The Challenge

​While the gap between the earnings of college graduates and less educated peers continues to widen, so does the difference between the proportion of prosperous and poor Americans who earn college degrees. It is becoming increasingly unlikely that low-income students, no matter how bright, will get the educational opportunities that allow them to move up the socioeconomic ladder, an injustice that Americans should be unwilling to accept.

LoyalTeach works to close three gaps that reflect that injustice:

  1. The Achievement Gap – California state testing shows that reading and math proficiency rates for low-income students are roughly 50% lower than the proficiency rates of their wealthier peers. These income-based achievement gaps tend to widen as students age. Without targeted academic support that improves their college readiness, low-income students face reduced access to affordable college degrees and, ultimately, successful careers.
  2. The Information Gap – Low-income students usually lack the degree of guidance and the informative social networks that benefit their wealthier peers, leaving them unaware of the full range of careers, programs, and funding available to them.
  3. The Graduation Gap – Less than 25% of California community college students who intend to transfer to a four-year institution manage to do so within four years of starting college. Among low-income California students who start college at four-year institutions, more than one out of three fail to earn a bachelor’s degree within six years. First-generation college students drop out of school at three times the rate of those whose parents graduated from college. About half of dropouts have an average debt of $10,000.  Some college can be worse than none at all, leaving students with debt, no degree, and time lost in the job market. Students need to be mentored THROUGH college, not just to it.