About the Project
According to the latest longitudinal data on college completion, only 10% of entering 9th graders to the School District of Philadelphia in 1999-2000 had graduated from college by 2009. Despite increasing college access and completion rates for low-income students, college completion is still troublingly low. A lack of college degree severely limits individual employability, diminishes earning potentials, and stifles economic development in Philadelphia – however, as education scholars have begun to discover, a key junction for intervention lies in the summer after high school graduation.
About the Client
ICAN is an innovative new program targeted at recent high school graduates from Philadelphia who intend to matriculate at college. Using mentorship and mobile applications to support low-income students through the summer between high school and college, we hope to decrease the number of students who are accepted to college but never enroll: an issue the experts call “summer melt”.
You can find a link to their website here.
Main Features
Impact
The iCAN app will act as a social platform for the iCAN administrator and student to connect, with clickable links to relevant tasks such as enrolling for classes, reading a tuition bill, and selecting a dorm. Students will be able to respond to received messages to request help from the iCAN administrator if needed. The iCAN app will also provide a social network for other iCAN participants through FAQ forums and links to social media like Facebook.
For all inquiries of partnership or sponsorship, please contact us at [email protected].