Newark, NJ — Lakeisha Bright knew she would be in for a rough ride during her senior year at West Side High School based on all the changes the high school had been going through as of late.
“My junior year was very stressful because they kept making changes at my school,” Bright said last summer. “We had four different principals and every time a new principal came they would change everything.”
By the time fall arrived, Lakeisha felt “overwhelmed and unprepared for the whole college process.”
“I’m not really getting as much support from my school as I would (like to) so it’s up to me to really get everything done,” Lakeisha said in November.
Fortunately for Lakeisha, she didn’t have to go it alone. She turned to RU Ready for Work—a Rutgers University-based college access program that collectively serves about 20 or students from West Side High School and a few other Newark high schools each year.
Through the program, students get college advice that their regular school counselors are often too busy to provide, cash stipends of $100 per month to participate during the school year, and part-time summer jobs—some of them based on the Rutgers campus—for six weeks that pay minimum wage.
A leading college access expert says the RU Ready for Work model holds great potential for increasing the number of young people who enroll in college.
