First Graduate

About Us

Because only 50% of Black and Latinx students in California graduate from high school, and only 11% of first-generation students nationally attain a BA degree, and because 8 out of 10 SFUSD students have parents who did not complete college, and because 80% of unemployment due to COVID-19 affected people without college degrees, First Graduate helps students finish high school and become the first in their families to graduate from college ready to pursue meaningful careers. First Graduate is uniquely positioned to close the education and employment disparities for our students who are 98% students of color and 61% are immigrants or children of immigrants. What differentiates First Graduate from other college access programs is that we work with 400 students via a cohort model for each grade from seventh grade through college graduation. We also provide parental support and workshops, engage our alumni as tutors and mentors, and are focused on San Francisco students who are driven to be first-generation college graduates. We coach our students to persist and succeed throughout their academic experience while providing social and emotional support as well. Seventy-two percent of our First Graduate first-generation students graduate from college within six years, compared to the national rate of just 11%. Sixty-eight percent of our students earn a 3.3 GPA or higher.