WANT TO GO TO COLLEGE BUT NEED HELP? Check out this program

College-bound or college-interested students will now have an extra resource to get them get started.

Higher Education Servicing Corporation (“HESC”), in collaboration with the Arlington Public Library and with funding provided by the Arlington Tomorrow Foundation, will open its first of three library-based GO Centers at the East Arlington library located at 1624 New York Avenue on Thursday, February 7.

Two additional GO Centers will open in subsequent weeks at the Northeast Arlington library located at 1905 Brown Boulevard and the Central Arlington library located at 101 East Abram Street.

GO Centers help guide and mentor students toward college and careers and are typically located in junior high and senior high schools.

 HESC’s library-based GO Centers will coordinate programming with each of the libraries’ unique youth services and will employ college students from Tarrant County College and the University of Texas at Arlington to act as college mentors. The HESC GO Centers use a “peer-to-peer” method which has been found to be highly effective. Mr. Phillip Wambsganss, Associate Executive Director at HESC stated, “By using college mentors to encourage, guide and tutor junior high and high school students, we find students are much more open and accepting of our message.”

HESC and the Arlington Public Library ultimately seek to see more students pursue college and achieve a degree, or some type of higher education credential, in order to be career ready. By collaborating in this way, both HESC and the Arlington Public Library will leverage their individual strengths in order to create a college-going culture within the Arlington communities they serve. “We are very excited to join with HESC in bringing college mentors into the lives of our teens. Both the GO Centers and Youth Technology Centers are proven success stories, and great things will come by joining them together in our Libraries,” says Marc Marchand, Library Services Manager at APL.

About Arlington Public Library – Arlington Public Library provides services aligned with our Strategic Plan through a network of seven library facilities located throughout the city, as well as numerous LibraryLiNK locations placed in schools or other service organizations. The library’s Youth Technology Centers offer programming in robotics, digital media, art, and writing along with mentoring through a collaboration with Big Brothers Big Sisters.

About Higher Education Servicing Corporation – Founded as a private, non-profit federal student loan servicer and administrator for the North Texas Higher Education Authority, Inc.., HESC has sought to ensure access to higher education for Texas students and families for over 35 years. In addition to administering federal and private education loans, HESC sponsors outreach initiatives throughout North Texas. HESC’s outreach mission is to inspire students to achieve a higher education by promoting a college-going culture through educational outreach activities, services and community partnerships. For more information about HESC, please contact Phillip Wambsganss at phillipw@nthea.com.

(By: Cheryel Carpenter, city release)