Aliyya Swaby Photo
Shaina Blumell is the first person in her family to apply to college, and she learned the basics of applying for financial aid from an app — which she shared with her classmates at Career High School.
Blumell (pictured left), a Career High senior, was one of 37 peer leaders at her school Friday morning heading College Summit’s “app-a-thon,” an event designed to teach her peers and teachers how to use apps that help students research, apply to, and pay for college. District administrators said this was one of many reform initiatives that has prompted an increase in New Haven students going to and staying in college.
The College Summit peer leaders learned — and then taught — the ins-and-outs of 20 different apps, which were developed with help from Facebook and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. They were just a small group of the hundreds of students throughout the country participating in Friday’s app-a-thon.
Burnell trained the Career High community on how to use the “FAFSA Community” app, which guides students on how to fill out the federal financial aid application using line-by-line support. Before getting involved with College Summit last year, she said she had no “prior knowledge” on whether she was eligible for financial aid for college, or how to go about getting it. Next year, she will attend Eastern Connecticut State University.
Burnell’s friend Alysha Villacis (pictured top right above) said she benefited from College Summit, though she did not participate in the program. Also set to start in the fall as a first-generation college student, Villacis kept “asking all my friends” when she did not understand parts of the college application process.
“It was a big help to us, even seniors who are not in College Summit,” she said. Next year, she will attend Western Connecticut State University.
Superintendent Garth Harries asked all of the first-generation college students in the room to raise their hands — about a third of the people in the room did. College enrollment stats have dramatically improved over the last year, he said.
The percent of New Haven district students enrolled in college went up eight points in one year — from 56.1 percent in fall 2013 to 64 percent in fall 2014.
Technology is in part responsible for this boost, said Mayor Toni Harp, helping students “sort through” the “daunting” process of figuring out higher education and career plans.
Peer leaders Tanasia Edwards and Jayla Manning taught students how to use “I’m First,” an online community for first-generation college students with video and written blogs of older students’ experiences in higher education.
Manning said she plans to start a blog on the app when she goes to Southern Connecticut State University next year. She said students should use the information on the site to “be on top of your A game,” before applying or heading to college.
On her way to Tuskegee University in Alabama, Edwards said she used the application to look up requirements for her future major, biology. “I don’t have the opportunity to ask my mom and dad what to do when I get to college,” she said, because they did not attend college. The app also helps students understand how to afford college, so they know how to manage financial aid and loans, instead of avoiding the application process.
Wonderful.