Students PUSH-ed to enroll in City Colleges

Visitors at the 37th annual Rainbow PUSH Coalition Conference and its first annual Youth Conference were presented with a unique opportunity Tuesday. For the first time ever, all seven schools of the City Colleges of Chicago instantly enrolled students on site.

Of the ten most populated cities in the U.S., Chicago is currently ranked seventh in educational attainment, with only 30.1 percent of the population having an associate degree or higher. For Chicago to match the educational attainment level of San Diego, the top ranked city, approximately 225,000 Chicagoans would have to receive college degrees.

According to Michael Mutz, vice chancellor of development for the City Colleges of Chicago, it's through events like these that the City Colleges hopes to catch up with other U.S. cities.

Nestled among rows of laptops, counselors from every school in the City College system were available to answer questions and to automatically enroll students electronically. "This is really unique. There aren't too many opportunities where students have all these resources in front of them," Mutz said.

Participating in the conference, at the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place, will not only allow visitors to enroll but will also give prospective students an understanding of the institutional support available to them, according to Arlethia Mayes, a college advisor at Malcolm X College. "Even when they begin their academic start with City Colleges, they know that we are willing to go over and beyond to support them and meet their needs," she said.

Olive-Harvey College Assistant Dean of Student Services Glasetta Barksdale, agreed having all seven colleges in a single room is advantageous for prospective students. "It allows us to come to them," she said, adding that room assigned to the City Colleges should have been more strategically placed in the conference building. Instead, it was located rather far down a long hall away from the main conference and in a separate building from the Youth Conference.

"If I could re-script I would probably say, 'You know it would be wonderful for us be right in the middle. But this is the first year we have done this so my guess is we will learn quite a bit and hopefully do it better next year,' " Mutz said.

Visitors who found their way down the long hallway had positive reactions. "I thought it was a lot of help," said Nathalie Aviles, an 18-year-old recent high school graduate. "I wasn't sure what college I wanted to get into so I asked each college to find out information."

Asked whether or not she had made a decision as to which college to attend, Aviles responded "I am going to review my notes and see which one fits with me the best."