Partners Chart Progress Toward Boosting College Access, Attainment

A coalition of community organizations that wants to help more Sarasota County students pursue education beyond high school is having a big impact through a range of innovative approaches.

From college-campus visits and matched college savings accounts  to savvy social media outreach, the Talent4Tomorrow (T4T) Partnership piloted or expanded several successful programs last school year. As the new school year approaches, it’s a good time to highlight what worked last year, in order to sustain and build upon that momentum in the coming one.

Aspirations, Awareness, Affordability

Like other “Local College Access Networks” (LCANs) around the state, T4T comprises leaders from education, business, nonprofits, and philanthropy that seek to build a competitive regional workforce by increasing the number of college graduates in high-demand fields. T4T was the first such LCAN in Florida to earn a matching grant through Florida Philanthropic Network’s College Access and Success Initiative, which is funded by the Helios Education Foundation and The Kresge Foundation.

For over a year now, T4T partners have deployed funding that was raised locally and then matched by the FPN grant to test a range of programs and activities aimed at improving college access and completion rates for Sarasota County youth. Specifically, funds have supported six programs developed in direct response to recommendations from a “Community Scan” that T4T conducted a few years ago to map existing college and career readiness services and surface promising strategies to increase college enrollment. These programs target three thematic objectives that were identified through the scan: aspirations, awareness, and affordability.

Here are some highlights of the grant-funded programs at work:

FAFSA Completion: With completion of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, considered a critical indicator of college enrollment, T4T has prioritized boosting the FAFSA completion rate among Sarasota County seniors and thereby helping students qualify for more aid such as Pell Grants. For the third year in a row, Sarasota County Schools led the state in FAFSA completion rates for large school districts, thanks to a variety of awareness and support tactics ranging from FAFSA labs for families to Snapchat geofilters to spread the word among students. According to the Florida College Access Network, these efforts helped Sarasota County students earn an additional $800,000 in Pell Grants!  

“Career Quest” Matched College Savings program: This pilot program helped students from low-income families get connected to jobs in the community, including paid internships; establish no-fee savings accounts with SunTrust Bank and potentially earn a four-to-one match on up to $500 in savings, for a total of $2,000; and learn about career planning and financial education topics through classes provided by T4T partner organizations. Thanks to Career Quest, 25 high school juniors who participated in the pilot last year are now banked and saving for college as they enter senior year.

College Standardized Test Preparation: A total of 173 juniors and seniors at North Port High School worked directly with a test prep instructor to help meet qualifications for the Florida Bright Futures Scholarship or boost their SAT or ACT scores to ensure graduation. North Port High plans to replicate the successful program this year, dedicating a teacher to focus on test prep.

“Career Chats” Speaker System: Partners have worked to provide the Sarasota County school district with access to a variety of professionals from the community willing to visit classrooms and share their personal career journeys. Through the CASI grant as well as a separate grant from United Way Suncoast, the Education Foundation of Sarasota County brought a total of 40 speakers to Booker, Heron Creek, and Woodland middle schools last year. The Education Foundation will continue to work with directly middle schools to place speakers this coming year, while CareerEdge Funders Collaborative and the Greater Sarasota Chamber of Commerce are looking at developing a speaker’s bureau for high schools.

Jobs Guide: With career awareness pegged as T4T’s number-two priority after FAFSA completion, CareerEdge developed a handy guide—Where Are the Jobs?—to provide students, parents, guidance counselors, and mentors with info on high-demand jobs in our region and the educational pathways to land them. Grant funds paid to print 9,000 copies of the guide, which has exceeded all expectations in popularity and usefulness. With vigorous demand expected this school year, grant funds will be used to print more copies for distribution. CareerEdge also will monitor labor data for a planned update to the brochure’s job and wage components in 2019.

“College Explorations” Campus Visits: To encourage student aspirations for postsecondary education, research indicates it is vital for students to see themselves in college. College campus visits provide a tangible way to foster this college-going identity. Several partners helped coordinate visits for local seventh-graders to several area colleges. About 25 students from each of the district’s eight middle schools participated, for a total of 200 students. (Watch the two-minute video below to see these impactful campus visits in action.) This year, the successful program may be expanded to allow 40 or 50 students per trip, while college visits for high school students also will be explored.

On the Horizon

In addition to these six programs funded through the CASI matching grant, T4T is working on additional fronts to promote college access and attainment:

► Mining data for a better understanding of postsecondary results for each high school.

► Advocating for education and workforce legislation at the state and federal levels.

► Expanding access to high-quality career exploration resources, such as the Florida Shines online career-planning system.

The CASI grant application was coordinated by Gulf Coast Community Foundation, with support from CareerEdge and the Greater Sarasota Chamber. Funders that helped meet the match requirement included Charles & Margery Barancik Foundation and Community Foundation of Sarasota County, as well as Gulf Coast. The T4T programs are made possible through the hard work of a network of partner organizations.