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MVCAP promotes college, focuses on urban students
By Denise Dick
WARREN
The number of students from the Mahoning Valley’s two urban school districts thinking about college is increasing.
Mahoning Valley College Access Program concentrates much of its focus on Youngstown and Warren city school students, getting them to think about college and careers beginning in elementary schools.
That exposure intensifies as those students progress to middle and then high school.
Lita Wills, MVCAP executive director, said the nonprofit organization works with high-schoolers, helping them complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, forms and college applications.
The FAFSA forms can be complicated particularly for students who would be the first in their families to attend college.
Because the forms have to include parents’ financial income, some people find them off-putting.
“People don’t understand the process or they don’t trust the process,” Wills said.
In 2015, 54 percent of Warren G. Harding High School seniors completed the FAFSA forms, and 68 percent filled out college applications.
In 2016, those numbers increased to 59 percent and 75 percent, respectively.
In 2015, 55 percent of Chaney students and 21 percent of East students completed FAFSA compared with 66 percent and 20 percent in 2016.
“We’re pretty happy to see that incremental process,” Wills said.
For college applications in 2015, 76 percent of Chaney students and 54 percent of East students completed them. That changed to 97 percent for Chaney and 54 percent at East in 2016.
East has proved to be a challenge, Wills said. The school deals with high absenteeism and many students attend the district’s virtual academy rather than classes at school.
About 15 percent of East students aren’t engaged with MVCAP.
MVCAP uses Ohio College Guides through AmeriCorps. Those guides, who are recent college graduates, work with high-school guidance counselors and other officials to provide the assistance to students.
The guides are close in age to the high-schoolers, allowing more of a peer relationship.
“Both districts have been very supportive,” the executive director said.
MVCAP works students through the process to prepare for college: taking the right courses, signing up for the ACT, completing FAFSA, applying to college and securing high-school transcripts.
That process also may involve a reality check, Wills said.
“We try to be as realistic as possible,” she said.
Occasionally, they encounter a student who plans to move to Los Angeles to attend community college there.
“We try to show them cost comparisons,” Wills said.
MVCAP also works with schools for college fairs and career days. The organization also offers last-dollar scholarships to students. MVCAP is supported financially by donations and grants, not public money.
While the organization helps any students who need it, it targets those who might otherwise fall through the cracks. Targeting the Valley’s urban high-school students started when Wills became executive director in late 2012. She hopes the numbers of those students helped continues to rise.
“We’d like to see 65 to 70 percent,” Wills said. “We like to see every kid apply to college and complete the FAFSA.”