Opus Magnum

Fatima Vite learns about UST and the St. Paul campus with tour guide, Beth Cummins. Next fall, Fatima will be a junior and will continue touring campuses and preparing to apply for admission to colleges or universities.

Cristo Rey Jesuit High School’s Hire4Ed, Work-Study Program, calls itself “A School that Works.” The Hire4Ed work-study program underwrites almost half the cost of education and exposes the student to a corporate work environment and the positive influences of the supervising professionals. In exchange, employers that participate in the Hire4Ed Work-Study program receive high quality, cost-effective workers and get to play an active role in students’ future success.

CRJHS is a private, Catholic, college-preparatory high school exclusively for under-resourced students. For Allie Bell and Fatima Vite, Cristo Rey and employers like the UST Opus College of Business (OCB) are why getting a college degree is a dream that will come true. The University of St. Thomas is one of more than 90 leading companies and organizations in the Twin Cities that provide high school tuition dollars for these young employees, in exchange for 5 days of work from each of them each month. The tuition OCB pays allows the students to support over 50% of their tuition at Cristo Rey (CR) and receive a college preparatory high school experience that would not be an option otherwise. At the same time, the jobs CR students do provide valuable work experience each year while in high school, which empowers them to take an active part in financing a major portion of their education. (more…)