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A one-time scholarship feels generous, but JP Conte argues in a recent Forbes Business Council column that it rarely solves the problem it’s meant to address. Conte, founder and managing partner of his family office, Lupine Crest Capital, makes the case that education support only works at scale when it is sustained over years, not distributed as a single check at the start of a student’s college career.
His reasoning starts with what actually derails first-generation students. Tuition is often only part of the barrier. Many students also lack guidance on choosing courses, handling financial aid renewal, and building a resume that will hold up in a competitive job market. A scholarship covers cost. It doesn’t cover any of that.
The Multi-Year Model
Conte points to programs offering continuous support, including after-school instruction, mentorship, and structured college preparation that begins before a student even applies. He cites an 85% graduation rate among students who go through this kind of sustained program, a figure he contrasts with national completion numbers for first-generation students overall.
That contrast is the center of his argument. If the completion rate differs this dramatically based on the type of support available, then the design of the support matters more than the size of any single gift.
Measuring What Matters
Conte urges companies and donors to track outcomes the way they would evaluate any other investment: graduation rates, employment after graduation, and career progression over time, rather than simply the number of scholarships awarded in a given year. He has put this approach into practice through the J-P Conte Family Foundation and his continued support of organizations including SEO San Francisco.
Consistency Matters More Than the Size of Any Single Gift
Conte’s column suggests that the difference between the two completion rates has less to do with the total dollars committed and more to do with whether support continues without interruption across several years of a student’s education. A donor who funds one year generously and then moves on leaves the same information gap unaddressed the following year. Conte frames consistency itself, not scale, as the harder and more valuable commitment for a business to make.
The Trade-Off Donors Rarely Discuss
Multi-year programs cost more per student than a one-time scholarship, and Conte does not pretend otherwise. His argument is that the higher per-student cost is justified by a materially higher completion rate, which means fewer dollars are ultimately spent on students who begin college but don’t finish with a degree to show for it. Framed as a cost-per-graduate rather than a cost-per-recipient, he argues the sustained model compares favorably even before accounting for the broader economic benefit of more graduates entering the workforce.
The full column, along with more of Conte’s writing on education philanthropy, is linked below alongside his Forbes Business Council profile and personal website.
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