Imagine if everyone in Central Alabama had the keys to opportunity.
What would that look like? What would it take to create the kind of positive change that would reach each and EVERY person?
The Bold Goals Coalition’s FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) Action Network is seeing some answers come into focus. We’re excited to report that EVERY high school across the Bold Goals region is participating in the Cash for College campaign. That means that EVERY one of the 63 high schools in our region, altogether serving 12,000 students, will have access to extensive help and support in completing financial aid forms. (This is huge because we know that 9 out of 10 students who apply for financial aid attend college the next fall.)
We need more students to have access to education after high school. As our economy revolves more and more around advanced knowledge and technical skills, education after high school will provide the keys to opportunity. But don’t just take our word for it; check with the Lumina Foundation, Alabama Workforce Council’s Success Plus and Building (it) Together.
Most Alabama students qualify for Pell Grants of up to $6,195 per year that they would not have to repay. There are numerous ways to use these grants for additional education after high school, but many students in our region don’t know about the form, or need help filling it out.
But last year, through the hard work of many Bold Goals partners and strong leadership from Alabama Possible, Alabama had the nation’s 4th largest increase in FAFSA completions. We’re hard at work to keep the momentum going, and you can track our progress through this dashboard.
Being BOLD means working for big change. Big change happens when we work together from a common agenda toward shared outcomes that we can measure. That’s how we’re getting to EVERY.
The Bold Goals Coalition is 200 organizations solving big community problems by aligning partners, resources and agendas.