Philly Students Seek Higher Standards for the Future
By: Zahiya Daniels, Natalie Spina, Eyitemi Odusola, Ericka Otero, and Kayla Pressly
Youthcast Media Group®
As she stands on the brink of her senior year at Cristo Rey High School, 17-year-old Layani Talley possesses uncommon confidence about her future. She has been encouraged in her journey toward higher education by the unwavering support of her school curriculum, classmates, and counselors. All in a city where college readiness remains a challenge for many students.
“Our teachers don't really pressure us to go to college or to complete high school because they know our dreams, they know our career goals, so they don't really pressure us… [they] sort of push us in the right direction to pursue those goals that we have,” Layani said.
In Philadelphia, only 49% of high school students go on to earn a college degree and 2 out of 3 adults in the city don’t have one. Layani’s determination shows that Philadelphia students are ready to stand up against the statistics stacked against them.
At The Philadelphia High School for Girls, Nikkita Green, a 16-year-old sophomore, believes her school – a magnet school that offers a college preparatory curriculum– also gives her a unique advantage for the future.
"I feel like all our schools want to prepare you for college, but not all schools will have or be able to give you the resources necessary," Nikkita said.
Born and raised in Philadelphia, Nikkita will be the first in her family to graduate college, a personal goal she set for herself long ago. That goal also inspired her to apply to seek out a high school offering a college prep focus.
Nikkita and Layani are receiving a rare advantage, and their experiences suggest that college readiness should be possible for more high school students across Philadelphia.
Yet most students are less lucky: More than 50% of Philadelphia public high schools don’t have any college access programs, and have an overall 600:1 ratio of students to counselors, according to 12 Plus, a nonprofit that aims to provide college assistance to city students in under-resourced communities.
In a survey of roughly 35 area public high school students by Youthcast Media Group, many expressed that Philadelphia schools don’t always give students the knowledge or resources to successfully prepare them for college. Twenty-four percent of the students who replied said they wished their schools provided access to college visits. Meanwhile, 30% said they wanted more access to advanced placement and other college preparatory courses. Even some students from college prep schools still felt they were not equipped with enough resources.
“At my school, we literally only have one counselor, and she's doing the job of three people,” said Shaymaya Hyman-Scott, a student at the Arts Academy at Benjamin Rush. “How is one counselor supposed to prep 600 students for college?”
Hyman-Scott‘s experience appears to be an unfortunate norm in Philadelphia The dearth of counselors is just one of the ongoing challenges.
Even students with readily available college programs at their schools say they feel unprepared. This is likely due to a lack of announcements and advertisements by the already overwhelmed counselors.
“I feel like they're preparing me for the workload in college but like not really anything else,” said a 10th grader at Central High School who spoke anonymously.
Many students say they want more access to postgraduation alternatives beyond pursuing a traditional college degree.”This (having more options) can take away from the stress that not going to college is deeply frowned upon and a direct path to poverty,’’ according to one of the high school students who responded to the YMG survey.
Still, all but one of the 33 survey respondents said that attending a 4-year college was their plan for the future. But ⅔ of students surveyed said they felt that college did not have to be what comes next. “Everyone says I need to go to college, and that I'll be disadvantaged otherwise,’’ one respondent wrote. “ My mom and sister both went to college to be teachers, so I feel that If I don't go, I'll be a disappointment in their eyes.’’
It is not only students who are concerned about the future of Philadelphia high school students though but adults as well. Different professionals in higher education and organizations, such as 12-Plus, a college preparation group, say there are multiple ways to help ensure that greater numbers of students are ready to pursue college and are knowledgeable about other roads to success after high school.
Alexis Bradford, the assistant director of career counseling at Bryn Mawr College,
said the challenges of access to higher education, including lack of money and low grades or motivation, can lead to failure to enter or complete college.
“Getting into college is almost easy– but being able to stay there is where the challenge is for financial reasons and academic preparation reasons,” said Bradford.
Bradford was a first-generation college student herself, and though she attended a magnet school said that she pretty much “navigated college blindly” and wanted to help other Black Philadelphia students find their way.
She added, “the schools that do the most college preparatory work are the ones that are pretty exclusive in their admittance for students, like the magnet schools. So you kind of have to already be on that track to go to college in many ways.”
Izzy Koyama, one of the coordinators within 12-Plus, said strategies for helping students with their plans post-graduation have to be tailored to the school and student. "It's not a one-size-fits-all model. We each in our different schools adapt to those environments and try to meet those needs because students are different across different schools."
She added that 12-Plus specializes in assisting students with preparation for the future whether the focus is on higher education or career entry. Their overall goal is to give more hope to youth who feel unheard and unprepared.
“I think for a long time, at least in my life, everybody's been beating the drum of college, college college, I don't want to discount college as an organization,” Koyama said. “What they need to hear is that there are a lot more options than you think there are than maybe you've been led to believe that there are, and some of them don't look like college at all and are perfectly legitimate.”
Tagline: Zahiya Daniels and Eyitemi Odusola are rising juniors at the Philadelphia High School for Girls, and Ericka Otero, Natalie Spina, and Kayla Pressly are rising juniors at the Philadelphia High School for Creative and Performing Arts. They were participants in Youthcast Media Group’s spring 2024 reporting workshop and worked with YMG Mentor-Editor Nichole Christian.
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