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How Dave Eggers’ Nonprofit Helps First Generation Students Crowdfund
Through College | EdSurge News

https://www.edsurge.com/n/2015-06-11-how-dave-eggers-nonprofit-helps-first-generation-students-crowdfund-through-college

How Dave Eggers’ Nonprofit Helps First Generation Students Crowdfund
Through College | EdSurge News
------------------------------

While author Dave Eggers cautions against the ominous aspirations of tech
startups in his novels, his nonprofit, ScholarMatch
<https://scholarmatch.org/>, uses technology to help low-income young
people work towards a successful future—hopefully, one more fulfilling than
in Customer Experience at *The Circle*
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Circle_%28Eggers_novel%29>.

Started in 2010, ScholarMatch offers information and mentoring to
first-generation and low-income high school students throughout the college
application process. Over 500 students drop into its storefront in San
Francisco’s hip Mission neighborhood every year.

“One of the biggest issues first-generation and low-income students face is
misalignment,” Eggers wrote to EdSurge in an email. While many have the
scores and transcripts to attend colleges across the country—often with a
full-ride—they aren’t aware of the options. As he explains, ScholarMatch’s
seven employees and 75 annual volunteers provide “guidance about which
colleges are actually graduating first-gen, low-income students, and doing
so without leaving them with crippling debt.”

And technology plays its role. Eggers concedes, "In the case of college
counseling and college access, technology can be helpful." Beyond advice,
ScholarMatch also offers a way for students to avoid debt through
crowdfunding <https://scholarmatch.org/projects/?id_category=scholar>.
Students create personal online profiles including photos, interests and
goals, and interested donors can contribute funding and mentorship
throughout the college process. As of fall 2015, students will have raised
almost $1,000,000 on the platform.

“What ScholarMatcher can do for students, parents, and for the overworked
and underpaid college counselors, is provide more pinpointed information
about each student’s options.”

*Dave Eggers, Author and Founder of ScholarMatch*

The nonprofit provided this guidance to Jessica Cheung, a graduate of
Lowell High School, a San Francisco public school with eight counselors
serving 2,718 students during the 2014-2015 school year. The daughter of
first-generation immigrants, she was intimidated by the labyrinthine
college application process, especially when it came to applying for
financial aid.

“They came to help us work on college essays, and told us about a financial
aid workshop there,” Cheung recalls. “ScholarMatch is not just a one-stop
shop—I could go there if I needed a desk to work on my cover letters, or
just to be around people who would give me the affection and guidance that
students who come from my background don’t really get,” she says. “It’s an
army of people who care about where you end up—that moral support is
invaluable.”

According to the National Association for College Admission Counseling, an
average California high school has one counselor for every 951 students.
Even more troubling: One in five US high schools offer no school counselors
at all <http:///h>. (Those are general guidance counselors—specialized
college counselors are few and far between at public high schools.)
Students who can’t afford the rising price tag of private college
counseling often don’t know where to turn.

“We have students who come in and know nothing about the [college
application] process. After a few hours working with our volunteers,
they have an essay that’s top-notch and a list of colleges with real
financial aid options, that they never heard of before they came here,”
explains Diana Adamson, Executive Director of ScholarMatch. “A lot of
low-income kids just don’t have access to someone who can open that door
for them.”

In May 2015, ScholarMatch extended its services across the country with the
launch of ScholarMatcher <http://scholarmatcher.scholarmatch.org/>, an
online database of schools hand-picked by the ScholarMatch team for their
support of low-income students. It currently lists 296 schools
<https://scholarmatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/2015_SM_Honor_Roll.pdf>—1,400
were evaluated—selected based on financial aid, academic rigor, student
support and post-graduate success. The ScholarMatch team has called each
school to ensure it offers additional resources specifically targeted for
first-generation students.

According to Adamson, the highest-scoring colleges are a “surprising mix”
of prestigious names that typically rank highly on US News & Reports “as
well as some public institutions, like the University of Michigan, that do
an amazing job with first-generation students.” The database “includes
amazing small schools that don’t get much recognition, including lots of
conservatories of music,” adds Selina Weiss, Communications Manager at
ScholarMatch.

“The main strength of ScholarMatcher is that the data is immense and
complex, as is the analysis, but the tool is meant to be very simple,” says
Adamson. “With a few clicks, students can create a robust and realistic
list for themselves.”

“With ScholarMatcher, a San Francisco public high school student who
otherwise would have only applied to SF State and other CSU schools might
become aware of, say, Ohio Wesleyan, a great school that provides very
strong aid packages to students like them,” explains Eggers. He also hopes
educators and community members will use the resource. “What ScholarMatcher
can do for students, parents, and for the overworked and underpaid college
counselors, is provide more pinpointed information about each student’s
options,” he says.

Each school profile on ScholarMatcher includes information about student
body size, institution type, religion affiliation, environment, test score
policy, and admission selectivity. A map function allows students to see
potential colleges from across the country. Cheung sees this as “especially
important” for first-generation students, since “there’s this tendency to
stay near home, and that may be their biggest priority.”

The acceptance letter doesn’t mark the end of a student’s engagement with
ScholarMatch; for many, the community and mentor relationships continue
throughout college and beyond.

During her freshman year at Fordham University, Cheung found that “it
wasn’t sustainable financially, and I wasn’t happy there.” So she called
ScholarMatch. Over the winter break of her freshman year, “I sat
shoulder-to-shoulder with Noel [Program Director at ScholarMatch],
narrowing down the schools I wanted to apply to,” she recalls. The
ScholarMatch team supported her throughout the transfer process. “They
really knew me and knew what would make a school notice me,” she says. “I
don’t think I would have gotten into Middlebury without ScholarMatch
pushing me to talk about my background in my essays.” This May, Cheung
graduated from Middlebury, and started an internship at NPR with All Things
Considered.

Cheung has high hopes for how ScholarMatcher can support other
first-generation students across the country. “The tool didn’t exist for
students like me,” she says. “But the list of schools [on ScholarMatcher]
is hand-picked by people who really have the authority to make decisions
about what schools students will thrive at.”


Eric D. Schwerin
eschwerin@rosemontseneca.com

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