A small catholic university has taken an initiative to help kids in one of the nation's poorest city make it college through an ambitious $10 million program.

Alvernia University in Reading, Pa., is partnering with the city's Olivet Boys & Girls Club on The Collegiate Scholars Program, in an effort to prepare hundreds of high school students for college through mentoring, tutoring and other activities.

"Some students struggle with issues that are beyond their control and might need some extra help to be competitive to go to college," Jay Worrall, director of Alvernia's Holleran Center for Community Engagement, told the Reading Eagle.

The four-year intensive program will help students improve their academic skills, navigate college applications and financial aid progress, and overcome other barriers to higher education. It will also offer as many as 20 students a full-year scholarship to attend Alvernia University, where they will receive additional tutoring and mentoring. The program, which launches in the spring, will be funded by private donors, foundations, Alvernia and Olivet, the Associated Press reported.

Thomas F. Flynn, president of Alvernia University, told the AP that a college education is one way to break the "generational cycle of poverty" that grips Reading and other cities.

"This is an enormously ambitious undertaking and we recognize that," he said. "But we believe the potential to change lives is very great."

Approximately 60 percent of Reading's youths graduate high school, and those that do often have low SAT scores and trouble with reading, math and writing.

Flynn said the initiative is part of the social responsibility of the university. Board Chairman of the Olivet Pat Shields said the club wants to provide the necessary support so that the children they work with can successfully take the next step to college.

"We want to say 'Look, this is a realistic path you can take now to get to college," he told the Reading Eagle. "We want to show them that vision and what success looks like."

As of 2011, 40 percent of Reading's population of 88,000 lives in poverty, the highest share of any city in the nation with a population of at least 65,000, according to the AP.

Flynn and Shields hope their effort will become a national model for fighting urban poverty.