Mission & History

Our Mission

College Advising Corps works to increase the number of low-income, first-generation college, and underrepresented high school students who enter and complete higher education.

Our History

College Advising Corps traces its roots to 2005 at the University of Virginia. With the help of the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, Dr. Nicole Hurd, then serving as Dean and Director of the Center for Undergraduate Excellence at the University of Virginia, launched the “College Guide” program by placing 14 recent UVA graduates in rural communities where college-going rates were below the state average.

Advisers were charged with helping low-income, first-generation college, and underrepresented students plan for and complete the college and financial aid application process. The pilot project was a success, as many Virginia colleges reported increases in applications from high schools served by the advisers. Pleased with the results of the pilot year, in 2007, the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, with additional support from the Lumina Foundation for Education, invested $12 million over four years to expand the program nationally.

In March 2007, the program was renamed the National College Advising Corps, added 10 new higher education partners and moved its headquarters to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. With the steadfast commitment of UNC’s senior leadership to build a sustainable national movement committed to college access and success, the National College Advising Corps grew year after year.

In 2013, the National College Advising Corps became an independent, non-profit organization and was rebranded as College Advising Corps.

Today, after more than a decade of growth and impact, our 829 near-peer advisers serve more than 240,000 students in 782 high schools across America.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

College Advising Corps is committed to fostering, cultivating, and maintaining a culture of diversity and inclusion. We embrace and encourage our team members’ differences in race, ethnicity, age, sex, gender identity/expression, sexual orientation, religion/faith background, educational background, socio-economic status, learning differences, physical ability, national origin, citizen status, military status, or political affiliation, and any other characteristics that make our employees unique. The collective sum of the individual differences, life experiences, knowledge, inventiveness, innovation, self-expression, unique capabilities, and talent that our team members invest in their work represents a significant part of not only our culture, but our reputation and organization’s achievement as well. We are committed to modeling diversity and inclusion in the college access industry and within the nonprofit sector, and to maintaining an inclusive environment with equitable treatment for all.