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Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism University of Southern California
Southern California

Michelle Obama Launches "Better Make Room' Website Encouraging Higher Education

First Lady Michelle Obama launches website hoping to encourage students to pursue higher education. 

First Lady Michelle Obama launched her website ‘Better Make Room’ on Monday morning. The website is aimed at generation Z (9-14 year olds) and works as a social media platform. Students can go to the website and post their goals for college or motivational quotes. The reasoning behind the posts is “Saying things out loud makes them happen.” Students can also upload pictures of themselves to make things more personal.

Bettermakeroom.org is backed by more than 20 companies and organizations. Many of them aim at the same target demographic as Vine, Seventeen and The YMCA. One of the partners, Up Next, allows students to enter their phone number and receive text messages reminding them of important deadlines. Some of the deadlines include financial aid and scholarship reminders. Up Next will soon add loan payment reminders and tips to help land a job.

"If we truly want to engage this generation in a conversation about higher education, we need to give them a space where they can drive that conversation themselves and that's exactly what we're doing," Obama said Monday morning at the White House.

The website uses celebrities as a way to engage young students. Under the ‘Our Story’ tab there is a video that features Ciara, Terrance J and Keegan-Michael Key, to name a few.

The Better Make Room website is a part of Michelle Obama’s Reach Higher campaign which launched almost two years ago in hopes of accomplishing one of Barack Obama’s goals of having the United States take back the number one spot as the country with the most college graduates.

ATVN’s Veronica Quezada went to the School of Visual Arts and Humanities in Koreatown, made up of mostly Hispanic and low-income students, to find out what they think of the new program.

 

 

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