For many first-generation high school graduates, going to college starts with a vision. They have to see themselves on campus, in the classroom, in the library. Studying, making friends, and succeeding. But how can you begin to imagine spending four years at Stanford, or a CSU, for example, if you grew up on a farm? “When you’re from a different socioeconomic background, you grapple with how you fit in at college,” says Emeritus Professor of Medicine, Marilyn Winkleby, a health researcher and epidemiologist at Stanford. Winkleby would know. She grew up very modestly in a rural town in Southern California. Her parents, who had not gone to college, raised avocados and chickens on 2-acre farm. When she graduated from high school in the 1960s, Winkleby enrolled at Sacramento State because the tuition cost only $52 per semester. “I didn’t know how to navigate the system. I didn’t even know there was a difference between colleges. My parents always said, ‘Just go to college,’ says Winkleby. Winkleby’s new nonprofit, the Access to Achievement Education Foundation, has provided Puente with a $5,000 education grant to help smooth students’ transition between high school and college and to provide concrete experiences that enable them to have first-hand experiences of life at college. Many promising youth struggle to afford basic necessities for school. For some … Continue reading Education grant brings college into focus