L.A. Catholic Schoold Trying to Raise $100-Million

With Los Angeles Catholic schools facing an enrollment crisis, the city’s archdiocese is mounting a campaign to raise $100-million in tuition assistance to maintain student numbers and keep institutions open, the Los Angeles Times says.

Led by former mayor Richard Riordan, the campaign is urging donors to make pledges in their wills or trusts to the archdiocese’s Catholic Education Foundation to support grants to needy students.

The two-year effort would provide tuition aid to an additional 5,000 students a year, said Kathleen Anderson, the foundation’s executive director. The organization provided 7,300 grants in the current academic year but has a 9,000-strong waiting list, she said.

Los Angeles Catholic schools have largely avoided the wave of closings adopted in other urban districts, particularly on the East Coast, but their enrollment has fallen by almost 20 percent in the past decade, from nearly 100,000 to 79,400, according to a Loyola Marymount University study.