Are DMV high schools doing enough to prepare students for college?
- Jan 14
- 7 min read
Updated: Jan 31
College graduation rates show far more needs to be done
By Kadence Johnson, Divine Savoy, Skyy Branch, Rosana Wahdat, and Hayden Hernly
Youthcast Media Group®
When Azzarie Brown, 17, thinks about college, the first feeling that comes to mind isn’t excitement. It’s anxiety.
Azzarie, who lives in Southeast Washington and is a senior at Archbishop Carroll High School, dreams of studying computer engineering and film studies at Niagara University in upstate New York, but worries that the cost of higher education might put that dream at risk.
Azzarie works multiple part-time jobs to help supplement their mother’s police officer salary, and acts as a caregiver for their grandmother and younger siblings. Azzarie fears being forced to go into thousands of dollars of debt to get a degree, even with scholarships.
“I’m scared that I won't be able to afford school even with scholarships. I’m scared that while attending, my scholarship will not be renewed, and I’ll have to pay for it out of pocket.”
Luciana Diaz, a senior at Wakefield High School in Arlington, is equally worried. Luciana immigrated from Bolivia at 14 and is navigating college applications as a first-generation student and English language learner.
“I'm really scared because I'm trying really hard to get into college… that's how I'm pursuing the American dream, right? So, yeah, I feel like that'd be a big heartbreak for me to not be able to afford it,” she says.
Many other students in D.C. and across the country are similarly stressed. About 30% of students were “very worried” about affording college and more than half were “a little worried,” according to a Youthcast Media Group survey of 85 students at a variety of schools across the country. Their biggest worry was having a lot of debt at graduation (40%) followed closely by being a financial burden on their families (30%).
Their fears are well-founded: Undergraduate students cobble together financial aid from an average of three sources to pay for school, and only 37% consider their debt to be manageable, according to a survey of over 53,000 students by Trellis Strategies. D.C. residents have the highest average federal student loan debt in the country, at $54,561 per borrower, and the highest number of indebted students per capita, with 16% of residents in debt, according to the Education Data Initiative.
In the wider D.C., Maryland, Virginia (DMV) area, students face additional challenges due to the high cost of living, and particularly housing. DC’s cost of living is 40-50% higher than the national average.
A recent national survey found that 59% of students have considered dropping out due to financial stress. “College costs are one of the single biggest reasons why people say that they’re unable to complete their degree,” says Anika Van Eaton, vice president of policy with uAspire, a national non-profit focused on college affordability.
While there is financial assistance available to students, and efforts underway in Maryland and Virginia to address the cost of higher education, students in the DMV area say it’s not enough.
“Most people I know are either stressing about loans or trying to work full-time while going to school. It feels like college is something you should be able to afford, but unless your family’s got money or you get a ton of scholarships, it’s super hard,” Azzarie says.
Efforts to assist students in DMV often fall short
In D.C., residents can get help with tuition through the DC Tuition Assistance Grant (DCTAG), which provides up to $10,000 per year for students attending public colleges and universities, and up to $2,500 for private institutions, using a combination of District and federal funding. While the grants have been awarded to an increasing number of students and an increasing percentage are receiving the maximum award, DCTAG is often criticized for not increasing award amounts to keep pace with the rising cost of tuition nationwide.
The University System of Maryland (USM) says it’s committed to making higher education accessible and affordable for all Maryland students, but has faced significant state funding reductions, leading to mixed results in relieving financial pressures.
Virginia has attempted to make college more affordable by freezing in-state tuition across public universities and limiting future increases to less than 3% annually, which benefits over 250,000 students statewide. Still, the state has an “affordability gap” for four-year institutions of nearly $4,000, almost twice the national average, according to the National College Attainment Network.
Freezing, or even eliminating tuition, only covers part of the college affordability problem, though. “Even if you hear all this stuff about free college, free college usually means free tuition, but meanwhile, you have to live,” says Sandy Baum, senior fellow at the Urban Institute. “If you don’t live with your parents, you need to pay rent and you need to buy food.”
What surprised Brooke Sylvestre the most about college were the extra costs: “Room and board is really expensive, and then you’re expected to buy $130 textbooks you don’t even use,” says Sylvestre, 18, a freshman at the University of Maryland College Park who plans to be a doctor.
Most students will have to borrow money to afford college, even with scholarships or tuition assistance, which leaves many worried that they’ll graduate with unmanageable debt. However, “being afraid to borrow can ruin your college opportunities,” Baum says. “Many people cannot manage to get through college without borrowing money.”
Baum encourages students to look at college as an investment.
“The amount you can afford to get a bachelor's degree, which is likely to pay off very well, has to do with the payoff to that investment. Even if you have to borrow money to do it, it's worth it, because you're going to make enough money afterwards to pay back those loans, assuming that you go to college and you manage to graduate,” she says.
Students call for more financial, academic prep for college
But every barrier to college access– financial or otherwise– makes it less likely that students in the DMV will enroll and complete a degree.
“Only eight out of 100 students in the District complete college, while 58% of jobs in DC require a degree,” says Victor Horton, executive director of Democrats For Education Reform. In Prince George’s County, Maryland, only 80% of high school students graduate, and less than half of those who graduated in 2023 had enrolled in college a year later, according to state data.
For those who do make it to college, affordability isn’t the only barrier to getting a degree– many DMV students arrive unprepared for the rigor of college classes.
“Only 20% of district students who took the SAT were considered college ready,” Horton says.
Caitlyn Taylor, 20, dropped out of the University of Arizona after deciding that a major in veterinary medicine was not for her and failing college algebra twice. While Taylor was salutatorian at Richard Wright Public Charter School in Washington, DC and received a full-tuition scholarship to attend the college, she says her high school didn’t prepare her well enough in math during the pandemic.
“Due to my math classes being online during Covid…and going back in person with classes, the fundamentals were missed and that’s why it was hard for me to pass it in college,” says Taylor, who later passed the class online. “(And) I wasn't able to get the one-on-one support with the teachers,” at the University of Arizona.
She also cited factors including being too far from home without a support system and feeling like she didn’t fit in socially in a predominantly white university. Taylor just transferred to Edward Waters University in Jacksonville, Fla., the state’s first historically Black college.
Students in the DMV also say that the lack of resources at their schools about financial aid affected their ability to apply for college, a problem that’s not limited to the DMV. YMG’s survey of high school students also found that only 7% said their high school was “very helpful” in explaining how to afford college.
“Honestly, I think it would help a lot if schools spent more time actually explaining how financial aid works. Like, not just saying ‘fill out the FAFSA,’ but showing us what kinds of scholarships are out there, how to apply, and what deadlines matter,” says Azzarie.
Zayivion Wallace, 17, a senior at Archbishop Carroll High School, agrees.
“We need more programs to guide students through applying for scholarships and understanding the costs before it’s too late,” he says.
While many students said their schools had limited help available, others said the issue was more about knowing where to go, and being willing to ask for help.
“Sometimes, knowing who to ask or where to find help is half the battle,” says Allysia Anamelechi, 17, another senior at Archbishop Carroll. “Students just need someone to point them in the right direction.”
Luciana Diaz, the senior at Wakefield, says the help is there if you look for it: “Ask for help if you don't know how to do something. I feel like at school, we have support if you look for it… You know, people are not gonna come up to you and be like, ‘do you want help to apply to college?’”
Recently, Luciana was accepted to Virginia Commonwealth University. Although she’s not sure yet if she’ll attend, she says hearing back on an application and knowing she has options is “a total relief.”
“I’m excited to begin this new chapter in my life,” she says.
Skyy Branch and Divine Savoy are juniors and Hayden Hernly and Kadence Johnson are seniors at Archbishop Carroll High School in Washington, D.C. Rosana Wahdat is a junior at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Va. They worked with Youthcast Media Group journalist-mentor Sandy Block to report this story.
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