I've been traveling and catching up now to the many ways that low-income and first-generation students have lost ground in the federal budget has been difficult, infuriating, and incredibly sad.
For years, I worked with Americorps volunteers to run a program in which we'd prepare dozens of college students (many of them first-generation students themselves) each year to form partnerships with local high schools through which they'd meet regularly with low-income students aspiring to college to navigate the college selection and admissions process.
Hundreds of thousands of first-generation students across the country benefitted from similar Americorps projects. And with Americorps funding now slashed by Musk's chainsaw, those programs are ending.
In Milwaukee and other cities, project sponsors are shifting part of the work to AI chatbots. In Washington State, an entire office serving thousands of rural students closed and laid off staff. There are similar stories across the country.
Meanwhile, for the privileged, the private college admissions game is now a multi-billion dollar industry.
Use your voices. And be sure that we're preparing students to use their voices on their own behalf.
