Only 17% of people have a college education in a small town in Florida, yet a local high school is ensuring 100% of its students have the option to attend college. Cristian Benavides reports.

Florida

Q.I. Roberts Junior Senior High School in Floraholm, Florida, has achieved a record where 100 percent of its graduates are accepted into college. The school, located in a rural area with limited local employment opportunities, supports many first-generation college students and works to provide them with pathways to higher education.

Despite a national decline in confidence regarding the value of a college degree, the school maintains its commitment to ensuring students have the option to pursue further education. While not all graduates choose to attend college, many receive scholarship offers, and the school's focus remains on preparing students for successful futures, whether through higher education or other opportunities.

Small-town Florida high school guarantees path to college

The American dream has been central to many Americans' conception of their country and their fortunes. That every person has the freedom and opportunity to succeed and have a better life. Today, a new Wall Street Journal poll finds confidence that the value of a college education, what many people think is a key to the dream, that it will lead to a better American dream for them that it's fallen, confidence has. However, our Christian Benavides takes us through the halls of one Florida school working to ensure 100 percent of its graduates have the option to explore higher ed. At Q.I. Roberts Junior Senior High School in Floraholm, Florida, 100 percent of graduates are accepted into college. Teachers and students, please excuse this interruption. Yet each school year, Principal Joseph Theobald struggles with recruitment. Is it hard to get a number of students to enroll here? So each year, yes. The schools in Florida's rural Putnam County, Floraholm, has one traffic light, the biggest private employers, a paper mill and power plant. About 80 percent of our students, their family didn't go to college. So they'll be the first generation. Case in point, college junior Talia Lowe, a Q.I. Roberts graduate. Her mother is a mail carrier, stepfather, an electrician. But most of Lowe's family are truckers, specifically my grandmother. She kind of started that trend in our family. I remember she'd come home in her big red semi truck. She's enrolled as a health care major at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville. I wanted to push myself. I love to have a challenge in my life. Yet confidence in higher education has fallen from 57 percent in 2015 to 36 in 2023. A 2024 survey found 40 percent believe college is not important. I think that the most important thing about an education is that it opens up opportunities for a more enriched life. While more people are questioning whether college is worth it, research consistently shows college graduates earned much more over a lifetime than those who did not attend college. There is a growing wage gap and on average, college graduates earn about a million more over a lifetime. So they're just feeling like scared. It's why high school senior Mary Fishley says she's college bound. Education when given the opportunity should never be taken for granted. Do you feel like there's a stigma associated with college? In some cases I do. I feel like people have lost like the meaning of college. What's your message? I would say look at the bigger picture and don't close your horizons, especially if you're in a rural town and it feels like it's so easy to just stay here and getting out of here is harder. Don't limit yourself. While all QI Roberts students are admitted, many with scholarship offers, not all go to college. The point isn't sending them to college. The point is sending them off into the world with a good plan to be a successful, happy, healthy person. Finding a path forward for all students. Cristian Benavides, CBS News, Putnam County, Florida.

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