Scholarship opening doors for KIPP students who worry they can’t attend the University of Tennessee

Daniela Castro Pu (Photo by Daniela Castro Pu)

Daniela Castro Pu says the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UT) felt like home almost immediately.

The then KIPP Nashville Collegiate High School student fell in love with the campus during an overnight visit and saw its architecture program as the ideal start for her dream of becoming an architect.

“I guess that really stems from my mom’s business. She cleans houses so I’m able to see different types of houses,” said Castro Pu. “I think I really fell in love with the idea of being able to create a space that can impact a person.”

Castro Pu is now weeks away from finishing her sophomore year at UT and she says the experience has been everything she’d hoped for.

That ideal university match wasn’t always in the cards though. Castro Pu says she might never have even considered the University of Tennessee if KIPP hadn’t offered a specific scholarship created for students like her.

The Vol KIPP Scholarship is available for students who attend KIPP’s public charter schools in Memphis and Nashville that want to attend the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. It’s a last dollar scholarship that pays for tuition and expenses after other scholarships and financial assistance are applied.

Castro Pu was among the first class of KIPP students to receive the scholarship and she says it immediately made UT a realistic financial option over other universities.

“I had originally planned to go to like a college at MTSU (Middle Tennessee State University) but with the scholarship, it made MTSU a little higher to pay for,” said Castro Pu. “And I just think the scholarship did help me pursue the college I wanted to go to.”

KIPP and UT began collaborating to create the scholarship program after noticing the number of KIPP students attending the university dropping during the pandemic.

KIPP Transition Advisor Brandi Smith-Peel says the school wanted to reverse the trend because UT itself has important advantages for KIPP students, who are more likely to be African American or Hispanic.  UT’s graduation rates for those student groups average more than 60 percent.

That’s higher than other universities in the state, including 20 points higher than MTSU.

“The graduation rate kind of tells us that the school is providing a lot of resources and they’re doing the work understanding where our students are coming from, what their struggles are, and helping them navigate those issues,” said Smith-Peel.

KIPP Nashville has seen a noticeable uptick in the number of students attending UT since launching the scholarship program two years ago.

The school has also made it a priority to work with interested students to ensure they’re ready to meet UT’s entrance requirements.

“We’re making sure that students that are projected to meet those standards are getting on the campus early so that they know what they need in order to get in and what they need in order to stay on campus,” said Smith-Peel.

The long-term goal is to ensure more KIPP students have the option of following in Castro Pu’s footsteps.

She says the scholarship not only made UT possible, it also made it easier to succeed once she got there.

“I’m just very grateful for the scholarship because it really did help me a lot,” said Pu. “I was able to study comfortably here if that makes sense, because of the scholarship.