Their college plans may melt away entirely by the end of summer. Up to 40 percent of low-income students who are accepted to college in the spring never make it to the first day of class in the fall. They’re stymied by tuition sticker shock, Kafkaesque paperwork requirements and a quiet, corrosive feeling that they don’t belong.
This summer, about three dozen college students are reaching back to students at their old New York City high schools to see if they can help the recent graduates navigate the labyrinth and stay calm and cool enough to avoid the melt.
Each of the college students, who are being trained by College Access: Research and Action (CARA), has a caseload of about 75 high school graduates. The college students, or “coaches,” are paid and spend 15 hours a week working with the recent grads, who are exactly where they themselves were just a year or two ago—accepted and aiming to go to college, but with some treacherous months ahead.
Financial issues are often central to why a student begins to give up.
Like many of the recent grads she is coaching, Raymi Echavarria, who will be a junior at Hunter College this fall, was the first in her family to go to college.
“My students have never seen anyone go to college and take out all of these loans,” said Echavarria, 20. “They’ve never seen anybody take out the amount of loans they’re taking out. Sometimes that’s really scary.”
