‘This is a family‘: McHenry County college readiness program bridges the gap for low-income, first-generation students

A partnership between McHenry County College and Harvard High School is working to close the access gap for low-income students who are the first in their families to pursue college by providing a support system that moves with them through high school and whatever comes next.

Upward Bound is geared toward students at the intersection of two groups that struggle disproportionately when it comes to achieving success in high school and beyond: low-income and first-generation students, program director Rene Govea said.

“If we’re going to make an impact, we have to impact [kids] early on,” said Govea, who was a first generation college graduate himself. “There is no single answer for all students, but really a lot of it is just putting yourself in their shoes, listening and a lot of empathy.”

About half of students in Harvard School District 50 are considered low income, according to data aggregated by the Illinois State Board of Education. In the surrounding community, 13.2% of Harvard residents were identified as living in poverty with a median income of just more than $53,000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

A quarter of Harvard High School’s low-income students last school year were characterized as being chronically absent, meaning they missed 10% or more of the year’s school days without a valid excuse, according to the state board of education. The year before that, the percent was 39%.

The school’s four-year graduation rate for the general population was 82% in 2020. For low-income students, that number shrinks to 73%.

Many low-income students do not have access to the same kinds of tutoring and resources other students do and parents who did not attend college may be unsure of how to provide support to their students, Govea said.

“Postsecondary attainment rates of young people who come from low-income households and, regardless of income or immigration status, whose parents have no college experience are low across the board,” according to a 2011 study by a Princeton University research group called The Future of Children.

For Harvard High School senior Oscar Hernandez, being a “first gen” made it more difficult for him to know where to look when figuring out what he might like to do with his life after high school, he said.

“I really didn’t know too many people that went to college,” Hernandez said. “I just felt like it was going to be hard for me to actually achieve the goal that I wanted.”

Hernandez’s mother graduated high school in Mexico before she came to the U.S., but his father dropped out after elementary school, Hernandez said. He joined Upward Bound his sophomore year to get his grades up and to get help in planning for the future.

What he didn’t expect to find was what he described as a sort of second family.

“We’re all first [generation], we’re all trying to make it out here and we kind of built like a family,” Hernandez said. “I feel like I’m at home in Upward Bound because I can be myself around these people.”

Bianca Diaz, Hernandez’s Upward Bound advisor, said he has always been very intelligent and a “go-getter,” but over the time she has known him he has pushed himself to achieve more and more.

With the help of Diaz, Hernandez said he is now taking college-level courses and plans to attend a four-year university to study electrical engineering.

“She really knows me, you know, because I’ve told her things that I’ve been through and she knows where I’m at in school,” Hernandez said of Diaz.

Diaz was also the first in her family to earn a college degree, she said. She never expected to work in education but was drawn to the mission of Upward Bound.

“I’ve definitely been where these students are, you know, overwhelmed and confused about the college process, having everyone around you tell you how important it is to go to college but not really understanding all of the smaller steps that it takes to get there,” she said. “It’s something I’m super passionate about.”

As she spends her lunch breaks trying to help more students outside the program, Diaz’s story has come full circle.

Upward Bound is a part of TRIO, which encompasses eight federally funded programs designed to “motivate and support students from disadvantaged backgrounds in pursuit of a college degree,” according to information on Upward Bound on the McHenry County College website.

Support systems available to students through Upward Bound don’t end when they graduate high school, Govea said. They make a promise to continue supporting students until they have achieved their secondary degree, meaning an adviser might work with the same student for anywhere from four to 10 years.

“You’re talking about not just knowing the students, but we also get to the point where we have an opportunity to meet their families,” he said. “There’s a lot of opportunity for us to meet them where they’re at.”

When McHenry County College received the grant to begin the program four years ago, it was provided with enough funding to serve 60 Harvard High School students at any given time, Govea said. The program tries to enroll students as early as possible, extending their outreach to freshmen and eighth graders, he said.

Those 60 students then become forces for change among their friends and family, Diaz said, and Hernandez is a great example of that. She said she is proud of how he goes out of his way to help younger students and peers.

“We constantly tell our students, ‘This is a family,’” Govea said. “We expect these students to be there for each other, to hold each other accountable, and they know that we’re available no matter what. It’s not a 9-to-5 job by any means.”

The program offers tutoring in various formats, weekly workshops on topics relating to academic success and professional development, and summer trips to visit college campuses.

This last piece had to be canceled this year because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but Hernandez said the college visits in summer 2019 helped him hone in on what he was looking for in a school. His top pick is University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

As Hernandez waits on admission letters, his eyes are on the future.

“Honestly, it’s nerve-wracking, but, at the same time, I feel like I have accomplished something,” Hernandez said. “I know I’m still not done yet. I‘ve still got a long way to go, but I feel like I can get through it.”

“I want to not only prove to myself that I can do it, but also make my parents proud that you’ve got a son that went to college and is actually putting his career to use,” he said.