Tina Fernandez, the executive director of Achieve Atlanta, has lofty aspirations for the non-profit organization she runs. She describes its long-term goal as helping Atlanta operate as a city where race and income no longer predict academic success. Achieve Atlanta’s mission entails helping Atlanta’s public-school students graduate from college.

Fernandez is also an experienced attorney who served as a clinical professor at the University of Texas School of Law. She developed a Pro Bono Program and was instrumental in helping nearly 1,000 undocumented students apply for DACA.  Fernandez earned her undergraduate degree at Harvard University in 1994 and her law degree from Columbia University.

In addition, Fernandez serves on a variety of boards, including Latinos for Education, The New Teachers Project and National College Attainment Network.

The accomplishments of Achieve Atlanta have been impressive. It has raised over $70 million to support the organization and its scholarship program, helped 617 of its graduates attain postsecondary degrees as of June 2021, and named one-third of the graduating seniors from Atlanta’s public schools as scholars. Of those students, 94% are Black or Latino, 96% have been eligible for Pell Grants, and 51% are first-generation college students.

This scholarship program targets juniors and seniors in Atlanta’s high schools, as well as nearly 4,000 Achieve Atlanta Scholars - graduates of Atlanta’s public schools who receive need-based scholarships as college students.

Compared to metropolises like New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, the city of Atlanta has a very small Latino demographic. Based on the 2021 U.S. Census Bureau, its population is 51% Black, 41% White, 4% Asian and 4% Latino (New York City, for example, is 30% Latino). Fernandez says most of the Latinos in the area live outside of Atlanta in the Metro region.

Fernandez turns 50 years old in May. She grew up on the border with Mexico in Texas, graduated from Harvard University in 1994, taught elementary school in the South Bronx and also worked at Fulbright & Jaworski, a high-powered law firm based in Houston, Texas.

Tina Fernandez spoke with HO about Achieve Atlanta's goals.

HO: Stated simply, what are the most important goals of Achieve Atlanta?

Fernandez: Our vision is that Atlanta is a city where race and income no longer predict postsecondary success and upward mobility. Our vision is to help Atlanta public school students’ access, afford and earn a postsecondary credential. We’ll know that we’ve achieved our mission when we’ve dramatically increased the number of Atlanta public school graduates who complete a college credential. Our aim is to make progress on our North Star (long-term goal) of the graduation rate for Achieve Atlanta scholars being equal to or exceeding the graduation rates of their non-low-income peers.

HO: How, specifically, do you help students graduate from high school?

Fernandez: Achieve Atlanta does not directly work to help students graduate from high school. However, we help students think beyond high school and our College Access partners deliver hands-on help to students as they chart their paths to college. Through a formal relationship with Atlanta Public Schools, we provide strategic, operational and financial support, as well as a district-wide college advising program that serves all juniors and seniors.

HO: How do you help students gain entry into college?

Fernandez: We help students identify the right match and college to apply to and help them with the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) financial aid process required for college entry. We also fund SAT in the School Day and allow Atlanta public schools juniors to take the SAT at no cost. Finally, we partner with the College Advising Corps and OneGoal to provide college support to students.

HO: Therefore, how do you maximize their chances of graduating from college?

Fernandez: We help students finance their college education through the Achieve Atlanta scholarship, worth up to $20,000, and also provide emergency grants and completion grants to help students persist through college. We partner with post-secondary institutions and college success experts to offer direct support, mental health support and advising services to students. We also have college ambassadors who teach about  our partner institutions and provide peer support for other scholars.

HO: Why do many first-generation minority students need help navigating their way through the college process and earning a degree?

Fernandez: Applying to college is complicated. It involves multiple processes over several years. You have to take your college entrance exam during your junior year, research schools, know where there is a good academic match, and then apply for financial aid through FAFSA, which is notoriously complicated, and then you have to apply to college. It’s a multi-step process.

HO: What have you learned about what works best to reach first-generation, poor and working-class students?

Fernandez: Students need to be able to see a path to college. They need to know they can pay for it and that it’s possible for them. When you don’t have a parent that has gone to college or know someone who has gone to college, it seems like a big mystery. We have a tagline: Believe. Expect. Achieve. You need the belief that college is possible before anything else, then the expectation that this is what you’re going to do, and that leads to achieving your dream.

HO: What’s the one piece of advice you’d offer a Latino high school student who aims to get a post-secondary degree?

Fernandez: Get help. They don’t get sufficient help and don’t have an adult helping them through the process. It could be a counselor, teacher, or mentor. Students shouldn’t be expected to do that on their own.

HO: If another city wanted to replicate what Atlanta is doing, name the two things it would have to do to make that happen.

Fernandez: You’d need community champions to champion the effort, and you’d need sufficient funding to support the capacity needs.

HO: Who are your predominant funders?

Fernandez: It’s the Joseph B. Whitehead Foundation. They’re part of a family involved with the Coca-Cola Foundation, part of the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation. Coca-Cola is headquartered in Atlanta.

HO: You’re on the boards of several organizations such as Latinos for Education and the New Teachers Project. Why?

Fernandez: The ultimate goal is social justice, and one can’t accomplish that on one’s own. I believe in supporting other organizations that support educational equity.

HO: What inspired you to help others? Arguably, you could be a partner at a major law firm and earn more income?

Fernandez: It was my own personal story and the story of the people I grew up with. There aren’t a lot of opportunities where I grew up in the Rio Grande Valley on the Texas-Mexico border in the town of Edinburg. But I loved school and was lucky enough to go to an Ivy League college, graduating from Harvard University.  I don’t think that should be an exception; all kids should be able to achieve their dreams.

HO: In the U.S. we talk a lot about equality for all, but we don’t really have that. What would it take to have more equality in public education?

Fernandez: It would take dismantling the entire system and rebuilding the foundation to put our money where our mouth is. We say we value education, and we’re a meritocracy, but we’re not. We have to live the values we hold.

HO: Ultimately, what makes Achieve Atlanta effective?

Fernandez: It’s the power of collaboration. We don’t do it on our own. We work with Atlanta public schools, higher education, non-profits, and students and family. •