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Sometimes, just making it to college isn’t enough.

Urban high school students often have to navigate a minefield of obstacles and distractions to get to college. But once they get on campus, too many find that their college careers can be easily derailed. A landmark study by Northeastern University that tracked the graduates of Boston Public Schools from the Class of 2000 who went on to attend a two- or four-year college found that nearly two-thirds of them failed to earn a degree. A followup study from The Boston Foundation released in 2011 found that a staggering 72 percent of BPS non-exam school graduates who went on to college failed to earn either an Associate's or a Bachelor's degree.

The Alray Taylor Second Chance Scholarship Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, is designed to help address the urgent need highlighted in those studies. Our scholarship and mentoring organization works with promising students from Boston who had the smarts and drive to get to college but who need some crucial assistance in finding a way back there.

The Second Chance referred to in the name of the fund encompasses more than just financial assistance. Each scholarship recipient is teamed with a dedicated mentor who can offer guidance and support, with the goal of helping the student avoid the missteps of the past and expand his/her horizons. The scholarship recipients become part of the Second Chance community, eventually helping to mentor other students down the line.

The scholarship is named after Alray Taylor, a warm-hearted former basketball star at Boston’s Charlestown High School and Division I college scholarship athlete whose life was tragically cut short in 2006.

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