KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Claude Harris has a vivid memory of the end of high school.
"I had a 3.875 GPA, I was on the principal's honor roll, but I only scored a 17 on the ACT test," Harris said. "And I just wanted to go to college, that was my dream. To be the first in my family to do it. Unfortunately, with that low score, I didn’t get scholarships, so I had to walk on the basketball team and get a scholarship."
Harris took action to help those that were in a similar situation as him.
"I wanted to create a program that would help other people not go through the struggles that I went through," Harris said.
That program is the College Coaching Network.
It's meant to help students learn about every school and scholarship at their disposal. Holly Jackson is a recent success story.
"I had not heard of my school yet, but through this program, I was able to see a financial world through that," Jackson said. "I was able to see Pepperdine University and discover that."
Her mother Anisha says in a pandemic environment, CCN was essential.
"Everything went online, so if you didn't have access to any of this information, you were lost," she said. "His program was very key and instrumental in helping us navigate those waters."
This is virtual learning with new worlds at high schoolers' fingertips.
Participants are taking campus tours in the Metaverse, and in an inflationary environment, saving money while doing so.
"You don't have to spend hundreds of dollars on gas to travel to that college," John Wilson, a rising high school junior, said. "Getting a better knowledge of different colleges that are out there already, and knowing where different scholarship money is."
Joshua Carlisle, a rising high school senior, also weighed in on how the program has helped him.
"It's showing me what colleges I could go to, scholarships I can apply to, it's opening up some doors," he said.
Opening doors, to new possibilities.
"When you have such help going through that, it's very inspiring, it allows me as a student to be optimistic and know that I can do it," Holly Jackson said.
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