“This college access program has been the most helpful of any college preparation program in my school, school district and the entirety of the Austin area. This program is staffed by AmeriCorps volunteers who dedicate a year of service to helping students find their way through the college admission process in their junior and senior year, in addition to helping students persist through college to achieve a Bachelor’s degree… I learn how to effectively write college acceptance essays, improve my standardized test scores and find scholarships and programs… that can aid me in preparing for, gaining acceptance to and paying for college… I know there is no program greater than this.” -College Forward Scholar’s quote from an application to UC Berkeley’s ACAP summer program

In Texas, 61% of students graduate from high school. Only 54% of those students go to college. Half of the students who enroll in a postsecondary institution ever actually earn a college degree. These failures are not caused by racial inequity or academic under-achievement – the root cause is poverty. Nationwide, only 10% of low-income students possess a college diploma. Instead, they work at minimum-wage jobs, trapped in a cycle of generational poverty which means that their children will likely meet the same fate.

Unlike their peers, 99% of College Forward’s low-income students graduate from high school and are admitted to college, and, to date, 82% of College Forward’s collegians have either graduated from or are still enrolled in college. This success is attributable to College Forward’s innovative approach - engaging AmeriCorps members as direct service providers to generate exceptional results.

College Forward addresses the entirety of the college completion gap. AmeriCorps members who serve in our unique College Persistence Program use social media technology (Facebook, Twitter) on a large scale to support college students as they struggle to remain enrolled. The Persistence Program, which was the second of its type in the U.S. when it was launched in 2005, is now the best and was recently awarded the College Board’s “CollegeKeys Compact Innovation Award” in 2011.

Central to College Forward’s culture and structure is AmeriCorps. College Forward launched programming in 2003 as an AmeriCorps VISTA project and after exponential growth within its first three years, became an AmeriCorps State project in 2006. It was our partnership with the State Service Commission, OneStar Foundation, which has allowed College Forward to continue to grow and, in 2011, expand geographically to include a new city - Houston. AmeriCorps members comprise over 80% of College Forward’s team and over the past two years, the organization has achieved a 100% retention rate and a 30% re-upping rate for its members. Starting in 2003 with only 30 students and now serving over 2,000 only eight years later, College Forward is primed to change the way students go to college in America. Executive Director and Co-Founder Lisa Fielder says that AmeriCorps members at College Forward, “…recognize no limits and reject preconceptions about what’s possible and what’s impossible.”