Giving Compass' Take:

• Georgetown University's Achieve Chat service helps connect first-year, first-generation college students with seniors to help answer any lingering questions about the college process that they might have. 

• How can other schools adopt similar programs? 

• Read about the nonprofit, Basta, assisting first-generation students to find their career paths after college. 

Sitting in a coffee shop Julia Potts and Zachary Kelly may have struck some as an odd pair. Potts, a Georgetown freshman, is straight out of Newark, N.J.: black, and a graduate of KIPP Newark Collegiate Academy. Kelly, a Georgetown senior, is straight out of Boston: white, and headed into a high-power accounting job with Credit Suisse.

When the future of the country demographically is clearly moving toward more and more kids from underrepresented communities and when there’s greater interdependence in our country than ever before, the future of the country relies on breaking down barriers, rather than creating walled gardens

Potts and Kelly were paired up for an “achieve chat” — one of the university’s many services offered out of its Georgetown Scholarship Program, which is designed to guide first-generation college students like Potts through the intimidating waters of a prestigious university like Georgetown.

Between 2003 and 2013, the number of students at Georgetown who received federal Pell Grants aimed at low-income students, like Potts, doubled. The GSP, as it’s known, is Georgetown’s answer for making sure those students earn degrees.

For a student like Potts, this was pure gold, and you could tell by her intent listening that she saw it that way.

Like many first-generation students, especially minorities, Potts was hesitant to reach out for help. That would only ramp up the insecurities about whether she truly belongs here. “It’s this big-name school and I came from little Newark, New Jersey.” But after a self-described “bumpy” first semester as a business major, Potts settled down and feels comfortable with her classes, thanks in part to good counseling.

Read the full article first-generation students in college by Richard Whitmire at The 74