ZogoTech exists to help low-income and first-generation students reach the middle class – and to restore the promise of the American Dream, one community college at a time.
As the economist Raj Chetty has shown, the promise of the American Dream is fading for millions of families. In a single generation, the odds that a child would grow up to out-earn their parents fell by nearly half – and the path from a low-income start to the middle class keeps narrowing.
Research on economic mobility points to a handful of ways to rebuild opportunity, and the most scalable is higher education – specifically the broad-access colleges that admit nearly everyone and then work to make them succeed. That is exactly what community colleges do, and it is why they are the engines that can reverse the trend.
Community colleges admit students regardless of background, where selective institutions turn most away.
Lower cost, and programs tied directly to jobs that pay family-sustaining wages.
Embedded where students live and work, with the connections that mobility depends on.
The colleges we serve make decisions that shape millions of futures. ZogoTech helps them make those decisions better – turning the data they already have into action that moves more students toward graduation, transfer, and a career.
More students enroll and stay
We help colleges find and remove the barriers to enrollment and persistence, so more students start – and finish.
Clearer paths to a career
We map each student’s path from entry to graduation, so they are supported at every step toward a family-sustaining career.
Closed opportunity gaps
We help colleges surface and address disparities, so traditionally underserved students get an equal chance to succeed.
ZogoTech is a mission-driven company – impact over profit. We bootstrapped it more than twenty years ago and have held that focus ever since. For many of us, this is personal: we were first-generation students, immigrants, or the children of immigrants who grew up in the working poor and reached the American middle class.
I might not be here without a community college. My mother was widowed young – two kids, a high school education, no job. Harvard wasn’t knocking. She went to a community college, found her field, transferred to a four-year, and built a life for us in the middle class. Millions of people are at that same juncture right now – and at a community college, we have the power to help them change their trajectory.
Michael Taft
Founder & CEO, ZogoTech
