College Board and ASPIRA to Offer New College Planning Guidance to Thousands of Latino Youth

NEW YORK — The College Board and ASPIRA are pleased to announce a new national collaboration between the College Board and ASPIRA, with the mission to help improve college completion rates for Latino youth. Starting in November, the College Board will arm ASPIRA, the nation’s leading Latino youth service organization, with more expertise to help guide over 45,000 students through the college planning process by helping them prepare, apply and pay for college, as well as practice for the SAT®.

The College Board will be offering college aspiration and planning information along with resources that ASPIRA will leverage beginning in November to help motivate youth to pursue a postsecondary education:

• Web-based training seminars on college planning — Throughout November, ASPIRA staff and mentors will receive Web-based training seminars on college planning from the College Board. The seminars will focus on how to prepare for the SAT; awareness on content for AP® and PSAT/NMSQT programs; and learning how to use the college planning tools BigFuture™, which offers interactive content that assists students in finding, preparing for, applying to and paying for college; and YouCanGo!™, a companion site of BigFuture designed to inspire students who aren’t certain if college is for them.

• College planning materials — The College Board will also be shipping materials to hundreds of ASPIRA sites across the country and Puerto Rico as part of the collaboration. These materials will include information on BigFuture, the “Five Ways Ed Pays” campaign and SAT preparation materials.

• Local college planning sessions — The College Board is also working with ASPIRA to create opportunities for ASPIRA students to participate in local college planning sessions.

“The College Board’s training will be value-added for students as it will help to enhance staff skills to empower students on the college going process,” said Ron Blackburn Moreno, ASPIRA’s president and CEO. “We are thrilled to be partnering with the College Board, an organization that shares our goal to ensure that Latino youth have the tools they need to succeed.»

This partnership is part of the College Board’s commitment to provide access to and equity in postsecondary education for all students. The College Board shares ASPIRA’s goal of ensuring that Latino youth have the support, resources and information they need to help them succeed in college. Although the number of Latino youth enrolling in college continues to increase, in 2010 only 13 percent of Latino youth ages 25 to 29 held a bachelor’s degree. ASPIRA has a proven track record of enabling this student success: 89 percent of youth who participate in ASPIRA programs graduate from college.

“ASPIRA is doing exemplary work in increasing college success for Latino students,” said Peter Negroni, senior vice president of relationship development for the College Board. “By leveraging each other’s strengths, we hope this collaboration will enable us to reach even more Latino families and provide the best possible support.”

Instilling the value of a college education is particularly important for Latino families, who often face challenging barriers that lead them to postpone or abandon plans to go to college. College aspiration campaigns such as the College Board’s Five Ways Ed Pays are designed to raise awareness on a community level through schools of the value of higher education.