Communities Learning in Partnership (CLIP) meeting

By Mary Gwen Wheeler

Hold a citywide college day for all seniors where they visit a college campus and enroll? Sounds like our Close The Deal program on steroids! San Francisco's Bridge To Success partnership did just that last week. Called Frisco Day, every public school senior visited City College, filled out an application and learned about financial aid. See this news story. I am learning about other practices to promote college-going such as this at a 3-day network meeting.

One of the driving principles underlying 55,000 Degrees is that by working collectively, we can have greater impact than what can be achieved by individual effort alone. I am attending a convening in San Francisco of 11 cities who have created similar collective efforts focused on postsecondary success. Funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and administered by the National League of Cities, the Communities Learning in Partnership initiative seeks to improve PSE outcomes, particularly for low-income young people, through collective action.

Another great idea: Philadelphia held a financial aid phone-athon. Two TV stations each donated the commercial time slots, one in a morning show and the other in the evening, for a phone-athon where students and parents could call in to get answers and information about financial aid. The phone banks were manned by area college admissions and financial aid counselors. Over 2000 callers were helped in one day!

I'll blog with more learnings tomorrow.