IU’s Groups Scholars Program empowers the next generation of Indiana leaders

When Samuel Young III entered the Groups Scholars Program at Indiana University Bloomington in 1987, he had no idea he would one day lead the initiative.

As a “bright-eyed” incoming student, Young recalled a world of possibilities opening for him as a Groups Scholar. He felt profound gratitude for being selected as a program recipient, and he was determined to make the most of the financial support that allowed him to pursue his academic dreams.

“I really had a lot of excitement and thought for my future, understanding that having this opportunity of coming to Indiana University, I had to take hold of it and just embrace it and do some work,” he said.

Decades after graduating from IU, Young returned to the Bloomington campus to step into the role of Groups Scholars Program director. Since its inception, the program has put first-generation students and those with socioeconomic barriers on the path to college success by providing academic, financial, and social support while they work toward a degree from IU. Students are offered academic advising, tutoring, enrollment in specialized courses, and activities designed to foster academic success, a network of social support, and degree completion. 

For more than 10 years, continuing the legacy of the program that transformed his life has been Young’s passion—but in many ways, he feels as if he’s just getting started.

“I see the opportunities for college students dwindling away, and I want to be one of these opportunities for students throughout the state of Indiana,” he shared, remarking on the evolving higher education landscape and growing economic barriers students face today.

And the goal isn’t just to usher more students into the program—it’s to provide them with academic, financial, mental, and emotional support every step of the way along their four-year experience.

“When you come to Indiana University, you will be carried all the way through this experience until you graduate,” Young said.

Amyana Moody, a pre-Kelley School of Business admit double majoring in accounting and marketing, attested to the all-encompassing support extended to program participants.

“Groups definitely impacted me the most [of all my scholarships] because not only do you build a community, you get so many offers and resources that help,” she said. “It also makes you want to work two times harder because you are given that opportunity to go to school for free.”

Young’s full-circle journey from scholar to steward is far from the only instance of the Groups Scholars Program shaping students into driven, inspiring professionals making an impact across Indiana and beyond. Fellow Groups alumni include Cherrish Pryor, BA’92, an Indiana State Representative; Howard Stevenson, BA’89, JD’93, an attorney turned professor at the McKinney School of Law; Vincent Isom, BS’91, MS’93, director of the 21st Century Scholars program; and Carlton Mable, BS’94, MS’01, assistant superintendent at the Kokomo School Corporation—and that’s just a few members of the 15,500+ Groups Scholars Program alumni community.

Young proudly spoke of the program’s strong alumni engagement, with many Groups graduates returning to provide mentorship, training, and other career development programming to current IU students. He emphasized the importance of current students seeing the opportunities possible for themselves in the successes of program graduates.

“We try to embrace a lot of opportunities because we want students not to just hear from us, but from the alums who really have passion for the program,” he said.

Not only do Groups Scholars Program alumni remain dedicated to the program well after graduation, but Young said a great majority also transition to careers in Indiana. Students take the skills, expertise, and connections built in the program and implement them into communities across the state, ultimately creating ripples of economic, social, and cultural impact throughout Indiana.

“They’re giving back right at home, back at their homes and back in their communities,” Young said.

While the Groups Scholars Program originated on the Bloomington campus, the program now has cohorts at IU East, IU Indianapolis, IU Kokomo, IU Northwest, IU South Bend, and IU Southeast. Year after year, the need continues to grow at all seven campuses as more prospective students seek academic and financial support to overcome barriers to earning an undergraduate degree.

“We started in 1968, and the whole thing was to get students here and help them find opportunities,” Young said. “Communities came around at that time to support them for housing, for transportation—things in the ’60s that you wouldn’t think they’d need, but they really did need.”

That need has only grown in the decades since the Groups Scholars Program’s inception, and Young’s drive to develop the initiative, continuing to meet student needs even as they evolve, is burgeoning in tandem.

“To this day, the need looks different, but the community is still around [the students],” he said, adding, “I think that’s the big piece, that we still need more community folks to come out and support us.”

Though the program has been flourishing for nearly six decades, ongoing support is still vital to uplifting Indiana’s next generation of leaders. The Never Daunted campaign aspires to close the gap of unmet need for all IU students, ensuring they have the access, support, and resources to thrive in the classroom and beyond.

Young likened the impact the Groups Scholars Program has on students to an onion’s layers—the outermost being support for basic needs, and the core homing in on career preparation and success.

“That first layer of that onion is, ‘How can I [get] the resources to go through a four-year institution and get a degree that I can make money off of [while avoiding] any [additional] burden or labor on anything that I don’t already have? Because I don’t have much. When I come here, I don’t have much, and my family doesn’t have much,’” Young said.

“Those financial supports help a student throughout their experience to unlayer that piece so we can get to the core and try to help them with other areas—areas like mental health, or ‘How can I transition to utilize study abroad to make me more marketable? What is an internship?’ They have no idea what these inner layers are because this first layer is always on their mind.”

By providing a financial foundation, the Groups Scholars Program does more than just fund an education—it allows students to discover who they’re meant to be beyond their foremost layers of worry. As the program looks toward its future, the call to IU’s community remains: join us in breaking down barriers and witness the next generation of leaders emerge, ready to give back to the school and state that made lifechanging opportunity possible.