“College Now is a major player in improving education in Cleveland. We are lucky to have it,” says Helen Williams, program director for education at the Cleveland Foundation, the largest funder of College Now Greater Cleveland.
College Now celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2018. Since 1967, the organization has been helping students and adults obtain post-secondary education, find better jobs and lead independent lives. It’s no secret that action results in strengthening the well-being and economy of our community.
By 2020, 64 percent of new jobs in Ohio will require a post-secondary degree or credentials, according to stats Williams provided. Only 42 percent of Ohioans and 25 percent of Clevelanders meet that criterion.
“The need is pressing,” says College Now CEO Lee Friedman. “Ohio is the seventh-largest state, but ranks 38th in educational attainment.”
But steadily and with growing community support, College Now continues to make a difference. Williams calls the organization “adaptable, but grounded; strategic; focused on impact; and willing to try new things and do away with things that don’t work so well.”
Alan S. Kopit, College Now board chairman and general counsel for MediLogix, traces the history of programs, beginning with embedding counselors in Cleveland high schools. Assisting adults, whose post-secondary education may have been interrupted or never begun, started in 1991. College Now visits libraries, community centers and other locations to reach those lost students.
“But the single greatest invention for College Now has been the Mentoring Program, with more than 1,350 mentor-mentee pairs. If you are going to get a scholarship from us, it’s not going to do any good to get it but drop out in a year. So we match one mentor from the community to every scholarship recipient,” says Kopit, noting the graduation rate among College Now’s scholarship recipients increased to more than 80 percent after the program was implemented.
“That percent is way higher than the national average and way, way higher than the cohort we usually give scholarships to, who may be the first in their families to go to college,” he adds.
College Now also helps individuals navigate the Student Loan Rescue Program that began in 2013, and which has saved about 1,000 Northeast Ohioans $81 million in student loan debt. That amount can then be earmarked to buy homes, vehicles and other necessities, boosting the local economy.
“People need to appreciate that we are leaving economic health on the table if we don’t help everyone get post-secondary credentials,” says Friedman. “I think businesses understood it first because they couldn’t hire enough people in the medical, financial and manufacturing fields. Employers understood, but I am not sure they connected the need for students in middle school, junior high and high school to become inspired and get assistance.
“Most kids are very interested in their own future. But they may not come from a background where they can relate to post-secondary education or feel that they can accomplish anything. You have to connect the dots for them.”
During the 2016-2017 academic year, College Now served 27,000 individuals. A total of $3.4 million in scholarships was awarded that year, part of the more than $71 million in scholarship money given to Greater Cleveland students since College Now’s inception.
“Over the next 50 years, we need to make sure every individual in our region and state has the opportunity and credentials they need to be part of the local economy,” says Friedman. “That’s a predictor of happiness.”