Bottom Line

by Steve Colón

As the leader of an organization that works alongside students as they get into and graduate from college, having the top news stories focus on the college admission process is exciting. The story circulating, unfortunately, exposes the unspoken and illegal practices that help a few very privileged students gain acceptance to college, especially the most selective and competitive ones.

While the media is right to focus on this scandal, a more significant and pervasive issue requires equal if not more attention. Right now, hundreds of thousands of students from low-income backgrounds are navigating their own postsecondary journeys, facing hardships perpetuated by an antiquated education system which is not designed to give ALL of them the tools they need to overcome the barriers they’ll face. They strive for the same opportunities as their wealthier peers, to develop their interests and talents into a career, but their path to success is disproportionally cluttered.

Education is an engine of upward mobility. A college degree is the single most effective intervention to poverty. Students from low-income backgrounds who obtain a college degree are five times more likely than their peers to find financial health. People with a college degree will earn $1M more over the course of their lifetime than those without. We see these results with students we serve – the average starting salary for Bottom Line’s most recent graduates is two times the amount of the average family income of our student population.

The sad truth of the current news story is that, while the alleged actions of these families were blatantly illegal, their children already benefit from many advantages. Students from high-income backgrounds are:

• more likely to have access to rigorous college preparatory coursework and robust early college programs (AP, IB, Dual Credit)
• more likely to have access to additional academic support, extracurricular activities, and SAT /ACT prep
• more likely to have dedicated college counselors to help with the process of getting into a postsecondary institution
• less likely to need to work during high school and college
• more likely to have personal networks that support them in finding quality first destination jobs regardless of college, academic major, or GPA

Just by helping students navigate the current system, the Bottom Line model gets excellent results. We expect over 96 percent of our high school seniors will commit to a college by the end of May, and 77 percent of those students will earn their degree within six years through their dedication and hard work coupled with Bottom Line’s step-by-step and personalized guidance.

While it is easy to shake our heads at the cheating scandal, I ask that we also extend our hands to students whose talent can easily get lost in a flawed process. Let’s make sure that all students – regardless of socio-economics, skin color, or other marginalized identities – get a fair shot at achieving their dreams and create a ripple effect that will uplift our communities.