Clara Ramirez, the first in her family to go to college, graduated from Texas Christian University and immediately decided to give back. She joined the College Advising Corps and became the college adviser at John Tyler High School in Tyler, Texas.
With a student body that is 60% Hispanic and 40% African-American, a majority from families in which no one had attended college, Clara was set to help numerous students like herself.
"The majority of my students are first-generation, and even if they want to go to college, they have no clue what even the first step is."
College Advising Corps
The College Advising Corps is a nonprofit that helps low-income, first-generation college and otherwise underrepresented high school students prepare for and get into college. CAC recruits recent college graduates to work as full-time college advisors for two-year stints in high-need public high schools. The nonprofit works in partnership with 24 selective private colleges and flagship state universities like Duke, Texas A&M, and the University of California, Berkeley, that recruit the advisers, then train and supervise them through their admissions and financial aid offices. The advisers are then placed in schools through agreements with district administrators and principals.
“Our impact is measured in the smile on a student’s face when they receive an acceptance letter, a parent’s tears of joy when their child becomes the first in the family to attend college, and the lasting generational inspiration and impact that a college education provides.”
With support from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation and the Lumina Foundation for Education, CAC deploys nearly 600 advisers in 15 states with 182 of them serving in rural areas. Since its founding, CAC has served over 848,000 high school students.
Heroes
Most of the CAC advisors, like Clara, are Latino or black and from low-income backgrounds, like the students they are advising. They are paid salaries of about $30,000 and can receive about $11,500 for future college loan forgiveness. When these young people were asked why they chose a career as a College Advisor, they answered just like you would expect heroes to answer:
“This is the closest I will get to being a superhero.”
“I want to be part of the community of change agents.”
“Everyone deserves an opportunity.”
“My students will change the world.”
“I was in their shoes.”
“My college adviser changed my life.”
“All students deserve a chance to realize their potential.”
Quietly Making a Difference
Lawrence Harris, a CAC advisor at Clarke Central High School in Athens, Georgia from 2012 to 2014 recounts sitting in the year end assembly when the head counselor suggested that any student who needed help in the following year could visit Mr. Harris for assistance.
“Suddenly all the seniors stood up, applauding and screaming. After the assembly, the principal and the counselors said they had never seen the students so excited about a staff member and that if I ever doubted I was making a difference, I just needed to think back to that moment – and I do.”
