EdCircuit Staff 
Joshua Samuel 
How do we ensure equitable resources for students to attend college and achieve post-secondary success?
In this episode of Conference Connections, an interview series with K20 thought leaders, we chat with Joshua Samuel, Founder & CEO of Coins for College. The edCircuit team caught up with Joshua at FETC 2023. The topic of this discussion was college planning, resources for students, and how to equitably share resources with the students who need them for post-secondary success.
“Its not a coincidence that by third grade, students start asking: what am I here for? If a teacher cannot answer that question, then that’s where dissent begins to happen and the loss of interest starts to happen… What we’ve done through coins for college, we’ve gamified learning so students can earn their own way to college. We have a financial dashboard where students can see their progress and see how they are earning scholarship points that will ultimately lead to money for college.”
Creating Student Investment in College
At the beginning of this conversation, Joshua explores the mission and goals of Coins for College. A primary focus of the organization is to make the path to higher-ed more accessible, give students a more accurate depiction of their educational experience, and support them to become invested in their learning journey.
The mission of Coins for College is to prepare students for college mentally, academically, and financially. The service they offer students essentially provides colleges with a full prospective profile of their success in school. This assessment includes attendance, supplemental learning, learning assessments, and extracurricular activities. Students can share these scores with their prospective post-secondary school as additional criteria for admissions.
Additionally, these scores and the token initiatives for students gamifies academic achievement. In order for students to answer the question, ‘Why and I in school?’ the gamified resources of Coins for College give them an opportunity to see their progress and motivate them towards healthy academic behavior.
Generating Content Through A Coin-Based Economy
In the second half of this episode, Joshua explores his story behind Coins for College, the financial incentive for teachers to develop and upload content on the platform, and their general goals.
In this part of the discussion, Joshua discussed how his experience in the foster care system brought him to help students of his background to achieve post-secondary education success. When he was a student, he had no access to resources that would allow him to compete to attend an Ivy League university. In many ways, Coins for College systemizes the college preparation process to ensure students know how to achieve their goals without needing a dedicated system of support.
The conversation closes with a discussion of Coins for College’s token-based incentive program for content generation. Essentially, they have created a token-based economy to incentivize teachers to upload content for students to access. This content will be used to supplement the learning of students who sign up for the platform. In participating in content generation and as the token increases in worth, so do tangible rewards for participating teachers.
Equitable Access to Essential College Preparation
Overall this conversation highlights how essential it is for students to have access to resources they need to succeed from Kindergarten to Senior year of high school. Through its mission to provide this support structure, Coins for College provides more than resources; they provide a pathway to future success.
To learn more about Coins for College, visit their website and follow them on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
For more episodes on Conference Connections, visit edCircuit.
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