The Hawaii Association for College Admission Counseling consists of college counselors in Hawaii’s public and private high schools from across the state, community based organizations, and admissions and enrollment specialists from public and private colleges and universities.

HCAC strives to achieve a common goal, as stated in its mission, which is, “Dedicated to helping students transition to post-secondary education through education, collaboration, and community building.”

High school and community based organization college counselors make every effort to provide a safe and nurturing space for college exploration.

However, in recent years, high schools and community based organizations have been struggling with an unexpected challenge with helping students “transition to post-secondary education,” which is access to school buses.

The recent news of bus driver shortages is very concerning because the issues are bigger than drop off and pick up at schools, it is exposing students to college exploration activities.

There are two major activities that expose students to post-secondary education — college campus tours and college fairs. School bus resources across high schools and community based organizations to shuttle students ranges from access to privately owned bus fleets to making reservations through private bus companies, but most rely on the latter.

The cost of reserving one bus can range from $500 for the “yellow” buses to as high as $2,000 for a single tour bus. There are always thoughts of asking students and families for a nominal fee to help offset these costs but then it becomes a question of equal and fair access around college awareness. 

In an effort to make college campus tours and college fairs relevant, high schools and community based organizations prime their students by scheduling presentations from community leaders and industry professionals on their schools’ campuses.

The hope is to encourage students to imagine themselves in professions they’ll love with livable wages.

When students visit college campuses, they are encouraged to connect the dots by bridging what they learned. On these tours, students are enveloped with all the positive feelings and energies from walking into an active college classroom to participating in hands-on assignments along with other college students and professors.

These visits help expand what they are learning into something tactile and purposeful that will spark that “thing” to become change agents within their families, communities, and the world. However, the main access to these activities are school buses. 

College fairs build on what is taught in the classrooms and college campus tours by exposing the breath of opportunities on a grander scale. This is where students are exposed to post-secondary education opportunities across the state of Hawaii, the U.S. continent, as well as international colleges.

One example is a college fair on Oahu, usually at the Hawaii Convention Center. This free event exposes Hawaii students and families to roughly 180 post-secondary options under one roof. This is where participants can get information first hand on the location of various colleges, what to expect, and even get answers around “how cold does it get?” to name a few.

I remember having a conversation with a high school senior in a remote part of the island who has never traveled outside of Hawaii due to resources. Her goal at the time was tied to an industry on the U.S. continent thus requiring her to leave the comforts of home.

Activities like college campus tours and college fairs were an important source of information that helped start those critical conversations with her family and mindfully map out her next steps. It was access to school buses that exposed her to what is possible. 

I’ll share one more example as a way to put things into perspective.

Before the bus driver shortage was an issue, one high school of about 700 high school seniors could fill five to six “yellow” school buses for one of the largest college fairs on Oahu, but this year they can only afford one tour bus with only 54 seats.

The school’s challenge is who gets a seat. Is it the high performing student? Is it the one who doesn’t see college as an option?

Is it the one who will be first in their family to attend college? Is it the student who really doesn’t know what to do?

These are very tough decisions to make because of the school bus driver shortage.

The Hawaii ACAC’s mission calls for “collaboration” and this needs to be emphasized more than ever.

Resources now are very different from pre-pandemic times, therefore we need to collectively come up with solutions that continue to support our students to think big and pursue their post-secondary educational goals.