The organizations below provide multiple resources to assist students in planning, applying, and paying for college.

College Foundation of North Carolina: The CFNC is a state-wide program to assist North Carolina students in planning, applying, and paying for college. Their website includes a high school planner, test preparation information, special calculators to help students determine the loans they need and a repayment schedule, loan applications, applications to North Carolina colleges and universities, a scholarship database, and virtual campus tours among other resources for college-bound high school students.

College Greenlight: A website dedicated toward underrepresented students and helping them find colleges and scholarships that are a good fit.

Questbridge National College Match Program: This program helps outstanding low-income high school seniors to gain admission and full four-year scholarships to some of the nation’s leading colleges.

QuestBridge works with selective colleges that are actively seeking high-achieving students regardless of family income. You may be concerned about tuition costs, but top-ranked colleges offer generous financial aid packages that cover 100% of demonstrated financial need, making them very affordable for students from low-income backgrounds.

First Generation Student: This website features writers and contributors from numerous highly-respected groups such as College Board, FinAid.org, and US News & World Report. The blog is updated a few times a week with additional articles, as well as first-hand stories from students who’ve succeeded.

I’m First: An online community to provide information and support to first-generation college students. It connects students with schools and programs that support first-generation college students in achieving their college dream. Students can sort schools by those with fly-in programs, summer bridge programs, different majors, location, etc.

KnowHow2GO.org: Young people in all socio-economic groups have college aspirations. In fact, eight out of 10 expect to attain a bachelor’s degree or higher, according to the U.S. Department of Education. But despite their aspirations, low-income students and those who are the first in their families to pursue higher education are severely underrepresented on college campuses. Studies show these students often lack the guidance they need to prepare for postsecondary education.

In order to turn these students’ college dreams into action-oriented goals, the American Council on Education, Lumina Foundation for Education and the Ad Council launched the KnowHow2GO campaign in January 2007. This multiyear, multimedia effort includes television, radio and outdoor public service advertisements (PSAs) that encourage 8th through 10th graders to prepare for college using the four simple steps listed above.

Fair Test: The National Center for Fair and Open Testing is an organization that works to end the misuses and flaws of standardized testing and to ensure that evaluation of students, teachers and schools is fair, open, valid and educationally beneficial. At this website, you can find a list of schools that are Test Optional meaning they do not require ACT or SAT scores for admission. You can also find extensive information about the biases in testing and strategies for overcoming them.