T303: Effective college advising for low-income students: Strategies and networks for success

Transcription

1 T303: Effective college advising for low-income students: Strategies and networks for success Angela Conley, VentureForth Consulting QuinnShauna Felder-Snipes, Princeton University Preparatory Program Jason R. Klugman, Ph.D., Princeton University Preparatory Program

2 Introductions Session Format Part 1: Defining low-income and the range and variation of students served Part 2: Strategies for college planning for low-income students Part 3: Resources - Note: Please interrupt with questions, comments, suggestions as we go; we ll try to address questions where they fit best within the session. - We want this session to be useful and engaging so, we ll need your help!!

3 Presenters Angela Conley, VentureForth Consulting College admissions consultant, former admissions officer QuinnShauna Felder-Snipes, Counselor Princeton University Preparatory Program Jason R. Klugman, Ph.D., Director Princeton University Preparatory Program

4 Session Goals (from you)

5 Part 1 Low-Income Students in the Pipeline Defining Terms: Low Income Who are we typically talking about? Looking at Household income Quintiles Complications from the data First Generation Under-represented Under-resourced Undocumented What else?

6 2010 US Household Income Quintiles Top 5% 5th Quintile up to 95% $ K $180K + $0 20K 1st Quintile $0 $20,000 4th Quintile $62 100K $20 38K 2nd Quintile $20,000 $38,000 $38,000 $62,000 $38 62K $62,000 $100,000 $100,000 $180,000 $180, rd Quintile

7 The Great Sorting By Anthony P. Carnevale College education is becoming a passive participant in the reproduction of economic privilege. Taken one at time, postsecondary institutions are fountains of opportunity; taken together, they are a highly stratified bastion of privilege. Of course, sorting by race, class, and sex begins long before college-admissions officers get involved. And almost a third of Americans don't even go to college, while 36 million in the work force have gone to college but not earned degrees. But sorting continues in terms of what kind of college you attend, whether you graduate, how much farther you go, and (an important factor often overlooked) what you major in all decisions that make a difference to later earnings, and that reflect highly segregated social and economic patterns. The patterns are reinforced as an unintended consequence of the business model of higher education: Competition among institutions is based on prestige, relentlessly matching the most-advantaged students with the most-selective institutions, while the rest are stratified in a finely grained hierarchy of separate and unequal tiers of four-year and two-year institutions.

8 As enrollments in higher education increase, individual students are better off, in that more of them have access to some form of education. But inequality among students as a whole spreads Institutional competition simultaneously increases postsecondary quality and inequality. Happily, the number of selective and highly selective colleges in Barron's Guide to the Most Competitive Colleges has grown by more than 30 percent since the 1990s. Unhappily, the share of students from the bottom income quartile at the 200 selective colleges has stalled at less than 5 percent. And white flight has long since moved on from the leafy green suburbs to the nation's selective college campuses, leaving the overcrowded and underfinanced community colleges to blacks, Hispanics, and lower-income students.

9 Postsecondary stratification matters The most-selective institutions spend more per student, have better graduation rates, and offer better access to jobs or graduate and professional schools than less-selective institutions do. Where you go and what you take determines what you make. And more than dollars and cents, the current dynamic of selectivity separates learning that transforms lives from job training. On the surface, the great sorting seems impartial. After all, we each have to do our own homework to make the grades and ace the tests that give us access to the most-selective colleges and the best jobs.fair enough? Not entirely. In a society where people start out unequal, the test-based metrics that govern college admissions become a dodge a way of laundering the money that comes with being born into the right bank account or the right race or ethnicity. Maybe the more affluent kids are just born smarter? Not so. For most low-income kids, there is no relationship between their innate abilities measured in childhood and their aptitudes developed in time for college. Conversely, the best predictor of the developed aptitudes of adolescents from affluent families is their innate abilities when they were children. Unintended or not, postsecondary stratification presents a nagging moral hazard: a barrier to upward mobility that is inimical to our American democratic ethos and our claim to worthiness in the global contest of cultures.

10 Low-Income Students Dropout Data In 2009, the event dropout rate of students living in low-income families was about five times greater than the rate of their peers from high-income families (7.4 percent vs. 1.4 percent) (table 1). Black and Hispanic students had higher event dropout rates than White students in 2009 (table 1). The event dropout rate was 4.8 percent for Blacks and 5.8 percent for Hispanics, compared to 2.4 percent for Whites. Trends in High School Dropout and Completion Rates in the United States: )

11 Low-Income Students Pell Grant points 9.5 million students rely on federal Pell grants to provide access to higher education 54.1% of low income high school graduates enroll in college in fall following graduation. The majority of students receiving Pell grants in were white. (46.3%) The $5,550 Pell Grant in accounted for just 28.9% of a student s estimated total budget for nine months of education. In community colleges served 36.5% of all Pell recipients In , 98.3% of Pell recipients at community colleges had allowable costs associated with attending college in excess of $6,000, and 91.9% had allowable costs in excess of $9,000. Only 40% of all community college students enroll full time, nearly double that percentage of community college students receiving a Pell Grant were enrolled full time in At community colleges, 21.8% of Pell Grant recipients did not work, compared with 14.9% of nonrecipients.

12 Low-income students College-going data NACAC 2011 State of College Admission High school completion and college enrollment rates vary substantially by both race ethnicity and income. Only 55 %of high school completers from the lowest income quintile transitioned to college in 2009, compared to 84% from the highest income quintile. In 2009, black and Hispanic persons constituted approximately 34 percent of the traditional college-aged population, but they represented only about 27 percent of students enrolled in postsecondary education. Hispanics were particularly underrepresented among private and four-year institutions.

13 Immediate transition to college, National Center for Education Statistics In 2010, the immediate college enrollment rate of high school completers from low-income families was 52 percent, 30 percentage points lower than the rate of high school completers from high-income families (82 percent). The immediate college enrollment rate of high school completers from middle-income families (67 percent) was 15 percentage points lower than the rate of their peers from high-income families.

14 Challenges for low-income students in the admissions process Shishona Jones, a LEDA (Leadership Enterprise for a Diverse America) student is among the commencement speakers at Smith From: Sent: Thursday, May 31, :38 PM Subject: Try to resist the lure of this BX student I hear you. Not another graduation speech. Trust me on this being a good use of 7 minutes of your life.

15 Challenges Under-matching 19 percent of high-achieving lower-income students attend the nation s 146 most selective colleges, compared with 29 percent of high-achieving higher income students. 21 percent of high-achieving lower-income student attend one of the 429 least selective colleges, compared with 14 percent of higherincome high achievers. 24 percent of high-achieving lower-income students attend community colleges while only 16 percent of high-achieving higher-income students do so. The Achievement Trap - Jack Kent Cooke Foundation

16 Challenges Access Schools with higher percentages of students eligible for free and reduced price lunch programs (FRPL) were less likely to offer AP, IB, and enriched curricula. The average enrollments in AP and enriched curricula courses were also lower for schools with more students eligible for free or reduced price lunch. According to the National Center for Education Statistics Common Core Data for the school year, the student-to-counselor ratio in U.S. public schools was 457:1 the American School Counselor Association recommends a ratio of 250:1. The average public high school counselors spend just 23% of their time on college counseling, while the average private school counselors devote about 55% of their time to college issues. Only 26% of public schools have at least one counselor who works exclusively on college counseling issues. In comparison, 73% of private schools have a dedicated college counselor.

17 Challenges Paying the bill(s) The $5,550 Pell Grant in accounted for just 28.9% of a student s estimated total budget for nine months of education Most low-income/first generation college students have difficulty finding co-signers for loans (even for federal loans) and thus are unable (or reluctant) to take out loans for school If they do have access to loans, they have trended toward private, higher interest loans Collegeboard Cracking the College Aid Code Report

18 Questions and Comments Use your 3 x 5 card to write down question/comment/suggestion

19 Student Voices

20 Part 2 College Planning Assessing the scene Family Background (household make-up, income, cultural heritage, etc.) School Environment (resources, offerings, academic climate, etc.) Student Academic Record & Interests Student Social/Community Involvement & Interests Existing Supports and Resources Existing and Potential Challenges

21 Schools College Planning Working with schools and parents Obtaining Administrator/Faculty/Staff Buy-in Cultivating Relationships Establishing a Positive Presence on Campus Families Obtaining Family Buy-in Maintaining Open and Consistent Communication Offering Wrap-around Support

22 College Planning Community Colleges Benefits Cost State Aid Smaller classes Challenges Sometimes limited resources and supports Common impediments to completion or transfer Developmental/remedial coursework requirements Part-time enrollment Lacking sense of community; limited support services; commuter life

23 College Planning State colleges/universities State colleges typically = lower tuition + state aid small classes + transition programs Some benefits of flagship state colleges Honors programs State aid Transition programs

24 College Planning Highly Selective/Meeting full need Amherst College Amherst, MA Barnard College New York, NY Bates College Lewiston, ME Boston College Chestnut Hill, MA Bowdoin College Brunswick, ME Brown University Providence, RI Bryn Mawr College Bryn Mawr, PA California Institute of Technology Pasadena, CA Carleton College Northfield, MN Chapman University Orange, CA Claremont McKenna College Claremont, CA Colby College Waterville, ME Colgate University Hamilton, NY College of the Holy Cross Worcester, MA Columbia University New York, NY Connecticut College New London, CT Cornell University Ithaca, NY Dartmouth College Hanover, NH Davidson College Davidson, NC Duke University Durham, NC Emory University Atlanta, GA Georgetown University Washington, DC Gettysburg College Gettysburg, PA Grinnell College Grinnell, IA Hamilton College Clinton, NY Harvard University Cambridge, MA Harvey Mudd College Claremont, CA Haverford College Haverford, PA Lafayette College Easton, PA Macalester College St. Paul, MN Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, MA Middlebury College Middlebury, VT Mount Holyoke College South Hadley, MA

25 College Planning Highly Selective/Meeting full need (2) Northwestern University Evanston, IL Oberlin College Oberlin, OH Occidental College Los Angeles, CA Pitzer College Claremont, CA Pomona College Claremont, CA Princeton University Princeton, NJ Reed College Portland, OR Rice University Houston, TX Salem College Winston-Salem, NC Scripps College Claremont, CA Smith College Northampton, MA St. Olaf College Northfield, MN Stanford University Stanford, CA SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry Syracuse, NY Swarthmore College Swarthmore, PA Thomas Aquinas College Santa Paula, CA Trinity College Hartford, CT Tufts University Medford, MA University of Chicago Chicago, IL University of North Carolina--Chapel Hill, NC University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, IN University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA University of Richmond Richmond, VA University of Virginia Charlottesville, VA Vanderbilt University Nashville, TN Vassar College Poughkeepsie, NY Wabash College Crawfordsville, IN Washington University in St. Louis, MO Wellesley College Wellesley, MA Wesleyan University Middletown, CT Williams College Williamstown, MA Yale University New Haven, CT

26 College Planning Pitfalls of most of institutions 62 colleges claim to meet full need, but schools do not! A majority of private institutions offer scholarships, merit aid, and some need-based aid, but leave a gap in unmet need Some offer attractive packages that include a combination of grants, loans and work-study, and are misleading for students and parents While some schools will compete for students comparing aid packages and trying to match, many are simply not able to Public institutions are limited in aid: State budget cuts In-state vs. out-of-state tuition; aid; priorities of out-of-state public institutions

27 College Planning The DANGER of For-Profits Senator Harkin's investigation found: Enrollment at for-profit schools has grown dramatically over the past decade. Between 1998 and 2008, the number of students attending for-profit schools has grown from 553,000 to 1.8 million, an increase of more than 225 percent. In order to drive enrollment growth, for-profit schools spend heavily on television advertisements, billboards, phone solicitation, and web marketing. The pressure on recruiters to enroll as many potential students as possible can give rise to recruiting practices that are overzealous or misleading. For-profit schools are far more expensive than comparable programs at community colleges or public universities. The average tuition for a for-profit school is about six times higher than a community college and twice as high as a 4-year public school.

28 For-profit schools provide access to many students who have historically not been well served by traditional institutions of higher education. But data collected by the Senate H.E.L.P. Committee shows that many for-profit schools are not providing the support structure to help these students succeed. The data shows that fifty-four percent of students who enrolled in the school year withdrew by summer Close to one in four students who attends a for-profit school defaults on his or her federal student loans within 3 years of leaving school. This high rate of default combined with the fact that nearly all students at for-profit schools must borrow money to pay the cost of tuition, has resulted in a sector that enrolls approximately 10 percent of American higher education students but accounts for nearly 50 percent of all student loan defaults. Despite poor student outcomes, for-profit schools are highly profitable companies. Profits at 16 of the largest for-profit schools totaled $2.7 billion in 2009.

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30 For-profit colleges graduated an average of 22 percent of their students in 2008, according to a new report from Education Trust. The median debt of for-profit college graduates -- $31, far outpaces that of private non-profit college graduates, which stands at $17,040, and is more than triple the median debt for those from public colleges, which is $7,960.

31 College Planning Fee waivers College Board ACT SAT Reasoning (2 rounds) and Subject Tests (2 rounds-up to 3 subjects each) College Application Waivers CSS Profile Waivers NACAC College Application Fee Waiver Request Form Common Application-Free to apply institutions College/University sponsored waivers

32 Colleges Good Investments With all of the expense and time required to attend college, does earning a degree pay off long-term? Yes, depending on which school you choose. PayScale has ranked more than 850 U.S. colleges (for both in and out-of-state tuition when applicable) by their college tuition ROI - what you pay to attend versus what you get back in lifetime earnings.

33 College Planning Case Studies (Our examples or yours)

34 Questions/Comments

35 Testimonials

36 Part 3 Resources Curriculum Materials Hispanic Scholarship Fund s Destination University NACAC s Guiding the Way to Higher Education Tips for Parents (w/middle or High School Teens) A Guide to the College Admissions Process Step by Step: College Awareness and Planning for Families, Counselors and Communities (Middle & High School) Applying for Financial Aid in 7 Easy Steps

37 Resources Investigating College Results Exploring costs; demographics; student academic profiles and graduation rates The Education Trust The Chronicle of Higher Education

38 Fastweb Resources Scholarship Search

39 Resources Scholarships The Big Ones Gates Millennium Scholars Coca-Cola Scholars

40 Resources Test preparation Let s Get Ready Princeton Review CollegeBoard

41 Resources Partnerships Boys and Girls Clubs Community Centers YMCA/YWCA College Access Centers Religious Centers Colleges & Universities Corporations & Small Businesses

42 Resources College Visits/Multicultural Recruitment Like athletic recruiting but for minority students! Most offer allexpense paid visits to schools based on nominations, essays and academic achievement (examples ) Amherst (Diversity Open House Weekends) Barnard (Barnard Bound) Bates (Prologue to Bates) Carleton College (Taste of Carleton) Carnegie Mellon (Celebration of Diversity Weekend) Connecticut College (Explorer Weekend) Lehigh University (Diversity Achievers Weekend) University of Richmond (Multicultural Overnight Visit) And MANY, MANY More!

43 Resources Basic Understandings of Financial Aid FAFSA - FAFSA Completion College Goal Sunday - State-based financial aid offices Maine - s/financial_aid_basics.aspx Colorado - New Jersey - And more

44 Web-Based Resources National College Advising Corps

45 Resources Pre-College and Bridge College Programs Federal TRIO programs (Upward Bound, Talent Search, etc.) Colorado based - CampusPractices/Pages/Pre-CollegiateandBridgeProgams.aspx Many colleges offer summer bridge programs that are essential supports for first generation students HEOP; EOF; FSI; MSI;

46 Wrapping Up Session evaluation and final questions