When Bradley Soto, now 12, moved to Camden from Puerto Rico about four years ago, he found it hard.

"One time, he started crying," said his mother, Migdalia Gonzalez, a school paraprofessional. "He said, 'I can't live here because I don't know English.' "

But Bradley was bright. He moved out of bilingual class in just one year, his mother said, and proved an able student. At home, he works on educational Web sites. Sometimes he and his brother do experiments outside. "We take our microscope and look for worms," he said.

He counts himself luckier than many other children.

"Their parents, sometimes they don't take care of them," Bradley said. "They don't encourage them to do the good. They just do the bad. My parents motivate me to do my best, to try my best and always do my work."

For all those reasons and more, Bradley and nearly 200 other New Jersey eighth graders are about to embark on the chance of their lifetimes.

The students have been selected by their schools and the university to be the first Rutgers Future Scholars. Starting this summer and going through their high school years, they will receive enrichment and support. If they keep their grades up and maintain 90 percent attendance, they will get guidance, tutoring, mentoring and test preparation. There will be programs for their parents, as well.

If the students graduate from high school with a 2.5 grade-point average or better, they will be in line for a Rutgers college education tuition-free.

Each year, an additional 200 students - 50 from each of Rutgers' home communities of Camden, New Brunswick, Piscataway and Newark - will be added to the program.

The goal is to make it possible for more low-income students to be the first in their families to graduate from college.

"Access to higher education is just difficult for some of these kids," said Nyeema Watson, director of the Future Scholars program in Camden and a graduate of Woodrow Wilson High School. "They have the desire to go to college, but they may not know how to get through."

Around the country, there are scholarships aimed at disadvantaged youths and programs that try to get them on the college track early. Federally funded GEAR UP (Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs) does some of both.

By offering intensive support starting in middle school and the promise of paid college tuition, Rutgers is hoping Future Scholars will become a model program that will get donor support and possibly be duplicated elsewhere, said program director Aramis Gutierrez. A Rutgers researcher will study the students as they progress through the program.

Rutgers put up $200,000 to get Future Scholars started, with an additional $600,000 budgeted for the coming year. That includes $125,000 in private donations, college spokesman Greg Trevor said.

The hope is to improve the graduation rate and increase the number of students getting four-year degrees, Gutierrez said.

In Camden, that's no small goal. According to the state Department of Education, the graduation rate for the Class of 2007 at Camden High School, one of the district's two traditional secondary schools, was less than 50 percent. According to U.S. Census data, only a little more than 5 percent of Camden residents age 25 or older hold a bachelor's degree or higher.

Nevertheless, about 130 of the first 195 Future Scholars, including students from Camden, gamely traveled to Rutgers' Piscataway campus June 26 to get Rutgers Class of 2017 T-shirts and be welcomed into the program.

"Our goal - for Rutgers and I hope for you and your families - is that every one of you does your very best and that in a few years, all of you will be students at Rutgers," university president Richard McCormick told the students.

Today, the Camden Future Scholars will begin a weeklong introduction to college at their local campus. They will take arts classes, meet with Rutgers students, and visit the law school.

Last Monday, many of those students and their parents attended a reception on the Camden campus that had the pinch-me feeling of a convention of lottery winners.

"I think God dropped a big wish right here," said receptionist Lizzie Balkman, 49, whose 13-year-old son, Zaahir, was accepted. "Now that our foot is inside the door, we're going to get it through and move forward."

Balkman's mother died when she was 16. She never thought of college but wants it for her son.

During the application process, the students wrote personal essays. Many addressed negative forces in their communities that can pull young people down. Erika Bumbrey, 13, with pastel braces and lots of braids, was one of those writers.

"There is a lot of violence and stuff," she said, waiting for the reception to begin. "People try to influence you, and you've got to learn to not get influenced. I just don't pay them any mind."

Some students also wrote about the lack of positive options.

Erika, an aspiring pediatrician, likes to write. She also likes to dance, but the program she went to shut down, said her mother, Jacqueline Council, a school custodian. "I guess they didn't have enough funds," she said.

Program directors know that the students and their families will face many challenges. They already have.

Two days before Christmas, Johanna Henriquez said, she and her sons lost their home to a fire. The gifts that were not destroyed smelled of smoke. It's been a tough road back, but her older son, James Boswell, 13, wrote in his essay that he works hard at school and does community volunteering. Interested in forensic science, he wants to go to college.

"I'd feel like I made a big accomplishment for my family and I'd be a good example for little brother," James said.

He's already made his mother proud.

"It's a privilege being his mother, and everything we've been through has been worth it," Henriquez said.

"People need to know a lot of good things come out of Camden," she said. "They're quick to publicize the violence and the guns. But what about the kids who overcome that?"

Source: education.reviewnews.org