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Students at a Paying for College Bus Tour stop, Reading, PA

More than 45,000 people reached during The Sallie Mae Fund's 10,000 mile "Paying for College" bus tour: Students to achieve their dreams of a higher education

Tour wraps up last of 265 financial aid workshops in Seattle

SEATTLE, Wash., May 12, 2006—After visiting 78 cities across the country, The Sallie Mae Fund's nationwide bus tour motored to its last stop in Seattle last night. The tour, which kicked off in Chicago in July 2005, was designed to help more Latino students attend college, and delivered college financial aid resources to more than 45,000 Latino students and their parents.

At each stop, the tour provided information on scholarships, grants, loans, and federal student aid. This information, together with a bilingual, "Paying for College" workshop was intended to help students understand how to prepare and pay for a college education. More than $160,000 was awarded in college scholarships throughout the tour. Students also had the opportunity to board the high-tech bus to research colleges and to begin the federal financial aid application process at one of four, Web–enabled workstations.

Along the way, a number of noteworthy individuals helped champion the cause of higher education, including Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack, Dallas Mayor Laurie Miller, GRAMMY award winning singer Jon Secada, and MTV news correspondent Sway Calloway. The National Association for College Admission Counseling, the National Council for Community and Education Partnerships, and the National College Access Network partnered with The Fund to help supplement outreach. MTV/MTV Español (now MTV Tr3s) was the exclusive national media partner, providing video programming for the on-board college counseling center that also aired on both networks as part of the think MTV pro-social campaign on education. In addition, The Sallie Mae Fund distributed free copies of MTV's documentary "My Life (Translated)" to high schools throughout the country.

Through the Paying for College Bus Tour, The Sallie Mae Fund, a charitable organization sponsored by Sallie Mae, is responding to research indicating that Latinos are lagging behind in higher education degree attainment. A misperception that college is financially out of reach is preventing many college-age Latinos from capitalizing on their higher education dream—more than half of Latino parents and 43 percent of Latino young adults could not name a single source of financial aid, according to a survey commissioned by The Sallie Mae Fund and conducted by the Tomás Rivera Policy Institute at the University of Southern California.

"The Sallie Mae Fund is dedicated to helping lower income and minority families realize their higher education dreams," said Kathleen deLaski, president of The Sallie Mae Fund. "Through the bus tour, we've reached into communities of students from all backgrounds to help them overcome the financial aid awareness barrier preventing them from going on to college."

A third, nationwide Paying for College Bus Tour will kick off in September 2006 in Chicago. Collectively, the first two bus tours reached more than 65,000 people, awarded nearly $230,000 in scholarships, and conducted close to 400 Paying for College workshops.

The Sallie Mae Fund, a charitable organization sponsored by Sallie Mae, achieves its mission—to increase access to a post-secondary education for America's students—by supporting programs and initiatives that help open doors to higher education, prepare families for their investment, and bridge the gap when no one else can. For more information visit www.salliemaefund.org.