Identifying the Real-World Challenges of Getting to and through College

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, many vulnerable students were struggling with their postsecondary journeys. In fact, research shows that the proportion of college students of color was just 43.7 percent in 2018. 

In an effort to highlight the difficulties young people face managing the transition to college in a highly fragmented system, Bellwether Education Partners has created Reimagining the Road to Graduation, a Corporation-supported online resource featuring stories about the real-world challenges students face while navigating the path to and through college. Drawing on the lived experience of five students, the site provides concrete examples of the hurdles that get in the way of attending and completing college, how COVID-19 and local dynamics have made things even harder, and targeted, actionable recommendations to help educators, advisers, and policymakers address and eliminate those hurdles.

Created as an emergency response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Reimagining the Road to Graduation began as a way to inform the field around postsecondary transitions amid the pandemic crisis. It was expanded to provide reimagined avenues of support for students long after the difficulties of COVID-19 subside. The site is designed to help districts and leaders better understand the obstacles vulnerable students face and to encourage adults across the sector to find new ways of ensuring that young people have multiple, clear pathways to college graduation and that the pandemic does not permanently derail a generation of young people from achieving a college degree.