Advancing the American Dream at the Nation’s Largest Public College
- Known as “Democracy’s College,” Miami Dade is recognized today as the largest institution of higher learning in the United States, with more than 120,000 students attending programs on its eight campuses in South Florida.
- With a gift of $20 million in 2023, the largest gift in the college’s history, Griffin Catalyst’s support will fund the education of thousands of students annually through four scholarship programs that support local, low-income students.
- More than 90% of recipients come from Miami-Dade County Public Schools, and nine out of 10 Miami Dade College graduates remain in the Miami-Dade area after graduation, contributing to the success and vitality of the region.
More than ever, America needs leadership. We need it in our businesses, in our government, in our civic society. And you will be the future leaders of America. All of us who come before you want you to be the most successful generation in the history of our great country. I am here today because I feel so strongly about the importance of education, and I admire you for the commitment you have made to your education. Great colleges like Miami Dade are the onramp to the American Dream, and I hope you live such a dream to the fullest.
Founded in 1959 as a public junior college, Miami Dade College (MDC) has risen in the decades since to become a powerhouse of educational opportunity and upward mobility for hundreds of thousands of young people and families across Florida.
Widely known as “Democracy’s College,” MDC is recognized today as the largest and most diverse institution of higher learning in the United States: its eight campuses serve over 120,000 students of every background. More than nine out of 10 of its students are Black or Hispanic, nearly half are first-generation immigrants, and nearly three-quarters work while attending college to support themselves or their families, some at multiple jobs. Two-thirds are living in households at or below the federal poverty line. More than half are the first in their families to attend college.
Graduates with the college’s Associate in Arts degree have gone on to further education at MIT, Harvard, Princeton, Cornell, and Georgetown, among many other universities across the country.
75%
of students work while attending college
120,000
students across eight campuses
50%
of students are the first in their families to attend college
The power of the Griffin Scholarship Fund is that we're propelling that talent, those innovators, and those leaders for the future—not only of Miami, but of our entire nation.
MDC’s mission and remarkable track record of expanding access to the American Dream immediately attracted the interest of Griffin Catalyst, and in 2023 Griffin Catalyst Founder Ken Griffin announced a gift of $20 million to the college, the largest single gift in the institution’s 65-year history. The support has established the Kenneth C. Griffin Scholarship Fund, which provides financial assistance for more than 8,000 students from low-income households, more than 90% of whom come from Miami-Dade County Public Schools.
The Fund supports four scholarships programs constructed to meet the needs of students with varying levels of background and achievement. Each year 750 Honors Scholars are prepared to attend some of America’s most selective universities, while 600 Presidential Scholars are accepted from Miami-Dade County high schools based on their academic achievement, receiving full tuition, fees, and expenses. Both groups receive a careful mix of academic counseling, co-curricular activities, and leadership experiences, providing well-rounded enrichment opportunities to set them up for success.
The Griffin Scholarship Fund also supports 400 Rising Scholars, encouraging students from diverse backgrounds to graduate from high school and pursue an associate’s degree, and provides aid for 6,000 American Dream Scholars, enabling them to pursue their first college degree. In addition to financial support, these students also receive a range of services they need to succeed. “With this wraparound of services—financial, social, cultural, service learning—we’re able to produce a well-rounded student,” Provost Malu Harrison observes, “and also a student that’s highly motivated toward completing their studies and toward contributing to society overall.”
Advancing the American Dream in Miami
Every graduate of the Miami-Dade Public Schools is eligible to apply to the Griffin Scholarship Fund, which is dramatically expanding the college’s ability to transform the lives of the region’s residents, such as Alejandra Mendez, an American Dream Scholar who arrived in the United States from Venezuela at the age of 12 and is the first in her family to attend college. While pursuing her associate’s degree, which she received in 2023, she was able to open a small business. “If it weren’t for the scholarship, I wouldn’t be going to college,” she notes. “So thanks to a scholarship, I can just do my education full-time and pursue my passion, which is the secret to happiness. My family is extremely proud for me to be in the U.S. and accomplishing all these things—to not only be a student, but to have a business and pursue the entrepreneurial spirit.”
Another Griffin Scholarship Fund recipient, Merenys Paulino, is a Presidential Scholar who arrived from the Dominican Republic at the age of eight and is now studying Business Administration at MDC, even as she works part-time for a logistics company in Miami and volunteers at a local homeless center. Merenys plans to continue her education at the University of Michigan, the University of Virginia, or Florida State University—an opportunity that would never have been possible, she says, without the Griffin Scholarship Fund.
Like all MDC students, American Dream and Presidential Scholars are asked to develop not only academic but social and entrepreneurial skills that will allow them to succeed in additional studies or in the local workforce in one of America’s most vibrant metropolitan areas.
“Nine out of 10 students that graduate from Miami Dade College stay right here in the Miami-Dade community,” observes President Madeline Pumariega. “It’s hard to go into a household that hasn’t been positively impacted by the college. And so I think our footprint in our community and why I believe we’re really the community’s college is because our students stay here.”
All across Miami-Dade County, the impact of the Griffin Scholarship Fund has radiated outward, improving the lives not only of the recipients themselves but of other members of their households who, seeing affordable options for higher education they might have not thought possible, could now aspire to attend college themselves.
When you talk about social impact, it’s not just our students. Our students all have a family. So when you have a first-generation student who’s not just graduating with a diploma, but graduating with a toolbox of experiences and exposures, their families are also lifted up. And that’s part of our contribution to the American Dream, when we’re able to graduate 14,000 to 15,000 students every single year, students whose families may never have had the opportunity of a college education—but they did.
Nowhere was the impact of the Griffin Catalyst’s support more evident than at MDC’s graduation ceremony in May 2023, for which Griffin Catalyst Founder Ken Griffin delivered the commencement address. “There’s a moment in our graduation where we ask, if you’re first in your family to be walking across the stage, please stand,” President Pumariega recalls. “And half the students stand. If you were working while you were studying, please stand. If you were serving our military while you were at school, please stand. If you were a mom or a dad while you were at school, please stand. And by the time we finished, every single student was standing. Ken and I both looked at each other. I got goosebumps. He had goosebumps. I said, ‘This is what the power of opportunity is for our community’. And he said, ‘This is the American Dream.’”
