The Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF) and the Partnership for Education Advancement (Ed Advancement) have announced a four-year, multi-campus initiative to provide one-on-one coaching to help remove barriers to college enrollment and success for students at 16 historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs).

In collaboration with student success nonprofit InsideTrack, over the next three years the organizations will offer one-on-one coaching services for up to 11,500 stopped-out students, pairing them with professional InsideTrack “success coaches,” who will work to help them return to higher education and stay on track to graduation. The partnership also will provide coaching support to more than 9,800 currently enrolled students, helping them persist and stay on track to graduation.

Beginning in the second year of the initiative, InsideTrack and Ed Advancement will work across the 16 colleges to build a coaching corps of 80 professionally trained student success coaches, 50 certified program leaders, 21 observers, and 35 trainers to certify and train new coaches. Participating HBCUs will begin operating the coaching programs independently in the fourth year.

“HBCUs disproportionately enroll and support students from low-income backgrounds as well as those who are first-generation college students—students who gain significant value from this type of one-on-one coaching and support,” said TMCF president and CEO Harry Williams. “By both providing individualized coaching for current and former students, as well as building capacity for institutions to continue this important work over time, this initiative will help institutions capitalize on the current momentum.”

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