The organization has made a commitment to extend its support services to all Cleveland Metropolitan School District and partnering charter schools by the 2022-2023 school year.
for WCPN
College Now brought counselors and a bus serving as a mobile application center to various Cleveland-area locations to help get local students back on track with college applications.
The Say Yes to Education college scholarship and student support program was supposed to be a game-changer for the Cleveland school district, and for a city in need of better-educated residents.
It hasn’t worked out like organizers hoped.
After a promising start in 2019, COVID-19 cut off Say Yes at the knees in the spring of 2020, thwarting efforts to place more Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD) high school graduates in college. Instead of growing college enrollment, Say Yes organizers couldn’t stop the pandemic from driving enrollment for this fall to just 36 percent of new graduates, the lowest in years and below when Say Yes started in Cleveland.