By: AIF Staff
American Idea Foundation President and former House Speaker Paul Ryan has long believed that education is essential to helping individuals experience upward mobility and economic prosperity. There is a strong correlation between economic well-being and educational attainment, which is why the American Idea Foundation is working with organizations who are expanding access to higher education, helping students (often first-generation students or under-represented communities) to complete their degrees, and doing so in an evidence-based way.
One of these groups, which was awarded a grant from the American Idea Foundation in 2025, is College Possible.
Founded by Jim McCorkell, who was a first-generation college student, in St. Paul, Minnesota, College Possible was built on the belief that every student, regardless of their individual challenges, should have a chance to attend and succeed in college.
Starting with 35 students and a group of AmeriCorps coaches, College Possible has helped nearly 100,000 students since they began twenty-five years. Their expansion is due in large part to their unique programming model and their fidelity to data and evidence.
College Possible matches eligible students with near-peer coaches and provides an intensive curriculum designed to help these students overcome the most common barriers to getting into college and completing their degrees at no cost to students or their families.
These peer coaches operate from one of College Possible’s 8 sites across the country and provide students who have been identified and selected as having high academic potential and who come from low-income backgrounds, with 5 critical services:
(1) academic support through ACT/SAT test preparation;
(2) college application assistance;
(3) financial aid consulting;
(4) guidance in the transition to college; and
(5) coaching throughout college to support the academic confidence, financial literacy and resilience needed to graduate.
Originally conceived as a program centered around “test prep help for students who can’t afford Kaplan,” College Possible has expanded methodically. It now has a presence in 8 regions of the country, with sites stretching from Austin, TX to Seattle, WA, and College Possible’s near-peer coaches have assisted nearly 100,000 students on their college journeys.
To see the impact College Possible has had on the lives of young Americans, check out this video featuring testimonials from students enrolled in the College Possible Wisconsin program.
Beginning in 2008, College Possible began working with the Milwaukee Public School system, deploying their model to help students successfully apply and complete an undergraduate degree. In 2018, a multi-year evaluation was commissioned to measure how students participating in the College Possible program performed relative to a peer group, who were also in the Milwaukee Public School system.
The results of the evaluation were impressive. Among them:
- College Possible students were 30% more likely to enroll in college immediately after high school.
- College Possible students completed 1.4x the number of scholarship applications relative to the comparison group.
- Enrolled students were 30% more likely to attend a 4-year college or university.
Equally important was the finding that the more often students participated in the College Possible program, the higher their college enrollment and persistence rates were.
These state-specific results lend credibility to a 2013 randomized controlled trial conducted by Professor Chris Avery of Harvard’s Kennedy School. This evaluation, which consisted of 238 Minnesota juniors and seniors who were randomly selected and split into treatment and control groups, found the following:
- Participating in College Possible led to a statistically significant increase in college enrollment by around 19 to 21%.
- Utilizing College Possible increased the likelihood of applying to a “highly competitive” or “very competitive” school and increased the number of applications submitted, particularly to four-year programs.
- The effectiveness of College Possible’s programming was limited when it came to standardized test scores and the positive impact diminished over time as students enrolled in college degree programs.
As College Possible has matured as an organization, they have tweaked their model to account for some of these research findings. In 2016, to ensure that the robust, hands-on support continued throughout students’ college journeys, College Possible created the Catalyze program, which is a partnership where peer-coaches work with student support teams directly on campuses to help 1st year and 2nd year students remain on track towards degree completion.
In 2024, the Catalyze program helped 4,000 students graduate from 9 partner schools. It works by having coaches, who are often recent graduates of the same institution and partner campus, work directly with enrolled students to navigate registration, financial aid renewals, degree requirements, and connections to on-campus resources. These college freshmen and sophomores benefit from a trusted relationship with their near-peer coach and access to College Possible’s tech-enabled curriculum, which hopefully increases the likelihood of their remaining in school through graduation.
College Possible has recognized the importance of evidence and data in measuring success and the organization has gone a step further by augmenting their programming in response to early studies and experiments. They are committed to meeting the long-term needs of students and have worked tirelessly to help under-resourced students not only gain acceptance to colleges but to succeed and graduate upon admission.
The data from College Possible alumni is a testament to the program’s impact. In a 2024 survey of alumni, 95% of college graduates were employed, 71% were saving for retirement, 57% have experienced material career advancements, and nearly 40% were pursuing or had completed an advanced degree.
College Possible was created with the noble goal of helping every young person in America pursue higher education and because of the effectiveness of their peer-coaches and their reliance on evidence and data in shaping their programming, they are well on their way to succeeding. The American Idea Foundation looks forward to partnering with them as they continue to scale and assist more deserving students get into college and ultimately graduate.
To learn more about the American Idea Foundation’s 2025 grant recipients, click here.