COLLEGE FORWARD
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Mission Statement
College Forward is a Texas-based college access and success program whose intensive, culturally-appropriate mentoring programs propel low-income students to collegiate success and remunerative careers. With a goal of building and sharing effective solutions, College Forward collaborates with other respected practitioners across the U.S. to combine and distill ‘best practices’ into highly-efficient program models, supported by a technology platform that both drives student outcomes and yields critical data for longitudinal research. In 2015-2016, CoFo serves 6,000+ students directly and 100,000 others with our student information system.
About This Cause
College Forward coaches low-income, underserved, and “first-generation” students (those who will be the first degree-holder in their family) to enter college and earn a degree. We make a commitment to support our students for up to EIGHT years or until college graduation. Our direct program services are provided by College Mentors, recent college graduates recruited through the national AmeriCorps program whose close age proximity to program participants has demonstrated a highly effective bond. This intensive personal relationship, a rigorous curriculum, and our industry leading technology platform all contribute to our outstanding student outcomes, which are the pride of our organization and the evidence of the effectiveness of our program: -99% of College Forward students apply to college and earn acceptances -90% enter college within 12 months of high school graduation (as compared to 44% of Central Texas Students) -81% enter four-year universities -48% of college students earn bachelor’s degrees This “college completion program that begins in high school” can be divided roughly into two halves: COLLEGE ACCESS: 11th and 12th grade students attend twice weekly after-school classes led by highly-trained, near-peer College Mentors who guide them through college selection, standardized testing, scholarships, college applications, FAFSA and financial aid appeals, and soft skill development, with their parents learning alongside them during workshops and ongoing communication with our College Mentors. Beyond the classroom, College Mentors are available via phone, text, and social media. College Mentors also organize community service opportunities for students and an annual “Tour of Colleges” during which students spend a day exploring several college campuses. College Forward works with students at the following high schools: 1. Connally High School (Pflugerville Independent School District) 2. Crockett High School (AISD) 3. Del Valle High School (Del Valle ISD) 4. Eastview High School (Georgetown ISD) (GISD since 2006) 5. Jack C. Hays High School (Hays ISD) 6. Lehman High School (Hays ISD) 7. Manor High School (Manor ISD) (Since 2009) 8. Manor New Tech High School (Manor ISD) (Since 2009) 9. Stony Point High School (Round Rock ISD) 10. William B. Travis High School (AISD) 11. Eisenhower High School (Aldine Independent School District) 12. Goose Creek Memorial High School (Goose Creek ISD) 13. Robert E. Lee High School (Goose Creek ISD) 14. Ross S. Sterling High School (Goose Creek ISD) 15. Scarborough High School (HISD) 16. Channelview (Success Partnerships) (Channelview ISD) 17. Marfa High School (Marfa ISD) 18. Alpine High School (Alpine ISD) COLLEGE COMPLETION: Once students enroll in higher education, they continue to face significant obstacles to their college success, which all too often results in unfinished degrees and unpayable debt. In fact, this is where we believe the greatest challenge to student success lies. From 10 years of experience, College Forward has identified the majority of these obstacles and the steps that students must take proactively to mitigate them. College Mentors reach out to students throughout the year to create a personalized strategy for taking each step successfully and continuing their progression through college, building relationships with students and providing individualized academic, financial, and socio-emotional support and critical interventions, from high school graduation through degree completion. Because College Forward is committed to supporting students no matter where they attend college, and our students attend more than 110 colleges and universities across the nation, College Mentors primarily reach out to students virtually from our College Success Center in Austin, Texas. For students attending school in-state, College Mentors arrange campus visits for one-on-one coaching and in-person mentoring. And on individual campuses across the nation students lead their own college success programs throughout Collegian Mentor program, supported by our technology, curriculum, and management structure. In our first eight years of existence, College Forward focused on a strategy of geographic expansion – growing each year to serve additional schools and cities. By 2011, we realized that the magnitude of the higher education crisis - 9.1 million students dropping out of college every year - can never be solved by an individual nonprofit organization, no matter how large its ambitions. We needed to take a radically different approach. Since that realization, College Forward has shifted its focus from expanding the organization to expanding only our impact. We undertake every initiative, project, and effort with an eye towards developing and sharing effective solutions with other institutions and organizations that serve students. Using our Austin and Houston operations as bases of experimentation and innovation, College Forward is developing shareable tools, systems, models, and partnerships whose impacts are measureable and significant. Direct beneficiaries are school districts, colleges and universities, collective impact initiatives, and other nonprofits – all of which serve students directly. By discovering, testing, proving, optimizing, and sharing big leaps, College Forward will drive innovation within the field of college access and completion, increase college graduation rates both locally and nationally, and advance our single organizational goal: to solve the problem. College Froward has launched three initiatives to pursue this ambitious agenda: 1. Success Partnerships:The first, Success Partnerships, allows College Forward to partner with postsecondary institutions to create and implement high quality student success programming, enabling us to serve more students and drive higher education reform from within. During our first year implementing Success Partnerships, College Forward raised first to second semester persistence rates by 19% for students served at our partner institution. We will serve 12 partner colleges by 2017. 2. In 2105 we launched a pilot project that will replicate our signature college access program at rural high schools, allowing school districts to independently deliver our programming, and allowing their students to benefit from the strong track record of this program: 99% of college forward students served by this program apply and are accepted to higher education. We will serve 50 high schools by 2018. 3. Copilot, our innovative student information system, is now a community platform being used by educators nationally. Through CoPilot, we are building the capacity of the entire college success industry to deliver outstanding student outcomes. Our low-cost, highly effective programs have been recognized nationally. The following is a short list of our most recent achievements: -In September of 2015 College Forward was named a “Bright Spot in Hispanic Education” by the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics. As a Bright Spot, College Forward will be included in a national online catalog with more than 230 programs that invest in key education priorities for Hispanics. -In August 2015, College Forward was named as a finalist in the national Examples of Excelencia! competition, which recognizes the most effective organizations in the country at advancing the educational achievements of Latino students in higher education. -In July 2015 we traveled to the White House again with two of our students who were recognized by First Lady Michelle Obama and our nation’s education leaders for their outstanding higher education achievements at the 2015 Beating the Odds Summit. -In 2014, College Forward was invited to the White House College Opportunity Day of Action to make commitments with President Obama and more than 600 education, business, and government leaders to increasing higher education achievement among low income students. -In 2013, New Profit, Inc. convened the 16 most highly-regarded college access organizations in the U.S. to discuss “the potential of collaboration or collective action moving forward.” This group, of which College Forward is a respected member, has committed to working collaboratively towards common solutions to the problem of college completion.