​Our Mission

Rise Together Education (RTE) is dedicated to improving college graduation rates by providing support and financial resources to low-income Palo Alto High School students who have been accepted to 4-year colleges or 2-year community colleges. At present, we are providing scholarships up to $3,500 per academic year for up to four years (depending on fundraising).

Brooklyn is attending Rochester Institute Technology in New York.

Stephanie graduated from SFSU and served as a member of the RTE Board of Directors.

Our Inspiration

Meet Stephanie. She had spent her entire life living in poverty, helping to care for her siblings, and working while going to school. Despite the odds, she graduated from Palo Alto High School in 2015 and was accepted to several universities, including San Francisco State, her school of choice. Thanks to the efforts of the Palo Alto community that provided Stephanie with mentoring and funding for college, she attended at San Francisco State University and graduated in May 2019 with a 4.0 GPA.  Stephanie went on to graduate with a master degree in education in 2021. 

Her story, and the story of many others like her, provided the inspiration for the formation of Rise Together Education, a non-profit organization dedicated to creating equity in education for underprivileged youth and adults. Read more about Stephanie’s story here.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

Diversity, inclusion and equity is at the core of the mission of Paly's Rise Together Education. We are an all-volunteer organization advocating for the support of students from low-income and diverse backgrounds who graduated from Palo Alto High School. Rise Together Education helps these students to further their education with mentorship and financial support in higher education. We strive to assist students facing inequity, oppression and disparity in education. ​

​History of the Logo

Congratulations to Yoonjung Cho (Class of 2017) who won Rise Together Education’s Logo Design Contest.

Artist's explanation of logo:

"This design represents two people climbing up the stairs, and one of them is helping the other. Each of the bars on the bottom represents the steps that the student will have to take to proceed in their life, and the person on the right is helping the other person to take the next step. This reflects the main idea of Rise Together Education where it provides mentoring and financial aid for low income students who are trying ​to take the next step to college from Paly.​"