A Program of the Louisiana Board of Regents
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Meet Joci!
Joci Stewart is a seventh grader at Negreet High School, where she is president of the junior high Explorers’ Club.
Explorers' Club is a student run organization (within Louisiana GEAR UP and powered by LOSFA) that provides leadership opportunities and activities based on the ABC'S:
Academics, Behavior & Leadership, College Preparation and Career Exploration, and Service to School and Community.
“Explorers’ Club is more than just an in-school activity; it is my future.”
Joci works with her peers on college readiness and linking academics to career paths and lifestyles.
Recently she created an activity where students answered questions about their interests, found college majors that correlated with those interests, and learned what careers would be a match for them. Students then identified which colleges offered the right major to help them reach their desired career and the average salary of those jobs - and determined how that fits into their desired lifestyle.
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OPINION: Six lessons from Louisiana about helping students obtain federal aid for college
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December 15, 2019
Amanda Kruger Hill, the executive director of the Cowen Institute at Tulane University, recently wrote an opinion piece on why Louisiana has had so much success in getting students to pursue a post-secondary education - due to more students having access to financial aid.
“It is crucial for policy changes to be coupled with support for high-school counselors, students and families.”
She says commitment from the state, district, school and community has made a drastic difference over the last several years. For example, Hill says, equipping counselors with better support to help students complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) has made an impact in New Orleans.
"Additionally, we partner with the Louisiana Office of Student Financial Assistance (
LOFSA
)
, Louisiana Education Loan Authority
(
LELA
) and many other nonprofits to provide comprehensive support to high-school counselors, students and families."
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Photos Shared on Social Media
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The Louisiana Office of Student Financial Assistance offers custom financial literacy workshops, for students in grades six through the post-secondary level.
Beginning in
middle school
, students are introduced to money management (earning and saving, spending, wants versus needs). They also begin learning how dual enrollment courses in high school can help save money later in college.
High school
students focus more on understanding financial aid and how to be responsible with those dollars. Our
post-secondary
workshops reiterate the importance of FAFSA renewal, maintaining Steady Academic Progress in order to keep scholarships and other awards, and using on-campus resources (counseling, advising, and mental health).
The Financial Literacy Program will empower students to recognize the connection between finances and degree completion, while promoting more well-rounded students.
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Report ranks Louisiana College favorably for value
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January 3, 2020
A new report by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce seeks to answer the question: Is college worth it?
With student debt climbing higher, the director of the center says this kind of information will benefit students and hold institutions more accountable.
A First Try at ROI: Ranking 4,500 Colleges
, sorts through tuition costs, median student debt, and median earnings of graduates at each sampled institution.
Louisiana College was named as one of the institutions with the best value.
Click
here
to see how the report ranks other colleges and universities in Louisiana.
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Louisiana education leaders set early college credit goal
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December 14, 2019
The state's Board of Elementary and Secondary Education and the Board of Regents have adopted a new goal, to have all 2029 graduates complete high school with some college credit or industry-based credential.
Having students pursue early college credit is part of Regents' higher education master plan.
Doris Voitier, a BESE board member who is also the superintendent of St. Bernard Parish School's said students who earn college credit in high school typically do better in college.
Click the link below to read more on how this will improve the talent level of graduates in Louisiana.
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OPINION: The odds are still stacked against low-income college students; here are some ways to expand the possibilities
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December 2, 2019
This article highlights the goal of LOSFA's
Connect2Success
Initiative - which is designed to provide limited income students with opportunities to job shadow, experiential learning activities tied to business, industry, and college visits, job credentialing, dual-enrollment support through tutoring, mentoring, and college visits.
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In early December, Aimee Eubanks-Davis, a 2019 Obama Foundation Fellow and founder and CEO of
Braven
(an organization dedicated to bridging the education-to-employment gap) wrote a piece detailing how to help low-income students reach their full potential - when the odds are against them.
She says of the 1.2 million low-income and first-generation students who started at a post-secondary institution this fall semester - many come with a sense that college will lead to economic mobility. They expect to have good paying jobs with benefits, be able to contribute financially to their families, and lead a more independent life.
One of the ways she proposes to break that cycle, is to connect this particular group of students with professionals in the fields they are interested in and assist them with developing skills to land top internships.
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About LOSFA
The Louisiana Office of Student Financial Assistance (LOSFA), a program of the Louisiana Board of Regents, strives to be Louisiana's first choice for college access by promoting, preparing for and providing equity of college access.
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