“That was our most singular focus for those beginning years,” says Rhonda Kalifey-Aluise, the longtime CEO of KIPP New Orleans Schools. The year before Katrina, just over a third of high school graduates enrolled in college. But, she says, “ KIPP really made it a point—that’s what we want: college, college, college.”Overall, she mostly enjoyed KIPP. And when middle school ended, her mother enrolled her at a KIPP high school — the first in New Orleans to open. College persistence remains a struggle for KIPP’s New Orleans graduates, with the pandemic aggravating longstanding challenges for everyone, according to Kalifey-Aluise, KIPP New Orleans Schools’ CEO.