A call for Atlantans: Help students attend college without student loans
In 2022, I found myself staring at an astonishing prospect: $860,000 in projected college tuition costs for my three children. The nearly million-dollar price tag attached to educational opportunity felt emotionally and financially overwhelming.
It was nothing like my own college experience.
After graduating from the former Henry Grady High School in 1988, I entered Howard University as a Mayor’s (Andrew Young) Scholar Equitable Essay Contest recipient and the national winner of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference Women’s Oratorical Contest. Those opportunities covered my first year and a half of tuition.
Although my parents had planned carefully for my education, I also worked as a resident assistant to help ease their financial burden.
Like my parents, I raised my children grounded in the belief that education is transformative. I echoed the words of Horace Mann — often called the “Father of American Education” — who described education as “the great equalizer,” and El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X), who reminded us that education is “the passport to the future.”
Acting on that belief, I began collecting scholarship opportunities when my children were still in elementary school, saving them in a growing folder on my computer. What followed was more than a decade of relentless preparation.
My “MomUber” service logged thousands of miles between work, three schools, sports practices, summer programs, leadership activities, volunteer service work and more drive-through dinners than I care to admit.
My children worked hard. We sacrificed. I ran myself ragged. We did everything we were told would lead to success.
Yet years later, I still faced a daunting question: What happens when you do everything right — and it still isn’t enough?
Growing up in southwest Atlanta was special because I knew my community was invested in my future. Neighbors and even strangers would ask who I wanted to become and encouraged my dreams of being a television news anchor like Monica Kaufman (Pearson). Their words of affirmation were often accompanied by a “hand press” of a few dollars as encouragement for the journey ahead.
That same spirit carried my family forward decades later.
Members of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority, the Omega Psi Phi fraternity and other Divine Nine organizations shared scholarship information with me and my children. Former Atlanta Public Schools classmates and college friends emailed or texted scholarship opportunities whenever they found them.
Armed with that support, I turned my dining room into what likely felt like a military command center — multicolored markers, Post-it notes, deadlines and strategy sessions with my teenagers. Our mission was clear: Eliminate $860,000 in college tuition costs.
After thousands of hours completing applications, rewriting essays and attending interviews before and throughout college, my children (and I) graduated debt-free.
As I watched college affordability continue to decline, I began hosting workshops for APS high school students and parents searching for ways to fund higher education. I soon realized that information alone was not enough.
As the daughter of an Atlanta minister and a former APS teacher, I felt called to do more. So, I turned again to the community that raised me.
The Atlanta Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta and the Eta Omega Chapter of Omega Psi Phi — the oldest chapters of their respective organizations in Atlanta — have long shaped the city’s civic, political, social and educational landscape through more than a century of leadership and service. Many of Atlanta’s most respected educators and administrators — past and present — are members of these chapters.
Together, they will co-host the inaugural Pathways 2 Promise Scholarship Fair on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Benjamin E. Mays High School in Atlanta.
This free, citywide event will connect APS students and families with access to more than 50 scholarship providers, educational resources and workforce partners, along with sessions on college planning, financial aid, vocational pathways, support for students with disabilities and resources for student-athletes. The day will end with scholarship awards and student participation prizes.
Helping my children graduate from college debt-free was not the result of luck, but access to information, community support and persistence. Many of the organizations that once awarded scholarships to my children accepted my invitation to participate in the Pathways 2 Promise Scholarship Fair — a powerful, full-circle moment.
If education is to remain a true pathway to opportunity, those same resources must be visible and accessible to every family. The Pathways 2 Promise Scholarship Fair fulfills that vision.
It is more than an event. It is our shared promise, our collective investment and a modern-day “hand press” extended toward the future of Atlanta through its children.
Desireé Robinson is chair of the scholarship committee for the Atlanta Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta sorority. Robinson, an award-winning former broadcast journalist, is an Atlanta-based strategic communications professional and founder of Better Gray, an organization inspiring improved health, wealth and joy for adults 40 and older and a community advocate for education equity and access.
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