Community Engagement Program
The ACCESS Community Engagement Program reaches out to families and students as early as middle school with in-depth information and advice on how to plan for and finance a college education. Most youth-serving community-based organizations do not have a specific college access mission, but all are committed to ensuring that their constituents have the resources to enroll and succeed in college. The college affordability related needs of young people are ever-changing and many organizations are ill-equipped to handle all of these issues. ACCESS has recognized this, and, in turn, developed the Community Engagement Program both to serve young people directly through partnerships with community organizations and train the staff members of those organizations in the financial aid process so that they can assist whenever an ACCESS Advisor is not readily available. By providing financial aid workshops and ongoing one on one advising sessions to students at an early age, they and their families will be able to identify potential issues early in their academic career, be prepared for the financial aid process and have a working knowledge of where to turn for assistance. ACCESS is the only organization in Boston and Springfield that has a program specifically designed to provide supplemental financial aid information to existing community organizations.

Location: Boston
For more information on this program, please email Director of Community Engagement, Adam Reinke at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

High School Advising Program
This program is available, free of charge, to every high school student in Boston and Springfield. It works towards educating youth on all financial aid opportunities and assists them in every step of the process to secure the funds necessary to pay for a college education. Our ACCESS Advisors work inside all 53 public high schools in Boston and Springfield, spending at least one day a week at each school, for the entire school year. At the beginning of the school year, our Advisors conduct large group presentations during study periods, assemblies or English classes, ensuring that students are made aware of the services that are available to them. Often, simply understanding that resources exist to help them pay for college is the key to opening their minds to thoughts of a postsecondary education. Shortly after these presentations, our Advisors begin holding individual financial aid advising sessions, which continue throughout the school year. This program is currently available to every senior in every public high school in Boston and Springfield and is being gradually rolled out in Boston to serve younger grades, as well. In addition to seniors, during the 2010 – 2011 school year, this program will be provided to the 9th graders at 20 Boston high schools and the 10th at 10 Boston high schools. This staggered introduction of new grades and new schools will continue with each successive year until this program is in every high school in Boston, serving the city’s nearly 20,000 high school students.

Each ACCESS Advisor works with students throughout the school year, explaining the basics of financial aid, providing scholarship search advice, assisting them with financial aid forms and analyzing their financial aid awards. They also serve as advocates for their students, in many cases securing additional funding when the original financial aid package is not enough. Most of the advisees’ families have little or no familiarity with the process of applying for financial aid, so ACCESS plays a vital role in building awareness and understanding by partnering with the high schools to hold workshops for parents. During the last school year, ACCESS provided 10,938 one on one advising sessions to 3,430 high school seniors in Boston and Springfield – helping them secure more than $55 million in grants, loans and scholarships.

Location: Boston & Springfield
For more information on this program in Boston, please email Director of High School Advising Jerry Henry at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and in Springfield please email Program Manager Erica Rose at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Postsecondary Success Program
Advice and preparation through high school is vitally important to prepare the city’s young people for college, but, in order to have a true impact on college graduation rates, students must receive continuous guidance while in college. As such, ACCESS has taken a critical role in an important initiative established by The Boston Foundation and the City of Boston to help increase the college graduation rate of the city’s students. Success Boston brings together the resources and expertise of various college access programs throughout the city, such as The Hyde Square Task Force, Bottom Line and The Private Industry Council, to provide approximately Boston Public School graduates with support, coaching and guidance that will increase college readiness and continue through college to ensure graduation. ACCESS has been brought in to provide these students and their families with financial aid guidance as well as convene meetings of the participating organizations and collect and manage student data. In addition, ACCESS has launched a web-based advising service called EdCents to provide ongoing college affordability support to college students, regardless of where they are attending school.

Location: Boston
For more information on the program, please email Director of Postsecondary Success, Claire Dennison at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Last Dollar Scholarship Program
Our Last Dollar Scholarships are awarded to those young people in Boston and Springfield with the greatest amount of unmet financial need upon completion of a full year of advising in their senior year of high school. The unmet need is the gap between the money each student has to pay for college and the total cost of attendance, taking into account that the total cost of attendance includes a complete budget for all the needs during an academic year, including books, supplies, transportation and room and board. Students are encouraged to apply for the ACCESS Scholarship by their ACCESS Advisors, school guidance counselors and other community organizations. These scholarships, averaging about a $1,000 per student, are awarded to approximately 200 new students each year and are renewable for up to six years. This amount, while it may seem small, often means the difference between a student being able to attend the college of their choice or not attending at all. This is particularly alarming given that over the last two years, 40% of BPS Valedictorians have applied for our last dollar scholarship with an average unmet need of nearly $5,000.

Location: Boston & Springfield