Louisville is adding more college-going resources to the city’s West End with the announcement of a partnership between the Shawnee branch library and the University of Louisville to create the first “College Shop.”
"What a lot of people need is they just need somebody telling them you can do it, and we're here to help," said Mayor Greg Fischer.Inside the newly renovated Shawnee Library there are four laptops that are only to be used for college preparation and planning. This includes financial aid completion and placement test preparation.Officials say the College Shop is the public library’s pledge to support the city’s 55,000 degrees program, which recently showed Louisville needs to play catch up to reach its goal by the year 2020.The Academy at Shawnee’s high school principal Keith Look says the idea behind the College Shop is to change the communities dialog.“Being from Louisville, we all know there are some common questions we all get asked. You meet somebody and the first question is, what county are you from? The second question is, where do you go to high school? We’re now adding questions three and four. Where do you go to college and what was your ACT score.”The College Shop will also offer a series of clinics to help prepare students and adults for college. Among them are the Scholarship Workshop on Dec. 15 at 1pm, ACT Strategies for Success on Dec. 29, Jan. 12, and Feb. 23 at 2pm and FAFSA Infomation Session on Jan. 26 at 2pm. To get a full list of the clinics call 574-1722.
