Advocating for Accessible Education

Briana Barron (left), Dr. Janet Morrison-Lane (right)

Last week, Dr. Janet Morrison-Lane and Briana Barron, one of our Scholar grads currently attending SMU on an almost full-ride, made their voices heard by traveling to Washington D.C. and participating in the two-day National College Attainment Network (NCAN) Leadership Conference.

This event brought like-minded individuals together to urge Congress to not only continue funding the Pell Grant, but to fund it through mandatory channels and even moderately increase the amount that is given to students across the nation in an effort to make college attainable for all.

The current maximum amount that can be awarded to a student is $7,395 per year, while the average cost of attendance for a public Texas university is upwards of $28,000. The Pell Grant – while it does not cover a student’s entire tuition – does cover a portion of it, and sometimes it even makes the difference between a student ability to attend college or not.

This conference gave two fiercely dedicated education and policy advocates – and hundreds more like them – the ability to advocate for the grant, bringing first-hand experiences to the table of what this kind of access can do for students from under resourced backgrounds. Thanks to the Pell Grant, many of our Scholars who thought college wasn't possible came to see that they could receive financial assistance.

We challenge our Scholars during their senior year to apply for many scholarships to make their collegiate experience as low cost as possible to them and their families. This, in combination with federal funding like the Pell Grant, helps decrease their out-of-pocket costs by about $2,000-$3,000. The Pell Grant not only helps the Scholars, but it helps us as an organization to keep our costs low as we assist Scholars who have been in our program since middle school with the gap in funding.

As an organization, we believe in the power of education and believe that with the right people at the table, we can change the world for the better. We are so proud of our Executive Director, Dr. Janet, for being a trailblazer in the education space – and even more proud of our Scholar grad, Briana, for emerging into the world as an education advocate and leveraging her first-generation experience to fight for others to receive the same opportunities that she did.

With more leaders like them at the forefront, anything is possible.