Message from BRYC’s Executive Director Lucas Spielfogel

A person’s value is not determined by where or if they go to college. But BRYC exists because there are tens of thousands of Baton Rouge youth who want postsecondary degrees yet face tremendous barriers to attaining them and converting their education into economic opportunity. Justice looks like ensuring BRYC Fellows have the resources all young people need to viably pursue their dreams.

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Pictured: Lucas with Class of 2021 Fellow and Louisiana Young Hero Ivory Gipson

65%

Proportion of U.S. jobs that require some higher education
Source: Louisiana Board of Regents Master Plan

12.9%

Proportion of Black adults aged 25+ in EBR who hold bachelor’s degrees
Source: World Population Review 2023

Mission

Help underserved youth excel in high school; enter, persist through, and graduate from college; and secure career-track jobs.

Vision

Provide our students with the best college-preparatory, college persistence, and career placement services money can buy — for free — so they can maximize the economic value of their degrees, build the lives they want, and help future generations do the same.

Core Beliefs

There are no "at-risk" youth, only youth who live in environments that have systemically been made risky.

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“At-risk” is a problematic catch-all phrase casually used to describe students who struggle in school. In most cases, the term refers to situational risk factors – e.g. poverty, incarceration, unemployment, etc. – that adversely affect educational attainment. Because Black and Brown youth disproportionately face these risk factors, they are saddled with the racialized stigma of being “at-risk.” The term lays blame on students (as early as pre-K) for conditions that result from policy choices, not personal choices, and assigns a label that fuels the very disparities it allegedly warns of.

The so-called "achievement gap" is a symptom of profound resource and opportunity gaps.

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The “achievement gap” is the persistent disparity in standardized test performance between students of color and their white peers. Success on these tests is a function of access, not aptitude. More than 400 years of systemic racism have caused Black and Brown students to disproportionately lack access to protective factors – like high-quality schools; safe neighborhoods; and high parental educational attainment – that support academic progress. Because, generally, these students lack the resources to properly prepare for standardized tests, they are blocked from opportunities that drive economic mobility and open new doors to their children. This is one of the reasons colleges are deprioritizing these tests. Another is that they are an extremely limited measure of the diverse intelligences that diverse environments foster.

College graduation is not the end in itself, but rather a vehicle to personal and professional opportunity.

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Graduating from college is a huge achievement, especially for students who persist through tremendous obstacles along the way. However, to advance racial equity, we must think of students’ success in terms of what happens after they enter the workforce. If we don’t, we risk overlooking the financial risk students often incur to attend college and the barriers that still lie ahead. BRYC is focused on helping Fellows maximize the value of their college experience so they can convert their degrees into economic opportunity. Our vision of success manifests in their ability to secure fulfilling career-track jobs; build the lives they want for themselves; and help future generations do the same.

Photo coming soon!

The Three Cs

BRYC’s college-preparatory community is a village of programs, participatory opportunities, and people that we wrap around Fellows at no cost. The layered Cs in our logo represent our core competencies:

College: Programs
Helping Fellows become expert learners and enter and complete college

Consciousness: Participation
Supporting Fellows’ self-advocacy and involvement in meaningful activities

Community: People
Fostering a loving community in which Fellows access valuable resources

Where We Started

2009

Dan Kahn and Sam Joel, then Belaire High School teachers, realized their brightest, hardest working students lacked the resources they needed to enter and graduate from college. They founded BRYC with 15 students, running programs out of the Belfair Teen Center in north Baton Rouge.

2010-2014

BRYC grows to serve 100 Fellows, renting space at 850 North Street, and later, 611 North Street, to accommodate the growing team and cohort.

2015-2022

BRYC comes home to 460 N. 11th Street, purchasing a 25,000-square-foot campus with room to serve 300 students. We provide fully virtual programming during the pandemic and also add an 8th-grade cohort.

2023-2024

BRYC launches its first satellite site in Iberville Parish and continues serving over 300 8th-12th-grade Fellows on our downtown campus. The East Baton Rouge Parish School Board approves a $1.5 million investment for BRYC to open a second EBR campus in fall 2024. BRYC prepares to also provide an in-school college counseling program at five area high schools in 2024-2025.

BRYC timeline photos

Where We Are Today (2023-2024)

FELLOWS
0
VOLUNTEERS
0
ALUMNI
0

Alumni Persistence Rate

0%

BRYC 4-year
degree completion rate
(Bachelor’s seeking)

0%

BRYC 2– & 4-year
degree completion rate
(overall Fellowship)

0%

BRYC 4-year
degree completion rate
(overall Fellowship)

0%

U.S. 4-year
degree completion rate
(lower-income students)

Source: National Center for Education Statistics

Return on Investment

$85M+

Scholarships awarded to BRYC Fellows (non-TOPS/Pell)

$11.7M

Additional annual wages BRYC's Alumni are on track to earn

$90M+

Total additional lifetime tax value BRYC's Alumni are on track to yield

BRYC's Commitment to Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

BRYC intends for equity not to be in our DNA but to be our DNA. We’re proud of – but never satisfied with – where we are in the lifelong process of scrutinizing how unjust power dynamics manifest in BRYC spaces and building systems to prevent and interrupt them.

It starts with personnel. Through a hiring process that intentionally reaches diverse audiences and assesses implicit bias in selection, BRYC has built a team that represents and understands Fellows’ experiences. And where we are ignorant, we are committed to learn. In Team Labs, BRYC staff regularly look for opportunities to make our educational practices and organizational policies more equitable. Our Trust Statements, norms for how teammates treat one another, form the foundation of a culture of safety, in which conflict and injustice is brought to light and addressed constructively. We are incredibly proud of our team culture and its effect on Fellows’ feeling safe and supported at BRYC.

We are even more deliberate about how BRYC adults interact with Fellows. BRYC’s Culture Code, jointly written by Fellows and staff, is our constitution for how teammates and volunteers should approach our roles as mentors. This focus on Fellow respect and agency extends into programs. BRYC’s commitment to making college access more equitable for driven, underserved youth comprises not only tackling the functional aspects of succeeding in high school and college but also engaging Fellows around the structural inequities that call for BRYC’s existence and block Black and Brown youth from socioeconomic mobility. Through monthly pulse surveys, semesterly satisfaction surveys, and a perpetual emphasis on self-advocacy, we urge Fellows and Guardians to tell us how BRYC can be better.

Finally, BRYC does not tolerate these violences by or against any member of the BRYC Community: racism; sexism; ableism; homophobia; transphobia; ageism; anti-Semitism; stereotypes; physical, emotional or sexual abuse; or gossip.

BRYC's Commitment to Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

BRYC intends for equity not to be in our DNA but to be our DNA. We’re proud of – but never satisfied with – where we are in the lifelong process of scrutinizing how unjust power dynamics manifest in BRYC spaces and building systems to prevent and interrupt them.

It starts with personnel. Through a hiring process that intentionally reaches diverse audiences and assesses implicit bias in selection, BRYC has built a team that represents and understands Fellows’ experiences. And where we are ignorant, we are committed to learn. In Team Labs, BRYC staff regularly look for opportunities to make our educational practices and organizational policies more equitable. Our Trust Statements, norms for how teammates treat one another, form the foundation of a culture of safety, in which conflict and injustice is brought to light and addressed constructively. We are incredibly proud of our team culture and its effect on Fellows’ feeling safe and supported at BRYC.

We are even more deliberate about how BRYC adults interact with Fellows. BRYC’s Culture Code, jointly written by Fellows and staff, is our constitution for how teammates and volunteers should approach our roles as mentors. This focus on Fellow respect and agency extends into programs. BRYC’s commitment to making college access more equitable for driven, underserved youth comprises not only tackling the functional aspects of succeeding in high school and college but also engaging Fellows around the structural inequities that call for BRYC’s existence and block Black and Brown youth from socioeconomic mobility. Through monthly pulse surveys, semesterly satisfaction surveys, and a perpetual emphasis on self-advocacy, we urge Fellows and Guardians to tell us how BRYC can be better.

Finally, BRYC does not tolerate these violences by or against any member of the BRYC Community: racism; sexism; ableism; homophobia; transphobia; ageism; anti-Semitism; stereotypes; physical, emotional or sexual abuse; or gossip.

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