$19.6M in expenses

Launched in 2005 with just 14 advisers serving 2,500 students in virginia, the national organization estimates that around 950,000 students at schools with a cac adviser have since enrolled in either a two-year or four-year college. Cac is well on its way to reaching its goal of supporting 1 million students in accessing a college education by the organization's twentieth anniversary year in 2025-26. Early investment in virtual advising (since 2015), hybrid advising (since 2019), and chatbot-powered advising (since 2020) has helped solidify cac's expertise in offering nimble, adaptable, and integrated advising models to address the wide-ranging needs of students and education systems today.

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Cac also helps students different than other college access organizations. Cac believes that educational equity means that 100% of high school students deserve personalized guidance so they can identify their best career path. Cac provides whole-school, wrap-around college and career services to all students and their families even before senior year, rather than focusing on a small cohort of top-performing, college-bound seniors. Cac's "best match/best fit" model meets students where they are, helping them to identify and matriculate at institutions that represent a good academic match and a good financial, social, and cultural fit, so they are well prepared to persist and graduate with minimal debt.roughly 90% of the seniors cac serves graduate from high school and about half will enroll in college in the immediate fall semester after graduation. Slightly more than half of these students matriculate at a 4-year college. Within five years, another 7-8% of those HS graduates eventually enroll in college and most attend a two-year institution.

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In the 2023-24 academic year, cac partnered with 33 colleges and universities to train and place 801 cac advisers in nearly 800 high schools across 16 states. Collectively, our advisers served about 225,000 students in grades 9-11, most of them seniors. Cac advisers also promote economic mobility by establishing a college-going culture at these schools positively affecting more than 800,000 students they enrolled this past school year.of the students we serve, about two in every three are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. Close to 40% of cac served schools are in either urban areas or suburbs and towns, while the rest are considered rural. Student demographics included: 45% hispanic, 29% white, non-hispanic; 18% black or african-american; 4% asian or pacific islander; 3% multi-or biracial; and 1% native american or alaskan native. Last year alone, cac advisers helped these high school graduates to secure over $1 billion in financial aid and scholarships.