Most of the work that goes into getting a Florida high school student to college happens during the school year. What about the summer?
Level Up, a boot camp offered through JAXUSA Partnership’s Earn Up initiative in collaboration with Florida State College at Jacksonville (FSCJ), answers that question. Rising high school juniors and seniors spend a week on FSCJ’s campus for career assessments, financial aid instruction and direct contact with recent graduates and local employers, months before senior year decisions have to be made. The program is one of 12 projects funded through FCAN’s Post-High School College Enrollment Innovation Grant, a DeLuca Foundation initiative that launched in January 2025.
“The state college is the perfect place to have a camp like this,” said Melissa Vasseur, of JAXUSA’s talent development team. “It’s core to their mission that they serve their community, not just the students who decide to enroll there.”
One session opened with return-on-investment math. Krystal Martz, of JAXUSA, used a lemonade stand to make the point that a degree’s value comes down to cost, time to completion and expected salary, not sticker price.
Students then pulled up O*NET’s career exploration tool and looked up wages for their own career interests, filtered to the Jacksonville metro area instead of the national average. Several said the numbers surprised them: entry-level pay for the same career ranged from $60,000 to $80,000 depending on which employer posting they found, a gap Martz used to explain how location and cost of living change what a salary is actually worth.
“There’s nothing worse than spending all of this money and time on your education, getting out, and not being able to find a job,” Martz said.
An FSCJ financial aid advisor covered cost of attendance next: grants, work study, loans, and the real credit-hour cost difference between the college, a public university and a private one. On loans, the advice was blunt.
“We always try to stay away from this,” said Andres Villarroel Morales, of FSCJ’s financial aid office. “If you have to borrow, you don’t have to accept the full amount.”
Built on Partnership
The camp itself runs on a partnership model. Dr. Jametoria Burton, dean of FSCJ’s downtown campus, said, “It is essential to have a well-connected administrative leader within FSCJ to help oversee the program and logistics of the camp at the college. That was my role.” FSCJ supplies recruitment and admissions staff, financial aid advisors, career coaches, campus space and program faculty, nearly all of it as in-kind support.
Kevin Cotton, FSCJ’s assistant director of recruitment, noted that another unifying element of the camp was the inclusion of FSCJ program tours including advanced manufacturing (mechatronics, robotics and logistics labs), medical simulation and medical virtual reality lab interactive presentations, with hands-on experiences for students. All program tours were aligned with the six major industry sectors identified by JAXUSA.
Earn Up brings recruitment, employer connections and the curriculum. A special feature included a full-scale etiquette training with a three-course luncheon that drew a connection between successful job interviews and professional table manners. Students who complete Level Up leave with a digital badge and experiential learning certificate from FSCJ’s library and Center for Civic Engagement, plus a set of professional headshots from FSCJ Marketing and Communications, all for their LinkedIn profile.
The DeLuca Foundation’s investment supports 12 such projects across Florida, all working toward the same goal: raising college enrollment by 4 percentage points for the Classes of 2025 and 2026. Together, the projects have engaged hundreds of community partners and logged thousands of staff and volunteer hours since the work began.