Collegiate Directions, Inc. (CDI) is a non-profit organization committed to closing the education gap by providing comprehensive college counseling services and ongoing support – beginning in high school and continuing through college graduation – to a target population of low-income, first-generation-to-college students.
Featured Scholar
Yoonjoung “Jaime” Hur
Walter Johnson HS Dickinson College
Bonners Scholar
Jaime Hur is a third year student at Dickinson College in the natural sciences department. She aspires to pursue a career as a scientific researcher or doctor upon receiving a bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry.
The United States once had the highest graduation rate of any nation. Now it stands 10th… Studies show that more and more poor and nonwhite students aspire to graduate from college – but their graduation rates fall far short of their dreams.
Just 11 percent of these students [low-income, first-generation-to-college] earn a bachelor's degree after six years, according to the Pell Institute, compared with 55% of their peers.
There are actually two Montgomery Counties separated by socioeconomics. [It is the second, less affluent population comprising 43% of MCPS students that CDI serves.]
29% of first generation students enroll in postsecondary education immediately after high school, compared to 73% of students who have at least one parent with a bachelor’s degree.
Source: The National Center for Education Statistics, 2005 study
