A nonprofit, HospitalityTogether, helps high school seniors get to college, even when they are working minimum wage jobs, writes Layla A. Jones for billypenn.com.

Radnor Country Club is one of the partners helping HospitalityTogether give these students a leg up.

These students can’t pay for tuition, room and board and books. Plus, it’s difficult to juggle a class schedule, coursework and a job.

“I was terrified of going to college,” 24-year-old Timothy Hernandez told Billy Penn. “I didn’t want to be riddled with crippling debt for the next decade and a half.”

Hernandez turned to HospitalityTogether, which has seen a 75 percent success rate.

The work-to-college pipeline program provides students with entry level jobs at top restaurants in the region.

They are given soft skills training and in-person supports like a free transpass for the first six months, tutoring, and mentoring about workplace politics.

They’re also enrolled in a not-for-profit, low-cost online university.

The hope is to get them successfully through the first semester of college, when most students drop out, while keeping them employed.

Of eight students in the program, six remain enrolled in school and working inside the restaurants at which they were placed.

Read more about HospitalityTogether here.

[uam_ad id=”62465″]