We Know All About College Financial Assistance, Here’s How You Do It Better

Financial assistance for families with college-bound students has seen big changes in timing since 2016. The new process begins much earlier with students now able…

College Isn’t for Every Student But We Should Prepare Them for It Anyway

“College isn’t for everybody.” This quote has become chic in educator circles. After years of trying to push everybody toward college degrees, people are now…

So You Want to Go to College? Send a Text.

In 2013, then-First Lady Michelle Obama approached then-Secretary of Education Arne Duncan with the goal of inspiring more young people to attend and graduate from…

I Almost Gave Up on My Dream of a College Degree But Now I’m Back at School

I wasn’t a typical high school student. Motivation was hard to maintain when much of my environment negatively affected me. So many obstacles and circumstances…

The Tragic Tension Between College and Career Readiness

What’s the right approach: Counsel all graduating seniors to go to college, including the students who can’t afford it or may be unprepared academically or…

Every Student in This School’s Founding Class Is Headed To and Through College

“We pledge that in four years we will be better than we are today.” That’s what the members of the Baker College Prep class of…

Sometimes Your Kids Can Be What It Takes to Go Back to School for the Third Time and Graduate

Like many first-generation college Latinx students, Priscila González struggled through her freshman and sophomore years at Chicago State University. She struggled with managing time, learning…

A Principal Helping Kids to Be the First in Their Family to Go to College, Just Like He Was

First-generation college student Vincent Gay started his journey on a wrestling scholarship at Edinboro University, near Erie, Pennsylvania. Early on, he got into such difficulty…

When Paying Rent Is So Stressful That You Get Evicted, Arrested and Drop Out

During my senior year of high school, college was a subject I didn’t like to talk about. I knew I didn’t want to go, but…

I Made Every Phone Call, Sent Every Email, Text and Tweet So My Student Could Attend the College of Her Dreams

For two years in my English class, we had talked about her dreams of becoming an intelligence analyst at the CIA. Unlike some students, this…