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Latest News
John Ashley (Jack) Blackburn, devoted Trustee and dear friend of the College Board, passed away Jan. 20 after battling cancer. A tireless advocate for all students, he endeavored to remove barriers and increase access to a successful college experience until the end of his life. He was 67. Blackburn was one of the most highly regarded deans of admission in the country, serving as dean at the University of Virginia for nearly 25 years. He saw firsthand the barriers that prevented so many students from achieving their dreams of college, and he worked to remove them. One such example was his recent effort to end the early decision program at U.Va. in order to increase accessibility for low-income students. He illustrated the inequities of early admission by showing that less than 2 percent of students who had been accepted under the early decision plan applied for financial aid. This decision resulted from a broader plan Blackburn had introduced a few years before, AccessUVa, a financial aid program designed to make U.Va. affordable for low-income students, to whom he was both champion and friend. AccessUVa has been hailed as a national model and has inspired institutions across the country. Blackburn was proud of everything Cavalier (U.Va.’s mascot), but he also understood his obligation as admissions leader and icon at a top state university to move his institution beyond its past and to stretch it wider than its prestigious present. “Jack Blackburn was a friend to many, even to those who Blackburn’s vision extended far beyond Virginia, where he labored in the shadows of Thomas Jefferson for three decades. His conviction to remove all identifiable barriers, financial and nonfinancial, to college access led him to serve on the College Board’s Task Force on College Access for Students from Low-Income Backgrounds. He worked for counselors and admissions professionals as a member of the College Board’s Guidance and Admission Assembly Council, and he took a global approach to education, advocating for international students. He traveled internationally to recruit students and to represent U.S. higher education, serving as circuit rider for the Office of Overseas Schools and the International Office of the College Board. He also was a faculty member of the Summer Institute for Overseas Counselors for nearly 20 years. He recognized that students from afar benefit our campuses, and their unique perspectives are critical to understanding our own future. College Board President Gaston Caperton remembered 
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