There is a new requirement for seventh grade students in city public schools: visit a college. NY1's Lindsey Christ filed the following report.

If these kids look too young to be touring a college campus, get used to it. Before they even apply to high school, city public school students will now be visiting colleges.

Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña joined a group of seventh graders from Cypress Hills as they toured Brooklyn College Thursday. They are among the 20,000 city middle-school students visiting college campuses this year.

Within two years, 70,000 students a year will be visiting a college.

"Our goal is to have every seventh grader over the next few years visit a campus," Fariña said. "You cannot imagine what you cannot see."

The initiative is part of a wider effort by the de Blasio administration to make more public students thinking about, and attending, college, one approach to attack the problem of income inequality. When fully implemented, the college visit program could cost about $15 million a year. 

"It makes me more focused knowing that I need to get to college and grad school," said Edward Avelino, a student at PS/IS 89.

The city university system has trained a group of student tour guides to lead the tours for seventh graders.

"To get the idea in their head that college is there and it's attainable," said Natlie Miolan, a Brooklyn College visit guide.

Parents on the tour had tough questions for the chancellor, including what to do if their child doesn't have immigration documentation, a requirement for most college loans.

"I told that parent, and I tell all parents, all dreams are possible, and the CUNY and the SUNY systems do take students that are undocumented, said Fariña."They have special programs for them."

Another major hurdle is that according to state data, just 30 percent of city kids are ready for college after four years of high school. The numbers are much worse for students who are black, Hispanic, low income or learning English. 

The chancellor said the first step is for all children to know what they are working toward.