.
The promise of a debt free education is comforting to students such as Brianna Lowery, also a Byrnes High School senior, who hopes to attend the University of South Carolina and become a pediatric nurse. Her grandparents have been saving money for her education and said they would help pay for college with the expectation that she gets good grades and applies for scholarships.
“I think that they will think this is a gift from God,” Lowery said. “This is probably something that they’ve been praying about.”
How it started
The Navarro family started the fund in 2020 in Charleston County and has paid out $36.4 million in scholarships for 954 students so far. About 90 percent of students have kept their grades up and retained their scholarships for more than one year.
In July 2023, the fund announced efforts to find enough donors to eventually expand to all of South Carolina’s 46 counties.
The expansion started with a donation from the foundation of Darla Moore, a Lake City native. Support from the former investment firm president-turned-philanthropist covered eight counties in the Pee Dee: Darlington, Dillon, Florence, Marion, Marlboro, Lee, Clarendon and Williamsburg.
Retired businessman Dave Proctor, who was a principal at the global trading firm Jane Street, also donated to fund scholarships for students in Jasper County. Proctor, of New York, owns a business in Okatie, a community in Jasper County.
Anonymous donors allowed the program to expand to Barnwell County in 2022, aiding students such as Justin Joyner, now a college sophomore studying art at Converse College.
“My life growing up in a small, rural county meant that opportunities were scarce, but there was always an expectation that I would excel academically,” Joyner told the high school students. “My parents prioritized school and insisted that I work hard to achieve my full potential.”
At Converse, Joyner has held a 3.8 grade point average, enrolled in the honors program and earned awards for his artwork.
“Had I graduated from high school just a year earlier, I would not have been eligible for this life-changing opportunity,” he said.
In November 2023, Jessica and Todd Aaron of Charleston made a donation to cover adjacent Allendale County.
Now, Spartanburg County makes 13.