Reimagining the Summer after High School through Career-Connected Learning

The summer between high school graduation and the start of college is a significant but often overlooked moment, especially for students from low-income households and those who are the first in their families to attend college. Removed from the structured and supportive environment of high school, overwhelmed with questions about their futures, and armed only with a hazy vision of what college entails, many recent graduates can face barriers that disrupt their college plans before college even begins. Nationally, as many as 40% of college-intending students do not enroll, a phenomenon known as summer melt, and 24% of college-goers from low-income high schools do not return for their second year of college. It is critical to have programs that offer young people a set of experiences to help them step more confidently into their first year of college. In this piece, we present one such experience– the Summer College and Career Intensive (“Summer CCI”).