June 1, 2024

June 1, 2024

As a community-based organization, our contracts with school districts allow us to offer free college planning guidance to students and parents in our partner school districts. These partnerships have been hugely beneficial for parents and students, expanding postsecondary access and avoiding thousands of dollars in student loan debt. Our partnership with Guilford County Schools (NC) was nationally recognized and awarded the 2020 MAGNA Award by the National School Boards Association for our College Cohort Program supporting first generation and refugee students. With the retirement of Pinellas County Schools Minority Achievement Officer, Dr. Lewis Brinson, our program will no longer be funded. However, the success of students in our PCS College Cohort Program provide a lasting legacy to Dr. Brinson’s efforts.

Over the 6 years of our PCS program, students and families have avoided hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loan debt as a result of students being awarded full scholarships to such schools as Caltech, Claflin University, FAMU, Johns Hopkins, Swarthmore, Tuskegee, and The University of Chicago. Current high school juniors have been selected for such prestigious and highly selective programs as Brown Pre-College, MIT MITES, Northeastern University Accelerate, QuestBridge College Scholars, and Yale Young Global Scholars.  

As we will continue our partnerships with Florence School District 3 (SC) and Judson ISD (TX), we want to thank Dr. Brinson for being a champion for all students and families, but particularly those from marginalized and under resource families and communities. Following are some of the amazing outcomes for students participating in our College Planning Cohort (TM) program.