By Virginia Lascara
virginia.lascara@insidebiz.com
Bonnie B. Sutton, the president of Norfolk-based Access College Foundation, traveled to Washington earlier this month to meet with 400 college presidents and other education leaders and to be recognized by Michelle Obama for two local initiatives.
At the College Opportunity Day of Action, 400 college leaders from around the nation announced their commitment to make college accessible to the underserved, minority and first generation population. The Day of Action was part of the First Lady's Reach Higher initiative.
"It was quite awesome to be in a room with 400 like-minded people who all want better access to college," Sutton said.
Access earned recognition for two commitments submitted to the Reach Higher initiative, which were handpicked by the Department of Education and the White House staff - one pertaining to applyign for aid, the other focusing on the Eastern Shore.
In Washington, Sutton announced the commitment by Access in Norfolk to partner with Tidewater Community College in training 170 high school counselors and college advisers in Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Chesapeake and Suffolk to complete and file forms for Free Application for Federal Student Aid on behalf of every student in their caseload.
Federal Student Aid, part of the Department of Education, is the nation's largest provider of student financial aid. The first step is filling out a FAFSA to determine eligibility for state and school aid.
"Low income students typically are not going to go to college if they don't have the money to go and they can't go if they don't complete the FAFSA form," Sutton said.
Although Access already fills out FAFSA forms for students, trained counselors will supplement the group's work.
"We thought if we could train them, that would be a backup plan so that the school counselors would be confident in filling out the forms," Sutton said.
Sutton also announced that Access has created an endowment to serve Northampton County on the Eastern Shore. The endowment was created from $1.6 million from an anonymous donor and will help fund an Access adviser and services at Northampton High and Northampton Middle schools, the only secondary schools in the county.
According to Sutton, 78 percent of the Northampton population graduated high school, but only 18 percent have at least a bachelor's degree.
"There is definitely a lot of need on the Eastern Shore," Sutton said. "A very large population of students there are on free or reduced lunch. If these students don't have the money to go to college, then they probably won't, so we're excited to expand and provide all of our services to Northampton."
Access plans to reinforce and expand upon the College and Career Readiness goals within the Northampton school district. Northampton School Superintendent Eddie Lawrence said there is a vital interest and need in expanding those goals.
In addition to furthering these goals, Access says it will pay for up to two college entrance tests and four college application fees for students of low-income families in Northampton. It will also provide $5,000 scholarships for qualifying students over the span of four years to encourage their enrollment.
Access also intends to invest the funds from the anonymous donor to train a new adviser to help middle and high school students take the SAT, fill out a FAFSA and apply to at least three colleges, Sutton said. The results of these efforts will be tracked by the Access advisers, who will monitor the students' progress while they are in college.