Mayor Michael Tubbs secured a twenty-million dollar grant for a new program called “Stockton Scholars” which was modeled after other successful similar programs in other cities. The goal of this program is to greatly increase the amount of Stockton students to continue after high school and go to college over the next decade. The scholarships within the Stockton Unified School District are focused on local institutions, including University of the Pacific. The California Community Foundation helped launch the Stockton Scholarship program by providing a twenty-million dollar grant with the long term goal of raising a total of 100 million to keep the scholarship program running for a long time.

This scholarship starts applying to students with the graduating class of 2019, it applies to every student with a 2.0 GPA and decides to go to a community college, trade school, or a four-year university. Students who choose to go straight to a four-year college will receive one thousand dollars per year which is going to be four thousand in total over that span of time. Students who choose to go straight to a community college or a trade school will receive five hundred dollars per year which is one thousand dollars in total.

This program does not apply to seniors from the class of 2018. Additional requirements that  are needed are you had to have lived in Stockton for at least the last 4 years, to have completed a federal student aid application, and to have applied for at least two other scholarships or grants.

The scholarships apply to students who attend at any of the four comprehensive high schools which are Chavez, Edison, Franklin, and Stagg, as wells as Jane Frederick, Walter Special Center, Health Careers Academy, Stockton Early College Academy, Weber Academy, Merlo Institute, Pacific Law Academy, Aspire Langston Hughes, or Stockton Collegiate International School.

As of now, only SUSD students can apply for this scholarship but there are plans to expand this program in future to help students in other districts.