WHAT IS STRIVE?

Strive for College is an innovative college mentoring program that connects motivated, low-income high school students with undergraduate mentors, who guide them through the college application process and into enrollment at four-year universities and colleges, providing them with opportunities and resources to break the cycle of poverty forever.

FEATURED FACT

Every year, more than 200,000 low-income students graduate from high school in America ready to go to college – but do not.

Source Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance, Empty Promises: The Myth of College Access in America, Washington, D.C., 2002

Our Results

In two years, more than 90% of Spring 2008 graduating seniors from our first chapter have gone on to attend four-year colleges and universities. In 2006, just 1 of the 30 seniors graduating from Eskridge High School in Wellston, Missouri attended college. Two years later, after an aggressive effort by the Wellston School District and its partners,with help from Strive for College, 24 of the school's 27 seniors were accepted to colleges and universities, and more than half received financial aid and scholarships. Students from our first chapter have been accepted to: Xavier University; Louisville; University of Missouri; Ottawa University; Alabama A&M; Jackson State University; Southern Illinois; Iowa State University.

Wellston School District Superintendent Charles Brown says he is already seeing the emergence of a college-bound culture. "There is a different spirit in this school about setting goals and wanting to go to college. There is no question in my mind that it has made a difference. It has been almost miraculous."

For the past year, our second Strive chapter in St. Louis has worked with College Bound St. Louis, a college access non-profit. We've helped add tremendous value to College Bound's program, mentoring seventeen of their motivated, low-income high school students.

Debbie Greenberg, College Bound's Director of College Counseling, attests to the value of Strive: "College Bound St. Louis couldn't have asked for a better partner than Strive in assisting our high school seniors with the college and scholarship application process. Their volunteers were instrumental for a number of reasons. Not only did they provide each of our students with individual attention but they took the mystique and fear out of the college admission process as well. Most importantly, though, Strive volunteers served as role models to our students. They showed our students that it's cool to be smart and that giving back in such a meaningful way is an essential part of life."