Dollars for Scholars helping students reach college

All right. It is always a good time to get your high school seniors ready for college. And Dollars for Scholars has a great program, and they're doing just that. Joining me now is Krista Funk, the executive director for the Detroit Regional Dollars for Scholars. I love the name. I've been saying it all day. Dollars for Scholars. Dollars for Scholars. More than 140 students will have a chance to receive college acceptances right on the spot. Is that right? Exactly. What do you see that that changes for a child when it goes from being a possibility to something that's really going to happen for them? So much confidence. And like this event is so much fun. I think one of my favorite things is that students will actually just call their parents right away and are just thrilled to share that great news. And so it's always really fun to see that happening. But really, it makes it real. It makes it so that students know that they can actually go off to school, have a plan and really see their future kind of coming together. And you start working with these kids when they're in the 10th grade. Exactly. How much of this work is about prepping them academically for school versus just convincing them that college is possible? It's a little bit of both, but honestly, it's that confidence building to make sure that students just know that they can do it. Like we have all the faith in our students, but it sometimes takes a lot more work to make sure that they understand that they really know that they can do it. Something that is interesting, and I remember when I was in school, I mean, I went to a really good high school in Atlanta and someone can go to a great school wherever they live but there's this thing that happens when you get to college and you think everybody knows something and you know it just might not have been in the curriculum at one school so how do you prepare them for that because that can be devastating to a student or make them feel like wow I thought I was ready for this I thought I was so smart and I'm getting behind I don't I don't feel like I know everything all the other students know that can be something that kids experience as well exactly so that's why our coaching model is really important so starting in 10th grade you know students are in the program doing the different events you know engaged in the college campus tours essay prep all of those pieces to make sure that like foundationally they're set yeah but then we have a college coach that comes in senior year and sticks with them throughout their first year of post-secondary education to really make sure that when they have those doubts they have somebody to call and so our coaches are checking in finding them the right resources on the campuses you know if they need that extra tutoring they're getting them plugged into that if they have a speed bump that comes up we've got our um scholar success fund that can kind of pay for any of those you know random expenses that you might have so car breaks down we can step in and help pay that because real life does happen and you know a lot of students maybe are taking out loans in their own name there is an affordability factor for sure so how just tell me a little bit more about what you guys do to just prep students for that but you already listed some of the things that you guys are able to do yeah so one of those main things is filling out the FAFSA really making sure that students know that whole application process what they need to do and how to take care of it and then we also give every student in our program a four thousand dollar scholarship to make sure that we can help that financial barrier awesome and there's also a lot of just you know one-on-one coaching for that financial literacy piece. What does it mean for a family to watch somebody become the first in their family to go to college? It's a huge milestone. Yeah, it's really exciting for us, for them, for the students. But I think what really happens that we see is that our students have their siblings follow them. And so we have a lot of sibling relationships, you know, going through our program over the years, which is so wonderful.