The Foundation currently manages 84 separate endowment funds for charities, ministries, parishes, and schools. Of these, 22 funds are designated for Catholic schools with a combined value of $6,562,037. Each of El Paso’s Catholic schools has at least one endowed fund for scholarships. Every spring, the Foundation distributes 4% of the fund’s value to schools. Building our Catholic school endowment funds to $12 million will generate $480,000 annually to support Catholic education. We’ll continue to build from there. The Foundation's goal is to build the Catholic schools endowment funds to $12 million in order to support and sustain Catholic education in the Diocese of El Paso in perpetuity.

The Foundation will award $179,507 in financial aid to 80 Foundation Scholars attending El Paso’s Catholic Schools. Most of this scholarship aid ($133,977) is being distributed from scholarship endowed funds, with the remainder ($45,530) coming from donations and a grant from the Hunt Family Foundation.

Our Scholarship Program complements the Office of Education’s Financial Aid Program that provides more than $250,000 a year in scholarship aid. Individual schools also provide financial aid to students from individual donations and school scholarship programs, and use tuition discounts for low-income students and families who have multiple children attending.

The Foundation received a dollar-for-dollar matching grant for Catholic schools from the Scanlan Foundation to raise a total of $140,000 in 2015 for our endowed scholarship funds. We are using the grant to challenge the schools to raise between $5,000 and $20,000 each for a total of $70,000 that will be doubled by the grant from the Scanlan Foundation.

Benefits to El Paso’s Catholic Schools

The Diocese of El Paso is working hard to meet its mission of overseeing Catholic schools that are excellent, accessible and affordable for all families. The Foundation is proud to be a Catholic school partner. We know that education changes lives, these scholarship opportunities for Catholic schools are truly transforming lives.

• Students who attend Catholic schools are more likely to attend church and remain active Catholics as adults,
• 98% of low income, minority children graduate from high schools, compared to only 66% of all students in public schools,
• Hispanic and African American Students who attend Catholic schools are 42% more likely to graduate from high school and 2.5 times more likely to graduate college,
• 81% of students who graduate from Catholic schools attend college, compared to 44% of students in public schools,
  Catholic school students are also more tolerant of diverse views, more likely to vote, more likely to be civically engaged, and earn higher wages than their public school peers.

As a diocese, our goals for El Paso’s Catholic schools are to:

• Ensure that all 11 Catholic schools in El Paso remain open and maintain adequate enrollment, especially in the lower grades, in order to ensure future enrollment,
• Encourage Catholic education by financially supporting the 11 schools in El Paso and providing educational opportunities for economically disadvantaged youth to ensure that the Catholic Church continues its mission of educating the poor,
• Provide much needed scholarships for Catholic schools where 1 out of 3 students qualify for the federal lunch program,
• Strategically plan for the future growth of the city and provide the funding needed to add additional academic programs and extracurricular activities,
• Upgrade the school facilities to meet the educational needs of the 21st century and build new schools and school facilities to meet the changing demographics of El Paso,
• Ensure that all schools have adequate educational materials, resource materials and technology.