SAGE Scholars Inc.

Our company seeks to improve academic outcomes and educational return through investment, education, partnerships, and innovation at the intersection of higher education, families, and students. SAGE Scholars affirms our responsibility to promote diversity and equity and to cultivate an inclusive environment reflecting our commitment and values to equitable opportunity for college education, attainment, and funding. We are a company advancing and pushing against the norms of accessibility to a private college education, which arises from our unique lived experiences and cultures. SAGE Scholars advances these matters because we believe in the potential of every learner, regardless of socioeconomic status, race, gender, or any myriad of intersectionalities.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion are essential to students’ individual success, collective impact, and ability to thrive in the modern world. At SAGE Scholars, diversity fosters creativity, ingenuity, and a forward- thinking culture that works for our member families, students, and colleges. Equity is vital for our society and essential to student opportunity and success. A uniquely tailored learning environment, of which SAGE Scholars helps to make accessible, allows our students to cultivate individuality and flourish to their fullest potential.

In recognition of these values, we commit to engage, educate, support, elevate, and match students to private colleges best suited to maximize their family’s investment; independently of — but not in disregard to — their individual characteristics of race, gender, sexual orientation, age, national origin, religion, disability, socioeconomic status, citizenship, and cultural background.

The Challenge

These values are not new. For nearly thirty years, SAGE Scholars has paved the way for those who believe a high-quality private educational investment is out of reach. Our history of research, networking, partnerships, and innovation means that we passionately identify barriers and solve problems that help students and families admit, enroll, and complete a private college degree. Recognizing the national impact of our work, SAGE Scholars engages with colleges, families, and students to make decisions that lessen the financial burden and maximize the uniquely educational environment that is private college.

Nonetheless, we — and by extension higher education — face many challenges in increasing the affordability and accessibly of private college, including entrenched bias, both conscious and unconscious; self-reinforcing cycles of preferential treatment towards people with particular characteristics; limited awareness of the impediments faced by our students that stem from racism, sexism, ableism, transphobia, and the disregard of the achievements in surmounting those impediments; reluctance to do the hard work of ensuring inclusion and equity for everyone; and failure to recognize individuals who engage with these hard problems.

These challenges are pervasive. But big problems call for creative ideas, hard work, and persistence. Persistence of which elevates the value and absolute necessity of SAGE Scholars' work for colleges, students, and families.

With an awareness and keen desire to tackle these issues, SAGE Scholars seeks to improve outcomes of a private college education for current and future students — eliminating the barriers, hoops, and confusion of applying for and earning a college degree. We set this example of increased accessibility for families and colleges as they engage with the ever-changing climate of higher education. SAGE Scholars recognizes that we are only a part of larger communities in academia. As such, our work must continue to de-sediment the mystification of college and supplement a pervasive and inaccessible world of higher education.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in Action

In affirming our ongoing mission to foster a genuinely diverse, equitable, and inclusive culture at SAGE Scholars and acknowledging the many associated challenges, we continue our resolve to take action. The multifaceted issues affecting diversity, equity, and inclusion in higher education demand the attention and investment of our entire company, and they must be addressed on multiple levels.

Below, we organize activities and example initiatives according to four categories: 1) Affordability, 2) Accessibility, 3) Education and Support, and 4) Recruitment & Retention.

A description of ongoing initiatives will be maintained on our website.

1. Affordability
   Tuition Rewards® guaranteed tuition discounts program accepted at over 455 private colleges and universities. Tuition Rewards is a unique rewards program offered by employers, health insurers, financial institutions, and non-profits to address American families’ number one financial concern — a college education for their children, grandchildren, nieces, and nephews. Representing a guaranteed minimum scholarship (discount) equivalent to one dollar, each Tuition Rewards Point bridges the gap of accessibility. This maximum discount of up to one year’s tuition, spread equally over four years of full-time undergraduate education, provides vital support for many who may otherwise not see private college as an affordable option. As a company, we will continue to recruit and expand our consortium to leverage resources and accelerate our impact.
2. Accessibility
   We must invest our time and resources in actions that will make a difference. With the understanding that bias, social capital, and discrimination are complex problems intertwined with institutional practices in higher education admissions, we created FastTrak® — student profiles designed to maximize visibility to our consortium colleges and universities and streamline the inaccessibility of college admissions. Students are guided and encouraged to create a robust Student Profile that allows members in the SAGE Scholars college consortium to quickly view and proactively search for candidates who otherwise might not apply by directly contacting well- suited students.
   FastTrak not only makes equitable the admissions process for students, but it works to pair them with a college that is uniquely suited to their individual and diverse needs. Discrimination in academic settings can be subtle and complex, and it is not always recognized immediately. Even when racism, gender discrimination, and harassment are overt, those impacted by institutional norms do not always have the power to address them. To this end, FastTrak establishes transparency and takes steps toward trust and accountability by advocating the interests and well- being of students navigating college admissions, especially those disadvantaged by structural hierarchies.
3. Education and Support
   As such, we acknowledge our responsibility to the local Philadelphia community and finding ways to support K-12 Philadelphia students’ education and interest in private education, and incorporate considerations of diversity, equity, and inclusion in all aspects of our mission. Through the SAGE Scholars Educational Foundation®, we offer hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual scholarships that advocate and promote access to high-quality, affordable, private college education. Our continued commitment to funding scholarships, create more equitable recipient criteria and explore other ways to recognize SAGE Scholars' student achievement ongoingly supports a more inclusive admissions and college funding process.
   Inclusivity in which we maximize through our one-million-dollar pledge in hard-dollar scholarships—helping families bridge the gap between what schools can offer in financial aid and the cost of tuition, room and board, and additional expenses. To ensure no one is left behind, we serve continuing education students—those interested in a professional certification, graduate studies, or degree completion — through SAGE Prime. As an affordable pathway to continued education, SAGE Primeallows a SAGE Scholars sponsor to claim a guaranteed minimum 10% savings off the published price for continuing education programs offered by participating colleges and universities.
   The SAGE Scholars Concierge Service helps to solidify the connection between SAGE Scholars students and their prospective colleges. As a bridge between admissions departments and SAGE Scholars students, we commit to streamlined communication for students’ most pressing and otherwise unanswered questions. As a bridge, we increase accessibility by providing direct contacts to our member schools and connecting students to those on campus who can best answer questions or concerns.
   Further, College Essay Consultations offer a free, one-on-one consultation with a SAGE Scholars essay expert. K-12 educational access and socioeconomic means continue to better prepare privileged students for the essay component of their college application. At SAGE Scholars, we commit to providing high-quality feedback on the most important and oft deciding admissions aspect of the college application. Submissions can include a personal college essay in response to a given prompt, a short essay application question, or any other single piece of writing required for a college application. Students receive feedback on select criteria such as the organization and flow of the essay, grammar and mechanics, and overall responsiveness to the application’s assigned essay prompt.
4. Recruitment & Retention
   To this end, we know that getting students to campus is only half the equation. A continued challenge of degree completion troubles stressed higher education staffers—often unable to hold, juggle, and address all unique student needs. We believe the best strategy for recruiting and retaining SAGE Scholars students is to supplement and scaffold their participation in SAGE Scholars with extended support that assists them through degree completion. We must prioritize actions that support the needs of our community.
   The SAGE Scholars Newsroom is a curated resource for multi-generational audiences navigating the college process and investment. Our racially and ethnically diverse team of fifty- plus contributors includes educators, admissions officers, Ph.D.’s, current college and high school students, and professional athletes. Articles, published weekly, aim to equip students and parents with the social capital to navigate institutional spaces that do not always serve or privilege a myriad of intersectionalities. Whether looking for student-centered financial wellness, navigating institutional bureaucracy, managing mental and physical wellness, or seeking helpful resume tips and homework help, the SAGE Scholars Newsroom provides ongoing and accessible support to students and families with the information they know they need to maximize their college investment, and the information they didn’t.
   We know that unexpected hardship contributes to student retention and degree completion. SAGE Secure® assists our students when they need it most. SAGE Secure is the first-of-its-kind and no-cost accidental death benefit for the family of students enrolled in a SAGE Scholars member college or university. The SAGE Secure Scholarship is our commitment designed to help prevent a student from suffering financially and experiencing school push-out if his or her family’s primary wage earner dies from an accidental bodily injury.
   In a competitive and often inequitable admissions and preadmissions preparation process, we saw a need for a creative and unique college search, career planning, and funding website for students and their families who might not otherwise have access to career counseling or services during their K-12 education. Ready Set College, a SAGE Scholars supplement, is the only college search tool that connects students’ interests and skills with careers, majors, and colleges. It is packed with readily accessible and free resources for families to learn about the best college funding strategies, including custom calculators and a library full of articles and tips. This high school-to-college bridge initiative fills the gap for students whose K-12 education may not otherwise adequately prepare them with intentional and customized career planning resources.

The activities listed above are not exhaustive, and they will not solve every problem of an increasingly inequitable high education and admissions climate. SAGE Scholars initiatives will continue to evolve based on their effectiveness and our students and families’ needs. We will conduct ongoing evaluations of our programs, seek new and innovative solutions, and make recommendations for changes as required to support our mission.

Our Pledge

The tenets of diversity, equity, and inclusion are core elements of SAGE Scholars mission and ethos. We further highlight ‘radical inclusion’ as a means toward the essential ends of higher education: equalizing opportunity, educating students for all sectors of society, and enriching the experience of all members of the SAGE Scholars community.

Though we can track diversity and enforce equity, true inclusion arises from our long-standing commitment to change in a historically biased world of educational achievement.