Why 8th-Graders In Washington Are Already Thinking About College

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee signed a bill into law Tuesday that expands the College Bound Scholarship program. The program places students from low-income families onto a college prep track as they're wrapping up middle school, and it helps pay their college tuition when they graduate from high school.

TRANSCRIPT

When did you know what you wanted to be when you grew up?

Oscar Lopez figured it out in the seventh grade. He was at his dad’s house, near the airport. He was watching the planes go back and forth overhead.

Lopez: “My dad was like, 'What do you want to be when you grow up?' And I just looked at the airplane and I said ‘I want to be an engineer for Boeing.’”

Oscar goes to Mill Creek Middle School in Kent. He says the promise of a scholarship got him thinking seriously about college. Now, he’s obsessed.

Lopez: “All I can think about is airplanes.”

Eighth-grader Traci Turner wants to be a professional violinist. But she’s concerned about the cost of college.

Turner: “Like my family – we have enough money for stuff – but we don’t have like a luxury amount where we can buy a big old nice college and stuff.”

In exchange for the promised scholarship, students have to keep their grades up and avoid felony convictions. In 10th grade, they’ll be connected with programs like Running Start, which lets high schoolers take college courses for college credit. Ninety-seven percent of eligible students at Mill Creek Middle School have signed up for the program.

Randy Nuñez is in charge of college readiness at the Kent School district.

Nuñez: “The difference between students who actually make it to college and students who thought about it but didn’t quite get there is the planning much earlier on.”

Statewide, kids in the program graduate at rates 10 to 15 percent higher than their peers.