Program Improves College Access, Instills Passion for Service

November 4, 2008, America.gov - By Jeffrey Thomas

Washington - Nicole Hurd first thought of the idea for the National College Advising Corps (NCAC), an initiative aimed at increasing the number of students from low-income families who get a higher education, while an assistant dean at the University of Virginia.

Many students were coming to Hurd's office, she said, as they approached graduation, looking for something meaningful to do before going on to graduate education or embarking on a career. She already was concerned about the many students from low-income families with no college graduates (often referred to as "low-income first-generation students") who were not pursuing a higher education despite test scores and high school records that suggested many were capable of doing the work. (See "New Graduates Show Students Path to Higher Education.")

"Who better to get kids excited about access to college than kids who just did it themselves?" asked Hurd. Near peers would have instant credibility with the kids she wanted to reach. She went on to win a $623,000 grant from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation in 2004 to place recent college graduates in schools and community colleges as advisers to supplement the work of regular school guidance counselors.

Like Peace Corps volunteers, Hurd's young advisers received stipends and became members of the community to which they were assigned. They worked with students to help them find scholarships, fill out financial aid forms, complete applications and find a college or university that was right for them.

The program was so successful in such a short time - in one school raising the college attendance rate 26 percent the first year - that the Cooke Foundation awarded grants of $1 million each to replicate the University of Virginia program in 10 other states, with Hurd as the corps' executive director.

NCAC has two complementary goals. First, it aims to get more students from low-income families with no college graduates into "any form of higher education, whether that's vocational school, a two-year community college or a four-year institution. The other goal is "to get students the right match, so they'll succeed."

"We're not just about access; we've got to be about success; we've got to be about degree achievement," said Hurd, who in 2007 won the [Virginia] Governor's Volunteerism and Community Service Award for National Service. While NCAC advisers spend the bulk of their time advising 11th and 12th graders, more and more of them are also reaching out to ninth and 10th graders and even younger kids, trying to get them to think about college, to take the right courses and to engage in the right activities so that by the time high school graduation approaches they will not have foreclosed opportunities.

But NCAC also offers a transformational experience for its advisers. "They're not the same people after they've served a year or two, and so it's also about leadership development - taking 22- and 23-year-olds and allowing them to become effective public servants and really instill[ing] in them a passion for service that will stay with them throughout their careers and throughout their lifetime," Hurd said.

"They'll vote differently, they'll write their philanthropic support differently, they'll be civically engaged in ways they wouldn't have been if they hadn't done this in their 20s," she added.

And if some, as a result of their experience, "get bit by the education bug" and want to teach?

"Wouldn't it be great to have the ranks [of teachers] filled up with passionate, bright people?" she asked.  She cited as examples several advisers who had not considered careers in education before their NCAC experiences but who now are doing so.

Hurd looks for recent graduates who have certain qualities. "We're looking for young people that are humble and graceful," she said. "We're looking for kids that listen, and become part of that community, and realize there are no silver bullets in education."

Advisers are necessarily mentors who must provide the network of support for educational aspirations that students from affluent families have. Low-income students experience "sticker shock" at the price of higher education; they don't think it is possible for them, and just the process itself is very intimidating, Hurd said. They need advice and mentoring from somebody who has "become a part of their community and can say, 'Hey, I was a low-income student myself - I know what it's like to be scared by this process. Let me sit down and talk with you. Hey, I was a first-generation student myself. My mom and dad didn't go to college. Let me talk to your mom and dad.'"

Advisers offer practical advice, explaining what it will be like in college, what to wear, what to expect when a student returns home for the first time to see family.

On occasion, advisers act as advocates, picking up the phone to get a university to increase its offer of financial aid and even to appeal an admission decision.

When Hurd looks at first-generation, low-income students, she sees her father. "If it wasn't for somebody mentoring him - they literally took him to the college and dropped him on the doorstep - he never would have gone. It was something that was not in his family, that he thought was way too expensive, and something he thought would never happen. These kids are my dad."