Caroline DeHaven joined the Partnership for College Completion as the Policy Intern in October 2025. She is pursuing her master’s degree in planning and policy at the University of Illinois Chicago, focusing on community development.
Below, she details her journey in learning her purpose early in her career.
My interest in education policy began long before I understood what “policy” meant. My parents met working at the U.S. Department of Education–my father a lifelong public servant and my mother a social worker dedicated to early childhood intervention and equitable preschool access. I grew up sitting in her office while she called preschools trying to secure placements for families who had been turned away, or tagging along to free community playgroups across my hometown. From an early age, I learned that education was not distributed fairly. Access depended on zip code, waitlists, and resources, not a child’s potential.
A turning point came at 14 years old, when I joined the Youth in Philanthropy program at the Community Foundation for MetroWest. Reviewing real education-related grant proposals, conducting site visits, and allocating funding forced me to confront how nonprofits serving children and families were constantly under-resourced. Many of the sites we visited were early education programs or youth-serving organizations navigating funding shortages. It was the first time I saw how money and opportunity were inseparable.
In high school and college, that awareness deepened. At Boston University, one of the most formative courses I took was “Education: The Hidden Costs,” which examined structural barriers from preschool to higher education—application fees, unpaid internships, school lunch debt, transit access, documentation requirements, and the financial cliff families face when they earn slightly “too much” for aid. It was the class that made education inequity feel both deeply personal and undeniably systemic.
Although COVID-19 disrupted college life, it sharpened my focus. I watched classmates’ opportunities diverge sharply based on income: who could stay in school, who had reliable Wi-Fi, who had family support, and who had to drop out to work. Access explained most of the differences.
After graduating, my career unexpectedly pulled me into youth education spaces. For two years, I worked in service learning and social justice education, developing curriculum for teens about local disparities in housing, schools, income, and health. I taught cooking classes framed around culturally appropriate food, led neighborhood history walks, and facilitated interfaith service events. I loved the work, but it also revealed a painful truth: the teens I taught had enormous privilege, while so many others had no access to similar enrichment.
That discomfort led me to pursue a second job that ultimately changed my trajectory. As a SuccessLink leader at the Boston Architectural College through the City of Boston, I worked with Boston Public Schools students who were being paid to participate in a program that blended personal and professional enrichment. For many, this was their first job, their first professional mentor, and their first time being treated as capable contributors. I saw firsthand how paid learning opportunities expanded access, removed barriers, and created pathways for students historically excluded from these kinds of “stepping-stone” opportunities.
That experience crystallized everything I had been circling around for years: education inequity is not about a lack of programs, it is about a lack of access. And policy determines who gets an opportunity and who gets left out.
When I began looking at graduate programs, the University of Illinois Chicago’s (UIC) College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs felt like the only place where education equity work was taken seriously at a structural level. The program ensured a paid internship for all students, had a supported structure for working students, and had ample job opportunities at the university. It also was one of few programs with both a planning and policy specialty as a strong data analytics focus. Additionally it had many opportunities to work directly with the city through various studio courses and policy centers including the Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy and Institute for Policy and Civic Engagement. At UIC, the work was grounded in community, aligned with public institutions, and focused on structural change rather than charity. It was exactly the perspective I wanted.
When I was looking for my first internship, I wanted to mimic the vision of the Successlink program and take it a step further. While my curriculum my first year had a smaller policy aspect, I knew securing a policy internship would give me that opportunity in practice. When I saw the Partnership for College Completion was hiring for a policy intern and saw the mission “for campus-based equity change and advances state policy for greater equity in higher education,” I remembered the many teens I worked with this summer. I closed my eyes and recalled the 18 notes I had written to each one of them that promised them they had the skills to reach any goal they wanted. I needed to follow through on my end of that promise. I was going to have this opportunity and with no doubt, I took it.