14 FRONTDOORS MEDIA | JULY 2018 Want to Help? Rich Nickel, president and CEO of College Success Arizona, says the best way to lend a hand is to help the organization build its capacity. Beyond this, he encourages citizens to remind the business community and policymakers of the massive upside for Arizona’s economy if we continue to increase our educational attainment rate. To learn more, visit collegesuccessarizona.org. Above: Rich Nickel enjoys getting to know the new College Success Arizona scholarship recipients. Left : Dawt Khun graduated from Grand Canyon University in 2016.

JULY 2018 | FRONTDOORS MEDIA 15 key to her achievements. “Sometimes I would not know what to do but I found that if you ask people, they are usually willing to help,” she said. “Hard work will pay off.” This is the philosophy College Success Arizona teaches, to chip away at seemingly impossible goals. “Four years is a long time. So the way we go about that is trying to bite off small pieces,” Nickel said. “We focus on setting mid-term goals and shorter-term goals and accomplishing each of those leading up to a successful end. After a while, a semester has gone by, and then a year, and then four years.” The education and business communities are taking note of the organization’s accomplishments, realizing that educational attainment must be a top priority to boost prosperity and build Arizona’s economy. In fact, a group of more than 70 community, business, philanthropic and education organizations throughout the state have formed an alliance called Achieve60AZ with the goal of creating a more highly educated population. The thinking goes that this will attract businesses to Arizona, increase the tax base and decrease poverty. Nickel points to big-name corporations that have not come to Arizona because of concern that the state does not have the skilled labor force to fill their positions. “We have lost opportunities,” he said. As a result, College Success Arizona, Achieve60AZ and other organizations are looking for ways to achieve a more highly educated workforce through avenues other than scholarships alone. “Even if I did a great job and we raised money and gave 250 scholarships a year, we wouldn’t really be providing impact at the system level,” Nickel said. “If our mission is to increase the attainment rate of the state, to make Arizona a great place to live in the future, we do that by serving low-income, high-potential students who would not otherwise participate.” There’s evidence that the state’s interest in education is trending powerfully upward. “There’s been data for the last three years in a row that show that the public thinks education is our number-one issue. It had always been immigration,” Nickel said. “What we’re seeing, I think, is a shift toward being a pro-education state.” To capitalize on the momentum, College Success Arizona is working with educational partners from across the state to identify potential scholars whose graduation from a four-year university will increase Arizona’s competitiveness in the years ahead. Organizations such as Arizona GEAR UP, Helios Education Foundation, Educational Talent Search, Be A Leader Foundation, Jobs for Arizona Graduates, College Bound Arizona and many others are working closely with Arizona’s colleges and universities to ensure that the state can compete for high- paying jobs in the decades to come. “The data clearly say the more highly educated a person is the more money that person is going to make, the more civic responsibility that person is going to be accountable for and the healthier that person is going to ❝ ❝ We focus on setting mid-term goals and shorter-term goals and accomplishing each of those leading up to a successful end. COVER STORY CONTINUED