A college education is a determining factor in professional success. Researchers estimate that a college degree is worth $1 million in additional earnings over the course of a career—and deeply affects quality of life in many ways.  Unfortunately, each year, nearly 200,000 college-capable high school graduates from low-income families do not enroll. 

The fact is that low-income students who get A’s on standardized tests go to college at the same rate as their higher-income peers who get D’s on the same tests. Thousands of low-income high school graduates who could succeed in college don’t even submit applications.  College Summit strives to change that fact by helping high schools dramatically increase college enrollment rates.

We chose to align ourselves with College Summit because this organization aims to create sustainable change. College Summit has proven its success by:

• Operating in nearly a dozen states, collaborating with almost 20 urban and rural school districts, and implementing its post-secondary planning program in nearly 100 high schools nationwide

• Providing training, curriculum, and measurement tools that have helped its partner schools achieve double-digit increases in college enrollment over baseline based on externally verified data, improvements ranging from 10-50 percent.

• Since 1993, supporting more than 20,000 high school students in navigating the college application process, including 7,000 summer workshop participants

• Training more than 700 teachers and counselors in its in-school post-secondary planning