The Need For Breakthrough
It takes knowledge and courage to be the first in your family to go to college.
Breakthrough exists because students from low-income families can and should go to college, but statistics say they will not without significant intervention. The social, economic, and individual consequences of this lost potential are enormous.
Regardless of ability, low-income students are seven times less likely to attend college than their more affluent peers.
At the high schools Breakthrough students are targeted to attend, four year graduation rates for low-income students are unacceptably low and less than 30% of those graduates are “college ready” based on state standards. Each dropout in Texas costs the state on average $3,168 every year for the rest of their lives due to increased Medicaid and incarceration costs and loss of tax revenue. In Central Texas, this amounts to $377 million annually. Only 11% of low-income students earn college degrees.