Detroit Cristo Rey High School, a Catholic school located in southwest Detroit, is not your average high school. The high school requires students to work one day per week during all four years of their attendance. In turn, partnering companies pay for the students tuition.
The school operates through grant money and money from companies that employ students in entry level jobs. Each business pays $25,000 for every position and in return, the school sends four students to every business, according to an article by the Detroit Free Press.
Cristo Rey is meant to help students from low-income families who qualify for free or reduced-price federal lunch programs. Tuition at the school is set at $2,300, but most families receive a subsidy and pay less than $1,000 per student.
The school, which has 68 students in its inaugural class, is attempting to recruit more than 30 new businesses so it can enroll a second freshman class. Cristo Rey plans to hold recruiting meetings during the next two months.
"We have an opportunity to put these kids in a position to have a college degree," Michael Khoury, co-director of the school's work-study program, said in the article. "If we do that, we know almost certainly that we will break the cycle of poverty."
The school holds classes in the former Holy Redeemer High School and is one of 22 coed Cristo Rey schools throughout the country that teach more than 5,000 students. The system saw 99 percent of its seniors graduate last year.
