Get Schooled has received a $300,000 grant from KeyBank to further its outreach to first-generation-to-college youth in the Pacific Northwest. Get Schooled provides personalized support along three journeys including helping prepare them to continue their education after high school, throughout the first year of higher education, and finding and succeeding in their first jobs and early careers.
The purpose of the investment in Get Schooled – and in the youth they serve – is to support a dramatic increase in FAFSA completion and postsecondary matriculation among potential first-gen-to-college students. The grant focuses on 21 of the most challenged high schools in Portland, Reynolds, Seattle, and Tacoma school districts in a unique partnership between three KeyBank markets—Seattle-Cascades, South Puget Sound, and Oregon/Southwest Washington. These high schools were identified based on racial demographic data and 2022-23 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) completion rates (which is a collective 54%).
To operationalize this investment, Get Schooled plans to work directly with the high schools, their counselors, each district, and directly with students to provide high-quality content and personalized support to their seniors, with additional engagements with juniors. Key among the many supports will be to help students them with the many elements of college and career readiness, including college application essay and scholarship support, resume reviews, and early career exploration. Of particular importance will be to encourage students to complete the FAFSA/ORSAA/WASFA – an essential step that can unlock much-needed financial aid and scholarship opportunities.
“At KeyBank, our mission is to help our communities thrive, and we know that an important building block is helping underserved youth realize their full potential and develop the skills that will lead to successful and fulfilling careers,” says Matt Hill, KeyBank’s Market President and Commercial Banking Sales Leader for the Seattle Cascades. “An educated workforce is at the heart of a prosperous regional economy, and we were delighted to come together as three leaders to support this proven organization and maximize our impact across a larger geography.”
“Get Schooled is thrilled to receive this investment from KeyBank,” said John Branam, CEO of Get Schooled. “Supporting first-gen-to-college youth in achieving their full potential is foundational to our region’s ability to thrive – and this goal sits at the heart of this investment. And in an era of ambiguous corporate values, we’re grateful and excited to partner with KeyBank – a company that brings clarity and intentionality to its corporate social responsibility.”
About Get Schooled
Get Schooled is America’s only free, all-digital, college and first jobs advisor. Our mission is to provide youth-friendly, culturally relevant, research-based, engaging educational content and 1:1 personalized support primarily to first-gen-to-college youth along three journeys. These journeys include: 1) preparing them to continue their education after high school; 2) persisting during the first year of higher education; and 3) finding and succeeding in their first jobs and early careers, including our career stories from The Way. Get Schooled has helped millions of youth along their journeys since our founding fourteen years ago by Paramount, and The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and we were recently featured by the NFL in their national Inspire Change ad campaign.
Get Schooled shares content directly to youth via our website, social (TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, etc.,) Kahoot!, campaigns and text, and through educators, counselors, schools, and nonprofit partners. We’re also experts at building culturally relevant, youth-focused campaigns that promote healthy behaviors and actions, examples of which include Get Banked Philly, We Belong in College Campaign, and Future Focused Texas, among many others. We also engage with educators and counselors to provide them with content to share with their students and increasingly have content in Spanish. Additionally, we provide free access to 16,000 scholarships via our Scholarship Finder. Finally, we provide personalized support including college application essay reviews, scholarship essay reviews, FAFSA completion support, resume reviews, and on-demand, personalized postsecondary + first job advising via text and email.
In the 2022-23 school year GS had: 38M+ youth views via web, social, and partnerships; 9.8M engagements with our content and campaigns; 140K+ followers on social; 50K+ jobs searches; 46K youth registered; 25K+ youth receive personalized, 1-on-1 advising support; 7.5K educators in our network; 2.7K college application essays reviewed; and 700 resumes reviewed. All of these engagement and support efforts are on track to grow during the 2023-24 school year.
About KeyBank
KeyCorp’s roots trace back nearly 200 years to Albany, New York. Headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, Key is one of the nation’s largest bank-based financial services companies, with assets of approximately $188 billion as of December 31, 2023. Key provides deposit, lending, cash management, and investment services to individuals and businesses in 15 states under the name KeyBank National Association through a network of approximately 1,000 branches and approximately 1,200 ATMs. Key also provides a broad range of sophisticated corporate and investment banking products, such as merger and acquisition advice, public and private debt and equity, syndications and derivatives to middle market companies in selected industries throughout the United States under the KeyBanc Capital Markets trade name. For more information, visit https://www.key.com/. KeyBank is a Member of FDIC.