The National College Advising Corps is a unique program with the primary goal of raising the rates of college enrollment and completion among low-income, first-generation-college, underrepresented high school students.  Many well-qualified students are currently discouraged from pursuing higher education by avoidable barriers such as a lack of information about college admissions and financial aid.

The Advising Corps model is a targeted approach that integrates student supports into the high school model in order to address non-academic barriers to student achievement and success.  By placing well-trained, recent college graduates from our 17 partner institutions of higher education across the country as full-time advisers in the nation’s persistently lowest-performing schools, the Advising Corps provides the support that high-need students must have to navigate the complex processes of college admissions and matriculation and securing financial aid.  Advisers also work to foster a college-going culture within the schools they serve, which is one of the best predictors of whether students will pursue higher education at all.

A number of high-profile initiatives have focused on closing the education achievement gap between low-income, first-generation-college, underrepresented students and their more advantaged peers.  Yet the gap in college-going and college-completion rates is unlikely to be closed unless the gap in college advising is closed first.