College Possible Uses AI Tool to Support Students, Coaches

College Possible’s AI chat bot can answer questions about topics like financial aid while directing others to human coaches.

Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | PhonlamaiPhoto/iStock/Getty Images

As an advising specialist at College Possible, the largest college access organization in America, Becky Palmer typically works with about 450 college students each year, helping guide them through questions about financial aid, their eventual career goals and everything in between.

But when the Trump administration slashed funding for 32,000 AmeriCorps members in late April, it forced College Possible to lay off dozes of AmeriCorps volunteers who worked for the organization as coaches for high schoolers and college students from underserved backgrounds—and Palmer’s casel