Birmingham Promise offers graduates of Birmingham City Schools the chance to go to any public college or university in Alabama tuition-free. But the University of Alabama at Birmingham goes above and beyond to support Birmingham Promise and its scholarship students.
Since the launch of Birmingham Promise in 2020, UAB has been unique among colleges in being an equal partner in the financial commitment to cover tuition for the program’s scholarship recipients. Once a student’s grants and other scholarships are applied, the remaining tuition expenses are split evenly between UAB and Birmingham Promise.
“That’s a tremendous investment on the part of UAB – an investment in the lives of these students and in the sustainability of Birmingham Promise as an organization,” said Samantha Williams, executive director of Birmingham Promise. “It allows us to stretch our mission to better serve students across the board.”
For UAB, Birmingham Promise is a natural ally in its larger goal of removing barriers to higher education and ensuring students from all communities have access to college.
“The beauty of the Birmingham Promise for our students is that we’ve taken out of the equation the cost of tuition,” said DeeDee Barnes Bruns, executive director of New Student Programs and Community Recruitment Partnerships at UAB. “We believe this is good and changes lives and gives us an opportunity to break some cycles in a lot of instances. This is a university commitment and a commitment a lot of us share across the campus.”
UAB has so far provided more than $1.6 million in tuition support for Birmingham Promise students. It also has invested heavily in programs to help shepherd its Birmingham Promise scholars through college, an effort it has continued to enhance over the past four years.
“We’re always looking for ways to make it better,” said Bruns, who was a first-generation college student herself. “The more we recognize our students’ needs, the better we are able to meet those needs. We’re trying to meet them where they are and get them to where they want to be.”
Among the services provided to Birmingham Promise students at UAB:
- Older Birmingham Promise students are assigned as a mentor to each incoming Birmingham Promise student. “It’s all a part of integrating them into the campus,” said David Dada, director of Governmental Relations at UAB. “We know that’s important to their overall success.”
- A range of special programs help acclimate students to UAB and to college generally, an especially important resource for those who may be the first in their family to attend a university. Programs focus on subjects related to academic success, such as study habits, time management and free tutoring, but they also cover tips for navigating the everyday business of going to college.
- UAB maintains intensive contact with the students – Bruns calls it “intrusive advising” – to make sure students are on track academically and in a good place overall. Although the check-ins are informal, perhaps over a soft drink at the student center, they are required and a top priority of the university. “We try to be very intentional about it,” Dada said.
- Special programs prepare students for post-college success, linking them with career resources on campus and coaching them on soft skills critical to workplace success.
- For Birmingham Promise students pursuing healthcare degrees, additional expenses for books and summer tuition can be covered by UAB under a federal grant received by the City of Birmingham to jumpstart healthcare careers.
UAB graduated its first Birmingham Promise scholar last year. Destiny Nelson-Miles had already amassed 69 hours of college credit by the time she graduated at the top of her class at Woodlawn High School in 2021. In 2023, the 19-year-old walked across the stage to receive her diploma at UAB, boasting a 3.88 grade point average and the honor of being the outstanding finance student graduating from the Collat School of Business.
This semester, another nine students from Birmingham Promise earned bachelor’s degrees in a range of areas, including social work, political science, nursing, finance, human resource management, kinesiology and public health.
This year’s graduates are among the first group of Birmingham Promise scholarship students. They finished high school in 2020 and wrapped up their senior year and started college with the COVID pandemic in full swing.
That created special challenges for them, Bruns said. But in some ways, the first students had an advantage over subsequent classes, Bruns said. The first cohort of students remained in the classroom until the tail end of their senior year of high school.
Students who were high school freshmen and sophomores during the pandemic were forced to complete some key foundational classes – such as algebra, English composition, and lab sciences – at home on their own.
UAB has responded by adding even more touch points and doing even more to make sure Birmingham Promise students are on track and getting the resources they need to succeed.
As the project director working on UAB’s part of the city’s Good Jobs Challenge grant, Dada stays closely engaged with students pursuing healthcare majors. He encourages them to be open about challenges as they take courses in some of the nation’s top-ranked healthcare programs and to get help when it’s needed.
“UAB is a challenging place,” Dada reassures them. “It’s going to be an effort.”
Bruns said it’s not uncommon for all students who were near the top of their high school class to be jolted to find themselves in a classroom of top students at college. “I tell them, the curve is in a different place,” she said.
To help Birmingham Promise students adjust, UAB makes it a point to identify gaps that students may have and help them connect with resources that can help. During regular check-ins, Bruns asks what university resources students are using. Whether they are participating in study groups. Whether they are feeling OK. Whether they’ve gotten a flu shot.
In some cases, UAB finds that students are facing enormous challenges that go far beyond classroom ability or performance.
Even among Birmingham Promise students, there are wide gaps in the opportunities that students have had, the preparations they’ve had for college, the level of support they receive from home and the challenges they face, Bruns said.
But there’s no question that some Birmingham Promise students have experienced disproportionate hardships, she said. They may be working to help support their families, keeping younger siblings in the evening while their parents work, struggling to afford textbooks or trying to write papers on their phones.
“The classroom is a big enough adjustment in itself,” she said. “But there are so many levels of speed bumps or other kinds of barriers they are having to navigate in addition to the classroom.”
But it’s worth the effort when UAB sees Birmingham Promise students get through college to the finish line.
“The fact that so many rise to the challenge, it tells me they are looking to make a difference and that is a huge ingredient to success,” Bruns said. “These are a lot of hardworking students with aspiration, goals, and big dreams. When you see students overcome challenges and move steadily toward success, that is the best feeling ever.”