Laura Meissner

WORK HISTORY

EDUCATION

SKILLS

ABOUT LAURA MEISSNER

Believer that education is one of life\'s most valuable assets. Driven to help those who seek a better future for themselves, their families and their communities through education. About Goodwin Meissner Family Foundation:Often times, dogged perseverance and support from a cadre of family, friends, counselors and teachers is just not enough to grow a successful college graduate. The rising cost of college is often in the way. We’d like to help.So, after two decades of management and executive leadership in business I’ve transitioned to the non-profit sector. My father, Michael Goodwin, and I founded the Goodwin Meissner Family Foundation to help address, in at least some small way, these issues. We are a small, family run charitable foundation motivated by our own experience that education can make a difference in the lives of individuals and their families If you believe, as we do, that post-secondary education of any kind provides a way out of poverty and that an educated and skilled workforce more broadly benefits the economy, then you’ll likely see the same opportunity I do in the following facts:1) The rate of low income students attempting post-secondary education has stagnated in the wake of the Great Recession and slow economic recovery2) While about 50% of low-income students attend a 2-4 year college, only 9% earn a degree3) The inflation rate of college is up 1,115% since 2015. Twice the increase in medical care Further, the prohibitive nature of poverty is not isolated to a small proportion of students in our public schools. According to the National Center of Education Statistics, 50% of North Carolina’s public school children are low income, on par with the US National Average of 48%.