OneGoal is a college access and success organization that is working to dramatically increase the percentage of students from low-income communities who complete college.
We recruit high-performing teachers—those already working in high schools in low-income communities—and provide them with the training and support to become OneGoal Program Directors. These Program Directors implement our three-year college success model with a cohort of students (called OneGoal Fellows), beginning with in-school daily classes in their junior and senior years of high school, and continuing with remote support through the first year following high school graduation.
Our vision is that every young person will have an equitable opportunity to achieve their greatest postsecondary aspirations.
A college degree is critical for personal success and for the prosperity of our communities and our country. Despite millions of dollars and resources invested to eliminate educational inequity over the last few decades, we have yet to move the needle in a significant way:
OneGoal is working to ensure every young person has en equitable opportunity to achieve their greatest postsecondary ambitions:
This is especially significant because we target historically underserved students who are often overlooked by other interventions. Their average GPA is 2.7 (or 80%) and SAT is 840. They are often the first in their family to go to college. We believe every young person is innately capable of completing college and we intend to prove it.
At the core of our model is an excellent teacher (Program Director), who works with a cohort of 25-30 Fellows for three years.
In Year One and Year Two, the OneGoal course is taught in a daily, credit-bearing high school class. Program Directors work with OneGoal staff coaches and an extensive data platform to ensure:
In Year Three, Program Directors provide intensive, remote coaching to ensure that Fellows demonstrate the academic, financial, and social indicators of success in the critical first year of college, while identifying the resources and developing the networks that will support them through to college graduation. OneGoal collaborates with colleges and universities, through formal and informal partnerships, toward success of OneGoal Fellows and their peers.
By the end of the 2018/19 school year, OneGoal will serve more than 13,000 Fellows in six regions.
Program Directors continue to support their cohort of Fellows via intensive, remote one-on-one coaching.
Bay Area
Chicago
Houston
Massachusetts
Metro Atlanta
New York
A 2014 evaluation of OneGoal by researchers at the University of Chicago found that OneGoal has a statistically significant impact on students’ life and postsecondary outcomes, increasing college enrollment and persistence rates by 10-20 percent.
“The evidence from OneGoal demonstrates that non-cognitive skills are drivers for important life outcomes, and also that they are malleable to late adolescence. This work reinforces that evidence-based interventions are a solution to the growing skill gap in America and a way to effectively promote opportunity.”
Dr. James Heckman
Nobel Laureate and Director at the University of Chicago’s Center for Economics of Human Development