Hold Fast to Dreams ― A College Guidance Counselor, His Students, and the Vision of a Life Beyond Poverty

When Joshua Steckel left his job as a private school college counselor on New York City's Upper East Side to work at a public high school in Brooklyn, he discovered that for low-income students, the competitive game of college admissions has entirely different rules and much higher stakes. Mike writes his personal essays from a homeless shelter and struggles with both his longing to get away and his guilt at the thought of leaving his family in desperate circumstances. Santiago, an undocumented student who has lived in Brooklyn since the age of six, battles bureaucracy and low expectations as he seeks a life outside the low-wage world of hard manual labor. Ashley, who pursues her ambition to become a doctor with almost superhuman drive, ultimately discovers her own definition of success in a prestige-obsessed world.

Hold Fast to Dreams traces the pathways of ten of Josh's students from their obstacle-ridden application processes through their world-changing college experiences. This important book uncovers, in heart-wrenching detail, the many ways the American education system fails to meet its promise as a ladder to opportunity. It also provides hope in its portrayal of the extraordinary intelligence, resilience, and everyday heroics of the young people whose futures are too often lamented or ignored and whose voices, insights, and vision our colleges?and our country?desperately need.

Beth Zasloff is the co-author, with Edgar M. Bronfman, of Hope, Not Fear: A Path to Jewish Renaissance. She has taught writing at New York University, at Johns Hopkins University, and in New York City public schools. Joshua Steckel is a New York State–certified guidance counselor. Since 2009 he has been a college counselor at the Brooklyn School for Collaborative Studies, a member of New York City Outward Bound’s network of Expeditionary Learning Schools. Beth and Josh are married and live with their three children in Brooklyn.