College prep on the go: Nonprofit's mobile unit helps Columbus students during the summer
Northland High School looked like most other schools during a recent summer Thursday afternoon. The classrooms were vacant. The doors were locked. The parking lot was empty.
Well, mostly empty, except for a few cars and I Know I Can's College & Career Coach.
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The coach — a big, boxy, blue vehicle that looks like a food truck — belongs to I Know I Can, a college-access nonprofit organization focused on helping students in Columbus City Schools and three neighboring districts with college access, grants and career readiness.
I Know I Can's adviser have been traveling across the city all summer to provide college and career planning assistance, such as helping students fill out job and scholarship applications and understand financial aid.
Typically, with schools out for the summer, students who run into issues before heading to college in the fall can have difficulty getting in touch with their high school counselors. It can be even more difficult for high-risk students, for whom college is a stretch to begin with.
That's where I Know I Can's adviser come in. Advisers can take the summer off or stay to provide students a lifeline during the break.
This year, nearly all of its 31 advisers opted to work this summer, said Amy Daniels, a spokesperson with I Know I Can. All advisers return Aug. 5 for the school year.
"With the accessibility of the coach, we're able to help each other out being out in the neighborhoods," said Tashira Collier, I Know I Can's college advising manager at Columbus Downtown High School.
Collier worked late last week from the Northland High School parking lot with college advising managers Jimena Esparza Zamora and Pashia Spalding.
"We're still finishing up FAFSA forms and reviewing financial aid packages," said Zamora, who typically works at Westland High School in Galloway. "It's summertime, and we're still having students apply to college."
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As if the words "apply to college" had manifesting powers, Nerisa Mukwe and her family stepped into the coach with questions about college applications.
Mukwe, a rising senior at Northland, tried to apply to some colleges in Florida but was running into problems.
"You're on the right track. You just applied too early!" said Spalding, a college advising manager at Fort Hayes Metropolitan Education Center.
The women explained that Mukwe needed to wait until school starts to apply so colleges can see what her senior year looks like. She would need to fill out the Common Application — an undergraduate college admission application that applicants can use to apply to over 1,000 colleges and universities — which opens Aug. 1.
Since Mukwe came by, Spalding suggested they get her signed up on the Common Application so she'd be good to go.
While Spalding walked Mukwe through the website, Collier asked more questions: What's your GPA? (A little lower than she'd like, but she's working on it.) What do you want to study? (Nursing, with the hope of becoming a midwife.) Do you play any sports? (She runs track and wants to continue in college.)
Collier took notes of their conversation into a shared document that Northland's college advisor has access to. That way, when Mukwe goes to visit his office when school resumes, he'll be caught up.
Spalding talked through the difference between early decisions and priority deadlines for college applications. She explained how Columbus City Schools students have their application fees waived. Collier added that Mukwe needs to start talking with her coach about college scholarships and to register with the NCAA.
Mukwe and her family were on their way within 10 minutes with a Common Application login and a roadmap for what to do next.
This summer has brought a new set of challenges for I Know I Can advisers with ongoing headaches over FAFSA, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid.
FAFSA rolled out in late December, three months later than anticipated, with great expectations of easing the application process for families. Then, a slew of accessibility and computing errors put families, students and college financial aid officers in limbo for even longer.
All three I Know I Can advisers agreed that FAFSA has been one of their biggest hurdles this summer.
Zamora said one of her students is sitting on more than $100,000 in scholarships from a local college that they haven't been able to access because of glitches. She's met with students whose parents took time off work to get their issues resolved, only for the U.S. Department of Education's website to freeze.
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"FAFSA has become a barrier and a discouragement for students trying to get into college," Spalding said.
It's one reason these advisers stay on over the summer months.
Collier said she's had a number of students who pushed off college during the school year reach out over the summer to say they want to apply for the Columbus Promise, the tuition-free program at Columbus State Community College. She's also had students set to attend four-year colleges who changed their minds over the summer. Some said they weren't ready for a traditional college experience. Others realized they weren't going to be able to pay for it.
"Now that you've been accepted, it becomes a hard reality," Spalding said. "Things change over the summer, and we're here to help course correct."
The work never stops, Spalding said, even during the summer months. Earlier this summer waiting for her flight at the John Glenn International Airport, Spalding stopped to visit a student she knew worked at the airport. They talked about college plans, how the job was going and said she'd check in after her vacation.
"We deal with real life," Collier said. "It's more than just college. It's the whole student."
Sheridan Hendrix is a higher education reporter for The Columbus Dispatch. Sign up for Extra Credit, her education newsletter, here.
@sheridan120
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: FAFSA frustrations meet solutions on wheels from Columbus nonprofit
