The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation recently donated $1 million to the University to establish the College Advising Corps, which will help Rhode Island high school students navigate the admission process.
The Swearer Center for Public Service will implement the program, which will build on existing work by Brown undergraduates, said Roger Nozaki MAT'89, the director of the Swearer Center and an associate dean of the College. These programs include a free SAT prep course taught by Brown students and a guidance program to help Hope High School students with the college application process.
Sejal Jhaveri '09, a student coordinator who works with area high school students, said she does not know how the new corps will interact with existing programs, but she said a main goal is to expand college advising efforts beyond nearby Hope High School.
"We're still in the early stages, so we don't know exactly how everything is going to work together," Jhaveri said. "But we're definitely going to take some of their ideas and bring some of our ideas, and we're going to try to mix it and come up with the best solutions we can to help in the schools in Providence."
The grant to Brown is part of a $10 million nationwide initiative of the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, modeled after the "College Guide" program at the University of Virginia, also funded by the foundation.
"The goal of the College Advising Corps is to help more students, particularly low income students, enter college. It's to help supplement the information students receive about the admission process and financial aid," said Elizabeth Morgan, director of youth programs for the foundation.
The program will recruit and train Brown alums to act as college guidance counselors in Rhode Island high schools. There will be one person at each school who will work with school guidance staff to aid students with the college admission process.
The Swearer Center hopes to send out a job description to current Brown seniors and recent alums to get them interested in applying for the program, Nozaki said. He said he hopes to launch the hiring process before the end of the school year. Training will take place in August, and members of the corps will begin working with high school students at the beginning of the next school year.
Brown was chosen as a recipient of the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation grant because of its history and commitment to community service among both undergraduates and graduates, Morgan said.
"The Swearer Center for Public Service makes a very good home for this effort, and Brown has also already been quite involved in public education efforts, particularly in Providence," she said.
Lamont Gordon '93, director of education outreach at Brown, said the program affirms the importance of making college accessible to high school students. "Having access to college - education in general - is one of the most important things in our society that will enable students to really grow, develop and participate in our society," he said.
Nozaki said inequality in access to higher education "has nothing to do with students' ability and potential - it's a reflection of inequalities within the system."
"Students in families in the top income quartile are five times more likely to get bachelor's degree by age 24 than those in the bottom income quartile, so there's a huge disparity there in terms of access to college and success in college that's correlated with family income," he said.
The College Advising Corps program intends to help students receive financial aid so they can go to college. "There are millions of particularly low-income students and students whose parents didn't attend college who have no idea how to get to college. They have no idea of the options that are available to them. ... They just assume that 'my family can't pay for college and therefore I can't go,' and they don't realize how much need-based financial aid is available or how to make it work for them," Morgan said. "We're actually hoping to see the percentage of high school graduates who go on to college increase."
