I didn’t grow up with a roadmap to college. I grew up with the blessing of a grandmother who loved me fiercely and did everything she could to keep me safe, fed, and hopeful. She was the one who first heard, through school and church conversations, about a program called TRIO, a critical resource for first-generation students like me. I was 13, a ninth-grader, when she signed me up for the program and that decision changed my life.
Keiara Skipper
The summers were transformative. For six weeks, we lived in the dorms at Southern. We ate in the cafeteria, sat in on real college classes, and learned how to navigate a campus. That immersion made college feel not only possible, but familiar. I can still remember walking across the quad one evening after a study hall and thinking, “I belong here.” Living that life as a teenager didn’t just inspire me to attend college; it helped me picture myself finishing.
TRIO also held us accountable in ways that built strong habits, those in which I still rely on as a leader till today. In the program we had to turn in report cards, keep our grades up, and show up for Saturday programming, even when it clashed with extracurriculars. If we met those goals, we earned opportunities like the end-of-year college and culture trips. I was the first freshman chosen to go, a bus winding from South Carolina to New York and all the way to Nova Scotia, Canada. As a kid from my community, being told “you’re worthy of this” and then being placed on that bus was a lesson in effort, discipline, and earned pride.
Mentorship was the program’s heartbeat. I lived in the dorm with a mentor named Ms. Bruno, who took time with us as individuals, pushing us when we needed it, talking to us like our futures were non-negotiable. Many of our mentors were strong Black women who modeled professionalism and joy. They didn’t just advise; they embodied who we could become. Their voices echoed when ACT prep got hard, when FAFSA forms felt like a foreign language, and when application fees looked like a stop sign instead of a speed bump.
TRIO knocked down barriers, one by one. The biggest was knowledge, how the higher-ed system works, what steps come first, and how to pay for it without burying your family in debt. TRIO staff sat with me through financial aid forms. They helped me compare colleges and deadlines. When I graduated, TRIO even covered my first summer of college courses so I could start strong. That kind of scaffolding, the right help at the right time is the reason I persisted to graduation.
I went on to earn a bachelor’s in Secondary Education from Southern University and a master’s in Educational Leadership and Curriculum & Instruction from Southeastern Louisiana University. I became a high-school English teacher, then an instructional specialist, a school and district test coordinator, and later an assistant principal for middle school and K–2. Today, I serve as External Relations Manager at EdTrust in Louisiana. I bring to this role a track record of measurable change: I helped three low-performing charter schools grow significantly, including one that moved from a low D to a B and held that B for three consecutive years. I was also able to help achieve strong student growth on Louisiana’s DIBELS reading assessment, that progress earned recognition at the state level, including meetings with State Superintendent Cade Brumley. This work keeps me close to the mission TRIO instilled in me: expanding equity and access for students who’ve been told college is “not for people like us.”
Here’s the truth: my story isn’t the exception. Many of my TRIO peers are now principals, educators, nurses, lawyers, real-estate professionals, and adults raising families and stabilizing communities. TRIO doesn’t just change students’ current paths; it changes their life trajectories. It creates first-generation graduates whose younger siblings, cousins and family members follow paths that used to feel out of reach. That’s generational change.
I’ll never forget what it felt like to be a 13-year-old in a dorm room on Southern’s campus, with a mentor reviewing my goals for the week and a community that kept saying “see you Saturday.” That continuity of care, expectations, and love with structure made the difference. As I often tell my students and colleagues: “I was always capable, but TRIO made it possible. They gave me the map, rode the bus with me when the route was new, and cheered when I drove it myself.”
To the students coming up behind me, the “little Keiara’s” being raised by grandparents or working parents, the young people without a roadmap, TRIO is the difference between hoping and graduating. To the leaders with power over budgets: invest in what works. Invest in what builds habits, lifts barriers, and turns first-generation into first-of-many. The purpose of TRIO is simple and urgent: give every student, no matter their background, a fair shot at their potential. That purpose deserves protection, not just for who we become, but for who follows after us.
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Keiara Skipper is External Relations Manager at EdTrust in Louisiana.
