Digital Divide--So Close And Yet So Far

What, then, does it take to get everyone on the right side of the digital divide? The answer is simple, if expensive--college. Degree-bearing graduates are eight times as likely to have a computer at home and 16 times as likely to access the Internet from home as those with lower levels of education, according to a recent Commerce Department study.

That's what motivated Carlos Watson to found the highly successful college-prep program Achiever.com. Watson's self-taught grandmother, the granddaughter of slaves in Jackson, Miss., graduated from college and was followed by her six siblings, seven children and 19 grandchildren. "There's a real belief in college in my family," Watson says. With the help of school districts around the country, he recruits at-risk students--most of whom hadn't thought of college--for an intensive online course that covers nailing the SATs, applications and scholarships. Result: 85% of Achiever.com students go on to one of the four-year schools of their choice.

"I can't tell you how many labs I go by where there's dust that high on the computer keyboard," Watson says. "What we haven't done is give kids a reason to get excited about using the computer." And the only reason that works, in the Watson world view, is naked self-interest. He may be right. There's certainly no dust on the keyboards at John O'Connell high school's computer lab. It was packed with students for six hours of voluntary, credit-free SAT prep one baking-hot San Francisco Saturday afternoon in November. Diana Valdivia, a junior, signed up for the program just a few weeks earlier and is now aiming for UCLA. "I'm doing this for my future," she says.

Self-interest, when it comes down to it, is the strongest reason for any of us to join the digital era. In programs like Achiever.com and the Cisco Networking Academies, there's self-interest on both sides. The companies help create a skilled workforce that can install and maintain its products--and make money too. The students get their lives on track. In Silicon Valley this is known as "philanthropic entrepreneurialism," and it looks very much like the wave of the future. There are still a lot of disaffected people with a lot to prove to the world. Given means, motive and opportunity, anyone can breach the digital divide. It's as easy as turning the key in that homeless shelter's classroom door.