College Outreach

College Outreach is a national non-profit organization with a vast network of college chapters and undergraduate students who actively promote socioeconomic diversity in higher education.

College Outreach seeks to educate low-income students about the advantages of a college education and provide information to them about the entire process of preparing for, choosing and applying to the right college for them. In order to do this effectively, we believe a direct student-to-student connection is essential and therefore, also offer mentoring services via experienced undergraduates. These mentors can help with any number of questions and are also great tools for assistance with the college selection and application process.
We believe that by providing information and advice, those who might otherwise not apply to college will, and those who would have applied even without College Outreach intervention, will make more informed decisions about which colleges to attend.

College Outreach could not possibly accomplish its mission without the help of undergraduates across the country. For this reason, we focus primarily on promoting the establishment of College Outreach Chapters on campuses across the country and assisting those chapters with their development. With all of the necessary start-up resources available through this website, undergraduates can more easily start chapters on their own campus, recruit other interested members and effectively impart information and provide mentoring services to low-income high school students. With our tools in hand, such as the College Outreach Guidebook and many other resources, undergraduates are encouraged to return to high schools in and around their hometowns over breaks and during the academic year, to give presentations about the college experience. At these presentations, low-income high school students can apply for a mentor and if chosen, enroll in our one-on-one program with a current undergraduate.

Nate Herring founded College Outreach in 2006 with the help of two friends, Miles Hall and Elliott Stark. A Yale graduate from a low-income background, Nate realized the value of an education and the opportunities available with a college degree. Struck by the disproportionate rates of lower-income students attending college, he decided to form an organization that he hopes can reverse this trend.
With the help of then College Outreach Vice President Smoot Carter, a student at Louisiana State University, College Outreach was born. College Outreach began on the basic premise that current college students, on a grassroots level, can help diversify campuses nationwide through outreach and advising to high school students. Student outreach and advising programs have already seen success when used to recruit for a particular university and the idea of nationalizing this technique was met with overwhelming support from college administrators and students alike. It is from this pool of interest that the organizational structure of College Outreach emerged. College Outreach has an Advisory Board composed of distinguished university administrators, admissions officers and faculty members, as well as an administrative board of highly successful graduate students. College Outreach Regional Directors assist newly forming chapters through the organization of resources and coordination of efforts.

In an age when a college degree has become more of an economic and social necessity than a luxury, the most disadvantaged students typically receive the worst college guidance and advice. Only 11 percent of the college students are from families in the lowest income quartile, while 50 percent of college students from the wealthiest quartile of America. By 2010, 42 percent of all new jobs are expected to require a post-secondary degree and those with a bachelor’s degree have twice the median income of an individual with only a high school degree. It is these troublesome and unbalanced statistics that has given birth to College Outreach.