For many students in rural communities in North Carolina, college is often out of the picture due to lack of resources and knowledge about how to apply. However, NC State’s College Advising Corps is trying to increase the number of low-income, underrepresented, rural high school students who apply for a post-secondary education.
“The students that we serve are all in high-need areas,” said Patti Baynes, program director of NC State’s College Advising Corps. “The schools we serve have over a 50 percent free and reduced lunch rate.”
Regardless of background, college tuition is expensive, especially for students who fall under low income.
“Many times, though, the price of tuition is misunderstood,” Baynes said. “They don’t realize that they can apply to use the FAFSA, federal pell grants and scholarships.”
Not only does the price tag of college hold these students back, but also the lack of knowledge about college and the application process in general. For many of these students, they are the first in their family to attend college, according to Allison Lee, a college advisor at Louisburg High School and NC State graduate.
“They have in their mind that they cannot go to college, so as advisors we bring them resources,” Lee said.
College Advising Corps uses a “near-peer” method to encourage these rural students to apply to college. The college advisors must be recent graduates, so they are close in age with the high school students they are helping.
“We are promoting a college-going culture at the schools,” Lee said. “A lot of the guidance counselors are a little older, so it’s nice for the students to have someone close in age to help them with this important process.”
On average, the guidance counselor to high school student ratio is about 1 to 450, where students only have about 20 minutes over the course of the school year to speak with their counselor.
College advisors work alongside guidance counselors to alleviate their workload and to talk with students about options for college. At the beginning of the year, they work primarily with seniors by taking them on college visits, bringing college representatives in to the high school and discussing financial aid.
A lot of these high school students have never been on a college campus, according to Baynes.
“We are informing students of all their options and making sure their options are informed,” Baynes said.
At Louisburg High School, 90 percent of the seniors applied to college this year, a drastic increase from previous years, according to Lee.
“The other 10 percent of students have different reasons for not applying,” Lee said. “College is not for everybody.”
By the end of the first semester, the college advisors would have met all students in the senior class, according to Danielle Neujahr, college advisor at Franklin High School and recent graduate of NC State. After the first semester, college advisors target underclassmen to prepare them for the college application process.
“Those 685,000 students that make up our rural populations, we need them to be educated,” Baynes said. “Jobs within the next few years will require some form of post-secondary education.”
NC State’s College Advising Corps is one of the many universities partnered with the National College Advising Corps that has served over 543,000 students in 14 states across the country.
The John Belk Endowment funds NC State’s College Advising Corps.
College advisors receive a full-time salary, state benefits and an education award, which can pay off student loans from undergraduate debt or future loans if the advisor decides to go to graduate school.
However, for the college advisors, the job is more than encouraging rural high school students to apply and attend college.
“Being a college advisor is all about making a difference in every child’s life,” Lee said. “We’re showing these kids that they can go to college when people have always told them they can’t. They’re all very bright, but some of them have fallen through the cracks.”
Our future’s success relies on the success of these students, Baynes said.
“Currently we’re behind in bachelor degree attainment all over the world. Research has shown that the greater the percentage a country’s population is educated, the better its work force and the better its economy.”
According to Neujahr, the results will not be evident immediately.
“It may take a few years to see rates increase, but eventually there will be a huge spike in the numbers of rural high school students attending college,” Neujahr said.