The College Foundation of North Carolina will sponsor, NC Countdown to College this year, October 15 - 19. During NC Countdown to College week, counselors and others at North Carolina high schools will help seniors submit online college applications for admission through the CFNC application hub. Many North Carolina colleges and universities will waive their application fees that week. Additionally in October, CFNC will give extra help to students as they fill out their Free Application for Federal Aid, or FAFSA, to determine eligibility for college aid, and use the Residency Determination Service to determine if they qualify for in-state tuition. Learn more at their site here.

As reported by Fast Company, "over 41,000 people work at Google, Facebook, and Twitter but less than 2% of that workforce—only about 750 employees—is black" and notably, "the rest of the tech industry mirrors that trend with African-American representation at 5% overall." The article draws data from the The National Urban League's Digital Inclusion index "which finds that black America has 74.1% of white America’s benefits from the digital economy and shows how often people of color are getting a fair chance at upward mobility within the tech sector compared to their white counterparts." The Digital Inclusion Index demonstrates that "people of color are afforded access and opportunity to attain only three-quarters of the total pie in terms of knowledge growth, empowerment, and financial reward and that total share is built off a weighted comparison of three factors: Digital skills and occupations account for 35% of that share, with digital access being another 35%, and supportive digital policies worth 30% of the total." You can download the Digital Inclusion Index here. 

​The National Urban League is "a historic civil rights organization dedicated to economic empowerment in order to elevate the standard of living in historically underserved urban communities." Founded in 1910 and headquartered in New York City, the National Urban League spearheads the efforts of its local affiliates through the development of programs, public policy research and advocacy. 

The National Coalition of 100 Black Women, Inc.'s vision is to see Black women and girls live in a world where  socio-economic inequity does not exist.

As reported by US News and World Report, a new sweeping study conducted by the National Urban League indicates that "African-Americans are at 72.5% – less than three-fourths – when it comes to achieving equality with white Americans" in the areas of economics, health, education, civic engagement and social justice." According to the Equality Index:

• On factors related to education, African-Americans were at 78.5% equality – an equation determined by assessing various education metrics, such as access to good schools, graduation rates and test scores, and comparing it to a benchmark of what those factors are for white Americans.
• For health (which looked at illnesses, death rates and access to health care), the number was 79.3%.
• For civic engagement (voting, military service, government employment), blacks are at near-parity, 99.7%.
•  Social justice (which includes incarceration rates and equality before the law) was calculated to be 55.9%. 

The Equality Index is how the National Urban League documents progress toward economic empowerment for Black and Hispanic Americans relative to Whites. Learn more about the Equality Index and download the report here. 

The National Urban League is "a historic civil rights organization dedicated to economic empowerment in order to elevate the standard of living in historically underserved urban communities." Founded in 1910 and headquartered in New York City, the National Urban League spearheads the efforts of its local affiliates through the development of programs, public policy research and advocacy. 

The National Coalition of 100 Black Women, Inc.'s vision is to see Black women and girls live in a world where  socio-economic inequity does not exist.

A recent study conducted by the Center for Demography and Ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison finds that "the gap in student debt held by Black and White borrowers grows by 6.8% each year" and as a result, Black young adults hold 10.4% less wealth on average than their White counterparts due to differences in student-loan debt." For-profit colleges which target Black students and tend to have worse outcomes are negatively implicated in this research which indicates that "the processes that students use to both accumulate and pay down debt are racialized." This situation ensures that Black students are likely to "typically need to rely more on debt to pay for school." The study is available for review here. 

The Center for Demography and Ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is "a multi-disciplinary faculty research cooperative for social scientific demographic research whose membership includes sociologists, rural sociologists, economists, epidemiologists, and statisticians." Learn more about the Center here. 

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Trump's proposal to raise minimum rents by up to $1800 per year for the poorest households receiving federal rent assistance would put 1.7 million people (including nearly 1 million children) at risk for eviction, hardship and homelessness. Virtually all impacted households have an annual income of less than $7,000. The proposal would triple minimum rent for these families. Learn more about the proposal here. 

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities is a nonpartisan research and policy institute that pursues federal and state policies designed both to reduce poverty and inequality and to restore fiscal responsibility in equitable and effective ways. The National Coalition of 100 Black Women, Inc. is a non-partisan organization. 

In April 2018, the Charlotte Observer reported that "developers are seeking almost $24 million worth of subsidies from Charlotte's Housing Trust Fund to build new affordable apartments throughout the city, as rents continue to rise." The city of Charlotte's Housing and Neighborhood Development committee is leading the charge to building "diverse and livable communities," and heard the developer's request at a recent meeting. Click here to learn more about the work of the committee and their steps toward diverse price point housing.