Virtual Scholarship Center

As a personal recipient of over $200,000 in scholarships, I launched VSC because of the equity gaps that exist in the $1.64 trillion student loan market. VSC addresses 3 pressing issues - lack of minority family awareness of financial aid options, limited counselor capacity in high-need communities, and the inability to address gaps over the course of enrollment.

Our solution, The Virtual Scholarship Center, helps school districts and nonprofits create a structured financial aid pathway along with benchmarks of progress, and capacity-building supports via trainings and access to corporate volunteer engagement.  The customized scholarship search engine grants minority students access to local/state-based aid that they have a stronger chance of winning.  When scaled, we envision utilizing our tools, scholarship provider network and volunteer infrastructure to re-define what "college material" looks like in underserved communities.

35,000- That’s the average amount of debt facing recent graduates. According to a Gates Foundation report, 70% of students who dropped out of college cited finances as a primary obstacle. We're reimagining the financial aid process, using tech to build healthier financial aid cultures where financial aid doesn't just "happen" to the more than 7 million low income, minority families that pursue college enrollment each year.   Our online tool, The Virtual Scholarship Center is a scholarship planning platform that flips the financial aid model by enabling local scholarship providers to
search for eligible students, equipping counselors with tools to track 4-yr college funding planning (not simply enrollment), and making college funding a 'community affair" by engaging trained corporate partners in individualized virtual financial aid volunteering strategies that increase students' ability to
enroll AND graduate with limited loan debt.  

We're helping to improve the overall financial health of our users by 1) challenging them to anticipate the gaps in their financial aid packagesthat typically halt matriculation, 2) connecting them to local and state-based resources that reduce their overall loan debt and increase their likelihood of graduating with minimum debt and 3) position them to begin adulthood without the burden of student loan debt so that they can break the cycles of poverty in their communities.

Using a scholarship search engine scraper to create customized local scholarship databases on an Amazon web server, and a mobile app that provides instant "chat" opportunities with financial aid experts, we create a virtual community of financial aid accountability that would 1) connect students to tangible financial aid planning resources, 2) increase counselors’ capacity to effectively position students for private scholarship success and 3) expand the eligible applicant pool for local scholarship providers via a common scholarship application form.

Our target customers consist of 3 primary target groups: 1) low-income (defined by free/reduced lunch and Pell-eligibility with an average household income of $25,000 or less (ranges from $10,000 - $40,000
depending on household size), 2) first-generation college students with limited financial aid planning information, and 3) college access advisors in under-resourced communities who lack both the tools and the capacity to help families develop realistic college funding strategies.

Our program was initially designed to break through the stereotypical barriers that define what "college material" looks like in the urban communities by focusing on "average" students (2.5- 3.3 GPA) in grades9-12 who would not normally interact with their guidance counselors, college prep advisors etc. Our niche is students who aren't typically viewed as "college material", students in the average 2.5 GPA range, and disconnected youth that identify as homeless or in foster care. We also have a solid reputation of engaging boys of color in our work across multiple partner sites.

To implement this solution, we partner with  local, regional and state-wide nonprofits and high schools/districts that are committed to "doing financial aid differently."  Using a 360 degree Financial Aid Assessment tool, we gage the financial aid knowledge, engagement, and efficacy of students, parents and counselors, and design a series of Train the Trainer sessions, financial aid immersion events such as Escape Rooms, and online courses to increase their ability to navigate the private scholarship market.  This, coupled with our customized local/state-based scholarship search engine and partnerships with local scholarship providers that are open to engaging students outside their traditional recruitment pipelines creates a financial aid rigor comparable to that placed on the other aspects of the college admissions process (SAT Prep, college selection, etc).

College affordabiility may not track as racial inequity. But considering the fact that 81 of African-Americans borrow, and (39%) of African-American borrowers drop out of college( 29% white borrowers), inequity's clear. Zip codes shouldn't be the determinant. We create a healthy financial aid ecosystem for minorty students by 1) partnering with schools in communities with CCRPI Indexes below 80% and training advisors and volunteers to connect students to a vital 4-year college funding community and 2) addressing an equity gap in viable local scholarship programs struggling to recruit by creating a  pipeline to connect students who are "left out.

Our solution is currently implements in 12 counties throughout the state of Georgia, engaging nearly 8000 students, 200 corporate volunteers and more than 100 college access counselors.  With the recent launch of our local scholarship provider portal, we're rapidly onboarding an average of 10 scholarship providers/month onto the portal to "do financial aid diffently.

By expanding our Train the Trainer model via strategic partnerships,
greater numbers of black youth will engage in advanced financial aid planning. In short,we're building the technology, volunteer capacity and trainings to "make college funding a community affair" in black
communities throughout Georgia, New York and Washington, DC.

The VSC is the first platform of its kind to connect three primary stakeholders- students, counselors/mentors and /scholarship providers- in a flipped model that incorporates counselor and volunteer trainings, customized scholarship search engines and access to our blended program model via The Scholarship Academy's Financial Aid Immers

In short, we leverage technology to close financial aid gaps. Through the Virtual Scholarship Center we’re building strategic partnerships with local scholarship organizations that receive fewer applicants, creating a critical opportunity for them to search for eligible applicants within our database to disburse untapped resources.

To date, our model has helped students claim $50 million in private aid. We strive to accelerate our organization's ability to create equitable financial aid cultures to communities where financial aid doesn't just "happen.” For the last nine years, our program hascentered on a human capital direct-service delivery model. As a part of our strategic plan, we are now transitioning to a Train the Trainer Model that will enable our core partners to integrate critical components of our curriculum and performance measurement into their work.  through our new Train the Trainer model involves a blended LEARN-DO-TRACK approach of re-trained college advisors, high quality financial aid tools that meet families where they are, and increased capacity for individualized financial aid planning support via the Virtual Scholarship Center's corporate volunteer-led Virtual Office Hours.

We currently serve nearly 8000 students and parents, 150 volunteers, and 30 local scholarship providers via our local state and regional program partners. In the next year, via our Train the Trainer Model, we anticipate engaging an additional 10,000.  In five years, we are confident out technology will position us to be at the helm of empowering more than 50,000 students and parents, 2500 corporate volunteers and 500 local/state scholarshi providers in our work.

Through our Virtual Scholarship Center, we have created an automated process, guided by the Casey Foundation's Results-Based Accountability Framework, to measure the following: 

“How Much We Do” Key Performance Indicators: 

Number of Outreach/Individual Sessions 

Number of Local Scholarship Providers Engaged Tracking Methods: Event Sign-In Sheets, Online Scholarship Portal Enrollment 

Number of TechBridge’s recommended technology infrastructure improvements that TSA implements

“How Well We Do” Key Performance Indicators:

Percent of Providers Who Demonstrate Improved Confidence in Identifying Scholarship Recipients Based on Pre/Post Survey

Percent of Time Used on Reporting and Administrative Tasks after TechBridge recommendations are Implemented.

Percent of Providers Who are Retained Year over Year

“Are They Better Off” Key Performance Goals: 

A 60% increase in financial aid confidence, demonstrated via early college funding planning, 50% empowered to make educated financial aid decisions

A 70% increase in the number of quality private scholarship applications and EARLY FAFSA applications submitted

We have 3 full-time staff, 2 part-time contractors including a technology officer, 9 AmeriCorps members, and we annually engage 150-200 volunteers.  

For the first time in the history of TSA, we have the right tools (a customizable online tool with tracking and evaluation capabilities), the right access to partners with national affiliations that could replicate our work and the right program model to advance our work from high school through college.

My team consists of a Director of Operations has more than 10 years experience in program development, management and strategic operations and a solid higher education profile that informs key programming efforts. Our Program Manager is a college access/youth development specialist who
previously worked for a scholarship-granting organization, which informs some of our core scholarship program strategies. We are also supported by a
Chief Technology Officer (CTO) who received a full ride to West Point and has launched two previous tech platforms. As an AmeriCorps site, our organization has recruited more than 150 corporate volunteers, and is uniquely positioned to accelerate our tool to aggressively address students' critical financial aid counseling needs in the wake of COVID-19.

We work to ensure that diversity and inclusiveness in 1) Our Hiring Process – As an AmeriCorps site, we are committed to recruiting AmeriCorps members from the Opportunity Youth network to serve our students 2) Our Service Delivery- We work hard to break through the barriers of what college material looks like by focusing on a mid-stream ideal student make-up (2.5-3.3 GPA) with an emphasis on boys of color and disconnected youth. Beyond our course, we provide whole school support and community outreach via our Scholarship Mobile, an interactive vehicle with 10 computer workstations that allows us to “meet students where they are” on the financial aid journey. 3) We attract young professionals and corporate volunteers from all walks of life who work, whether that be on our board or in our office, within
the TSA framework to ensure the success of our program.

Our participation in the MIT Solve Competition will allow us to develop an effective blueprint for bringing our platform to scale, enable us to not only create a sustainable, statewide framework, but also lend an opportunity for us to share best practices with our peers so that we can collectively empower low-income families to obtain college degrees with the least amount of debt.

1. (January 2022 - August 2022)  Deploy a comprehensive data strategy that reflects our Train the Trainer transition. We have met with TechBridge to prioritize the following improvements during phase one of our data management infrastructure expansion:

2. (October 2021 -  March 2022) Salesforce/CRM Integration, which will allow us to mainstream all data and customer service needs across all partners to support our growth over the next three years, including the following

3. Streamlined and consistent performance tracking for our new Train The Trainer-focused Logic Models, and aligned Results-Based Accountability  Framework, measurement of Key Performance Indicators that 

4. Data backup and security to protect student data and ensure alignment with 

The end results of this project will include:

1. An increased capacity to engage trained corporate volunteers via our online portal

2. Closing the gaps in our mobile app so that we can match our students with trained corporate volunteers to receive one-on-one financial aid planning supports

3. Increased access to performance data through our partner sites

4. Increasing the number of participants by nearly 3x by 2024 to include 3,700 students, 50 college access advisors and 1,000 corporate volunteers.

Addressing these areas will accelerate our organization's ability to create equitable financial aid cultures in our target communities where financial aid doesn't just "happen.” TSA’s vision for impact through our new Train the Trainer model involves a blended LEARN-DO-TRACK approach of re-trained college advisors, high quality financial aid tools that meet families where they are, and increased capacity for individualized financial aid planning support.

We would love to partner with the national offices of our local affiliates - OneGoal, BreakThrough Atlanta, 100 Black Men of Metro Atlanta, etc.  We'd also love to connect with state higher education associations and federal programs such as TRIO and GEAR UP to provide our solution on a national level.

Not applicable

Students who participate in The Scholarship Academy curriculum learn how to negotiate their financial aid packages, manage their financial awards (in preparation for tuition increases), and independently navigate the private scholarship market beyond our support, tools that reduce debt and increase the likelihood of graduation.