GEAR UP (Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs) is a federally-funded program designed to give more low-income students the skills, encouragement, and preparation needed to pursue postsecondary education and to strengthen academic programs and student services at participating schools.
GEAR UP Massachusetts serves low-income priority students in five cohorts across seven of the Commonwealth’s most impoverished areas: Boston, Holyoke, Lawrence, Lowell, New Bedford, Springfield, and Worcester. Target middle and high schools have poverty rates as high as 93%, and most of the largest are categorized as persistently lowest achieving State Improvement Grant (SIG) schools.
In addition to hands-on support in high school, the Office of Student Financial Assistance offers a scholarship for students who participated in GEAR UP and are pursuing higher education.
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