Cross-class Friendships Key To Breaking Intergenerational Poverty

Economic connectedness has a stronger impact than school quality, family structure, job availability, or a community’s racial composition

Sponsored Content

The people we know influence the boundaries of our imagination. This can change the course of a life.

Benton

“My parents didn’t speak English, and didn’t know how the college process worked– let alone whether I should take physics that year. Being poor doesn’t stop you from being hardworking, but a lack of access to information and resources can be a true roadblock. It means your goals stay hypothetical. I was eager to learn more, but didn’t know how to look or who to ask. The hard truth is that socioeconomic privilege opens doors. Being motivated is not enough on its own.” – Benton

Kelly

“In school, the teacher would ask about our weekends, and other students would have these grand family plans. I would lie and say that we went on a hike, but really my father was working two jobs all weekend. I was a mediocre student. I didn’t value education. I fell behind.” – Kelly

These are the words of Minds Matter Bay Area students.

What do they have in common? They beat the odds.

Currently, there is only 1 high achieving, low-income student attending an elite college for every 24 high-income, high achieving students attending an elite college. The odds are stacked against them.

Benton and Kelly overcame the obstacles and persevered to graduate from college – and not just any college, but an elite college that fit each student’s ability, passion and drive.

Graduating from a selective college is the most reliable way for low-income students to access well-resourced networks and competitive careers, leave poverty behind, and create their desired future.

Yet, only 3% of high-achieving low-income students in the U.S. graduate from a selective college.

What prevents so many bright students from heading to college that is the right match for them?

Top 3 Reasons High-achieving Low-income Students Don’t Attend Any College Or The Right College For Them

• They are unfamiliar with options for higher education.
• They are not provided with the guidance to navigate the elite college admissions process.
• They lack the confidence to apply to selective schools.

Minds Matter Bay Area ends the devastating cycle of poverty.

Minds Matter Bay Area (MMBay) is an education nonprofit that connects driven and determined students from low-income families with the people, preparation, and possibilities to succeed in college, create their future, and change the world.

By working with highly-motivated students from low-income backgrounds, reflecting the diversity of the Bay Area, MMBay breaks the cycle of intergenerational poverty by correcting for college undermatching.

What is College Undermatching?

It is the underrepresentation of high-achieving, low-income students at selective colleges across the country.

Nearly 78% of MMBay students are attending a Tier 1 most competitive private school (Harvard, Yale, Princeton) or University of California system public school (UCLA).

MMBay students—compared with peers from similar backgrounds—are 23X as likely to attend a selective college that prepares them for their career and beyond.

Why is a particular college so important for first generation college students?

It is directly tied to breaking the cycle of poverty. Where you attend college can have a significant effect on how much money you earn – impacted not only by the degree you study for, but also by the network of peers and faculty you get to meet at these institutions. These networks are especially important if you are a low-income student and the first generation in your family to attend college – because you are gaining access to spaces that your family could not help you access. But for first-generation students, even those who are high achievers, attending and graduating from a selective college can seem like an impossible dream.

Many of these students attend less prestigious colleges or two-year colleges, if they attend college at all, and others might start but not finish college.

How Does MMBay End Intergenerational Poverty?

The process is unique, effective and impactful because it leverages the power of cross-class friendships and economic connectedness.

This framework has been proven to have a stronger impact than school quality, family structure, job availability, or a community’s racial composition.

It turns out that the people we know and what they know influence the boundaries of our imagination. 

It actually expands the potential of an individual and changes the course of their life.

But it doesn’t stop there. It has a powerful domino effect on all aspects of their future.

The mentee, in time, becomes the mentor. The cycle continues from person to person as more people are shown how to push through the artificial boundaries they once thought constrained their true potential in life.

Minds matter. Relationships matter. Paying it forward matters.

This pairing of people from different socioeconomic backgrounds for extended periods of time makes the critical difference.

How? It changes how a student sees their own possibilities. These relationships with people who have different social capital and experience help them expand their imagination, self-confidence, and knowledge for how to achieve their own dreams.

Trust and connection between two people are that important.

But it is not one-sided: the mentor benefits just as much as the mentee. While the students begin to envision the potential of relationships, the mentors learn to practice vulnerability and to reflect upon their own growth.

“Being someone’s mentor challenged me to retrace and reframe my own journey – the things I’m proud of, the mistakes I made, the memories I’d forgotten,” said Michael Escobar, a MMBay Mentor.

“When you spend so much time with a student over many years, eventually you realize that you’d run out of things to offer them, if you’re not also learning with them.

Above all, the gift I take with me is my lifelong friendship with my mentee Ernesto. And the humility I learned from mentoring him, that I now pay forward in fatherhood.”

 

The Mentor Mentee Relationship

Only 10% of the mentor mentee relationship is in front of the whiteboard.

The remaining 90% is laser focused on the quality and depth of the relationship, coupled with the resources and connections shared with that student.

These relationships are profoundly deep. They are built upon consistent and significant time invested, every single week for three high school years.

But these relationships don’t end at graduation from high school. They persist through college and beyond with alumni career networking and ongoing support. These two people are connected to each other for the journey of a lifetime.

This is most powerfully brought to light when said in the words of these Minds Matter Bay Area students:

“It got me out of my overthinking head. I found other viewpoints I wouldn’t otherwise have access to, and MMBay revealed other opportunities like a UC- Santa Cruz science internship. I learned that fear can control you to the point where you don’t want to take action. We fear if we take action, then we will end in failure. We should learn to identify strengths and use them to our advantage to overcome challenges. MMBay helps students to find their strengths to overcome challenges and use those strengths in future careers. I gained independence from my parents and responsibility. MMBay showed me I can be vulnerable to others. I can take risks and ask for help and accept it. Fears can stop us from finding our potential. Fears are limits that should be broken. Otherwise we’ll never know who we could have been or our potential or the person we could have grown into over our lifetime,” – Angeline

Angeline went to Cal and is majoring in Environmental Science.

“It wasn’t too late to catch up. Now I am in the top 10 in my class. I learned how to communicate with adults and be comfortable around them. Initially, it was terrifying for 2 strangers to enter my life. They became my support system. MMBay was the personal and academic boost I didn’t know I needed.” – Kelly

Kelly went to Johns Hopkins to major in molecular and cellular biology.

“The advice wasn’t just test prep or tutoring. My mentor helped me to shape and achieve my aspirations – not just advise, but design and create. My mentor was a personalized bulletin board of opportunities, and a resource that could help me not just identify summer internships, but actualize these experiences. MMBay gave me access to a networking hub to and through college. In college, I met other students who had access to parents with high achieving jobs, and connections to professors or alumni. When they worked hard on top of this foundation, they achieved a ton. Investment in a person can translate to where they end up in life. Advice, emotional support, and funding means investing in a student’s success. MMBay shines a light on a special intersection of circumstance – motivated and poor,” – Benton

Benton went to Harvard. Benton graduated within 4 years with Bachelor’s in Physics and Master’s in Applied Mathematics He is now a software engineer and a Minds Matter Bay Area mentor.

The Proof

The proof is in the data of MMBay students:

• 100% of students enroll at 4 year colleges
• 78% enroll at selective colleges compared against the 3% national average for low-income students
• 96% median scholarship coverage of college expenses
• 100% persist through college graduation

The goal of MMBay is to ensure that students graduate within four years from competitive four-year colleges with low debt, to put them on a true path toward careers of their dreams that help them change their socio-economic trajectory.

At MMBay, our mission is to ensure that within one generation, our students can experience transformational change in their own access to opportunity, and can pay the resources they build in their lifetimes forward to their own families and communities.

And … we are doing it!

100% of Minds Matter Bay Area students enroll at 4 year colleges.

That’s right. 100%. Every single student goes on to college.

Where they go to college is just as stunning: 78% at selective colleges compared against 3% national average for low-income students. That means students are not only the first generation in their family to go to college, but it means they are going to very selective schools.

But it doesn’t stop at enrolling. 100% of students are persisting through college graduation: they are currently enrolled and on track to graduate or have already graduated.

How Does MMBay Do it?

The program begins sophomore year. It continues every single Saturday of the school year.

Students begin as high school sophomores and spend three years in the program. They attend weekly sessions on Saturdays during the school year. The first 2 hours are focused on classroom instruction and test prep. The average MMBay student improves over 280 points on a 1600 SAT scale. The latter 2 hours are focused on mentorship, academic and career exploration, and social-emotional learning.

Mentors provide support throughout the school year, with professional development workshops, summer programs and college applications, personal statement writing, and more.

MMBay provides funding for students to attend academic summer programs across the U.S. in the sophomore summer, and to participate in career exploration workshops and internships in the junior summer.

The academic summer programs offer a glimpse of college campus life, and enables a deeper exploration of an academic subject or career path.

Students take courses at college campuses like Boston University, Georgetown, and UCLA. Some students choose to participate in research internships with university professors, rotational internships at private equity companies, and career panels at local tech companies.

MMBay provides opportunities to cultivate communication and presentation skills that are critical to navigating academic, professional, and social settings. Through discussions and debates about current events and articles, interview workshops, presentation practice, essay writing, and more—students develop critical skills for success in college, career, and life.

Mentors, instructors, and financial aid advisors help students strategically apply to schools that match academic goals and are best positioned to provide high levels of financial aid. They guide students through the application process with personal statement workshops, consistent feedback on target schools, and financial aid consultation.

In short: Our volunteer mentors and instructors prepare students for selective colleges by helping them build awareness of their options for higher education, providing them weekly guidance to navigate the difficult college admissions process, and supporting them to build confidence in their own story and potential.

100% of our students are low income. But that doesn’t interfere with their ability to participate, because MMBay is free for all students, and delivered by a powerful network of volunteers who mentor, teach, and accompany our students on their pathway to, through, and beyond college.

These successes have a positive impact on more than just the students who graduate from our program. Our graduates share what they have learned with siblings and other relatives, enabling more family members to attend college.

They go on to earn more money than their parents, which allows them to raise the quality of life for their entire families and generations to come.

It Comes Full Circle

Benton was a mentee in our program from 2013-16. His parents do not speak English, did not go to college in this country, and were unable to provide advice that would help Benton navigate the opaque process to admission at selective colleges in the U.S. Minds Matter Bay Area introduced him to summer programs that helped him get into college. His mentors helped him research, apply to, and select programs most aligned with his interests, and MMBay provided funding so Benton could attend these programs.

“I had no idea that people did things over the summer to explore careers – that was new to me,” said Benton. “I lacked someone close to me with knowledge about applying to college, what it is like to be a college student, and finding subjects I liked.”

Benton attended Harvard University, graduating in 2020 with a Bachelor’s in Physics and a Master’s in Applied Mathematics. Today, Benton works as a software engineer in San Francisco.

“There was no substitute for the amount of guidance my mentors gave me,” said Benton. “My life would be drastically different without Minds Matter Bay Area.”

Benton’s proudest moment was when he realized during the meeting with the donor family who generously paid his Harvard tuition that he wants to give back himself one day.

Now, that day is here. Benton is a mentor himself to a student at MMBay. He explains why he wanted to pay it forward: “It’s a way I can continue to give and receive through investment in students who are just like me. There are only so many lives I can live, but through other people I can give to and invest in, their lives and their dreams become an extension of my fulfillment.”

But we can’t do it without you.

We Need Your Help

There are many more high-achieving low-income students who could benefit from our support.
We need mentors, volunteers, and donors who believe in our mission and want to make a real difference in these students’ lives.
Are you interested in volunteering with Minds Matter Bay Area in San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose? To make a real difference in a student’s life, fill out a volunteer application today.

Want to support our work? Donate 

 

 

 

Article paid for by: Minds Matter Bay Area
The news and editorial staff of the Bay Area News Group had no role in this post’s preparation.