Higher Education and a Higher Purpose

A series of experiences and programs at Carolina led CJ Powell ’12 to discover and prepare for his career path. Powell is now an assistant in the U.S. Department of Education working on access to higher education, but his path from the admissions office to his current job was hardly a straight line.

A key step was Powell’s work with the Carolina College Advising Corps, a program to help low-income, first-generation and under-represented students apply to and enroll in college by placing recent UNC-Chapel Hill graduates as college advisers in selected public high schools throughout the state.

Today, as he works to create and implement education policy, Powell often shares his CCAC experiences with his team: “There is a lot that goes into getting someone to feel like they can achieve their educational aspirations, and I think those stories really matter.”

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