Alabama College Attainment Network and Direct Admission Initiative

Program Description:

The Alabama College Attainment Network is a coalition of 55 agencies and community stakeholders that includes nonprofits like Alabama Possible and government agencies with the stated goal of increasing college enrollment in Alabama by breaking down barriers to college access and completion. The founding members are the Alabama Possible, Alabama Commission on Higher Education, the Alabama Community College System, and the Alabama State Department of Education. The goal is to support Alabama Success Plus, a statewide goal of adding 500,000 individuals with postsecondary education credentials to Alabama’s workforce by 2025. The program hosts yearly conferences and regularly scheduled working groups aimed at removing barriers in the pipeline toward postsecondary education.  

Impact:

From 2018 to 2022, Alabama added over 200,000 individuals with postsecondary education to the workforce. In 2025, AlabamaCAN helped launch the Alabama Direct Admission Initiative, which grants all Alabama high school seniors admission to participating state colleges and universities via a streamlined process where students complete profiles, upload their transcripts, and colleges reach out to offer admissions with no applications, essays, or letters of recommendation and no application fees. It also automatically connects them with scholarship opportunities. Since launching, over 17,000 students completed their profiles, over 215,000 offers of admission were extended, and students were connected with over 7.2 billion dollars in scholarship opportunities. Students can opt-in to receive out of state offers as well as offers from in-state participating in-state schools.

It is an “all-in” model: every student who participates will receive at least one one offer of admission, providing opportunities to students who may be overlooked through traditional application processes. At B.C. Rain High School in Mobile Alabama, all 145 students in the class of 2026 participated in the program, and students were offered over $31.7 million in scholarships. In comparison, only 39% of B.C. Rain’s class of 2025 enrolled in postsecondary education.

Population Served: 

This program targets first-generation college students, students from under-resourced families, first-generation college-going students, and adult learners. Some students participating in projects launched by AlabamaCAN 

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Page last updated in August 2026