单项选择题
In her four years at the University of Virginia, Jessica Fowler, 22, has had much success, including winning admission to Duke University Medical School. But one of her most enduring accomplishments may be that she was a mentor to Courtney White, 19, as part of the university’s peer adviser program for incoming black students. The University of Virginia has long led the nation’s public universities in its graduation rate for blacks, according to the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. The main reason is its structured and intensive mentoring program. This year, the journal reported that the university graduated 86 percent of its black students over a six-year period. Although many Ivy League institutions(常青藤盟校，指美国东部八所老牌名校组成的联盟) have higher rates—especially Harvard, which led with 95 per-cent-the record slips with state—chartered universities, where only 60 percent or less of blacks who enroll end up graduating. The managing editor of the journal said Virginia’s success was a result of the financial assistance the institution gives its lowest-income students. In 2004, the university began giving grants instead of loans for certain low-income students. "The fact that they don’t have to worry about money definitely contributes to the higher graduation rate." The university’s record is particularly noteworthy because its first black undergraduates did not enroll until 1955. In 1976, when race relations on campus were strained, the university set up its Office of African-American Affairs. The mentoring program began in 1984. The extra attention starts with admissions, said the associate dean of African-American affairs. They match each student who has been accepted, by interests and background, with an upper-class student, and then select about 60 black students to be trained as peer advisers, each responsible for about six incoming students, and arrange for each incoming student to correspond with a peer adviser. Throughout the first year, the program sponsors on-campus activities like meals, weekly study sessions and celebrations of milestones like completing the first semester. These help knit the black students together as a group. Ms. White said the freshman program provided a comfort zone of support and resources in a largely white environment in which racial tensions still exist. And Ms. Fowler said when she thought back on her first year at the university, "the personalized attention" of the peer adviser program "made all the difference".The main topic of this passage is_________.
A．the comparison between Virginia University and one of the Ivy League institutions
B．the financial assistance in Virginia University
C．how Jessica Fowler helped Courtney White succeed
D．peer support in black students’ success
