Strategies to Support Success of Former Veterans in College, Report 2011

The National Science Foundation provited grants to increase sucess of returning veterans with enrolling in and completing baccalaureate and graduate engineering programs.  They conducted a detailed evaluation of the grants to identity best practices.  The report was completed by Penn State University. <Click on this link for the entire report.>

Based on the researchers review of the professional literature, the following criteria emerged as being highly supportive of the veterans.  It was not expected that any institution would have all the following, but a critical mass was necessary for creating a supportive environment and warranting a field review of their programs.  The entire report provides the detailed field reports on the institutions and illustrated how they met these criteria.

• The presence of a veteran’s office and/or on campus veterans counselors and services. Services provided by such an office might include:
• assistance with university and Veteran Affairs paperwork
• programs to assist students called up to active duty
• orientation programs or programs for veterans helping them adjust to college life
• participation in the American Council on Education/National Association of Student Personnel Administrators program for disabled vets
• an active veterans support group
• service available to assist veteran students with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injury (TBI)
• active lobbying efforts to improve institutional services and/or state and federal veteran support
• other programs available to veterans and families
• Explicit institutional focus on student veterans in the form of task forces or committees to address their needs and issues
• College credit for military training and experience
• College credit for standardized tests (CLEP and DANTES)
• Faculty awareness of veterans in the classroom
• Access to tutoring services and refresher courses
• Easily navigable and executable procedures for students called to active duty who must exit/re-enter the institution
• Accessible disability and counseling services
• Flexible academic options, such as:
• Online course offerings
• Weekend, evening, or early morning classes
• Participation in the Yellow Ribbon Program
• (institutional grant aid to close the gap between tuition costs and GI Bill benefits)
• Veteran-knowledgeable staff in other institutional offices
• Institutional provision of transition assistance or orientation specific to veterans
• Presence of a veterans’ student group
• Application fee waivers for veterans
• An on-campus military presence (e.g., ROTC)
• Status as a Servicemembers Opportunity College

Why Are More Women that Men Going to College?

From Education Week, A Closer Look at Why More Women Than Men Are Going to College  By Caralee Adams on October 31, 2013

A new study traces the growing gender gap in college enrollment to choices girls and boys make about which high school to attend.  The research findings, published in a recent issue of the journal  Educational Researcher, look at the high school and college-enrollment patterns of 537,000 students in Florida public high schools from 2002 to 2006.  Overall, 65 percent of high school graduates in Florida immediately went on to a 2-year or 4-year college, but 70 percent of females enrolled and just 59 percent of males—more than a 10 percent gap.

The authors, Dylan Conger, associate professor of public policy at George Washingon University, and Mark Long, associate professor of public affairs and economics at the University of Washington, analyzed why these gender gaps exist and examined where students attended high school. In Florida, parents and students often have school choice at the secondary level and the study discovered different enrollment patterns by gender, particularly among minorities.  The evidence of gender sorting across high schools was beyond what would occur if students were randomly assigned to schools.

Boys in the analysis were more likely to attend high schools that appear to disadvantage them—schools that have a lower college-going rate. Girls may be sorting into more academically challenging schools, suggest Conger and Long, but they are not definitive about whether the schools are producing the gender gaps.

 Differences in the high schools attended by males and females explain about 11 percent of the female college-going advantage over males. But the high school effects explained larger portions of the gender gaps in college entry for minority students.  The study found across-school gender sorting explained 12 percent of Hispanic female's higher college-going rates and 16 percent of black female students' higher rates of enrollment.

The researchers said they were unable to determine why boys and girls select into these different types of schools. But the findings have implications for policymakers in the future, particularly with the rise in same-sex school environments. The authors' previous research found that counties where a larger share of students attend private, magnet, charter, and irregular public schools have higher levels of gender-sorting across schools.  This issue merits further attention, the study notes, as the National Center for Education Statistics projects enrollment for women will increase by 21 percent by 2019, but only 12 percent for men

San Jose State Efforts for First-Generation College Students

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports on efforts at San Jose State University to better serve first-generation college students.  <Read the entire report on the Chronicle of HE web site.>  One of the items that I noticed was the concern about programming and support services for first-genration students AFTER the first year.  So often many colleges provide programs to transition students into college and additional programming during the first year.  They the institution turns to the next cohort of students and focuses on them.  The second, third, and fourth year students are assumed "safe" and little attention is paid with them.  The Noel-Levitz enrollment management organization documents how one of the biggest drop out groups in colleges are the invisible "middle" students.  These are the struments that survived the first year and then go off the radar of intrusive and comprehensive student retention services.  These students silently exit the institution for the same reasons that had such a difficult time during the first year, but no one pays any attention to them anymore.  If they are surveyed why they left, they provide the politically correct answer it was financial.  The school officials shrug their shoulders and say it was the poor economy that did it to the students.  Actually, the departure of the students is far more complex and often preventable.

From the Chronicle of HE report:  "....Among the programs Ms. Morazes has set up is a series of workshops for first-generation students. The sessions focus on such topics as goal-setting, stress-management strategies, and talking to family members about college.  She also visits local high schools to publicize resources at San Jose State and to provide students with role models, something she hopes to do more of.

Also looking to expand the program is Art King, the university's associate vice president for student affairs. "Right now we only look at first-generation students when they come in, but they are first-generation students throughout their time at college," he says. "My hope is to have programs for second-year students, third-year students, and for fourth-year students, so each group gets appropriate resources and help."

Because the program is new and growing, there is not much long-range data on its effectiveness. Ms. Morazes is tracking the progress of participating students, including retention rates after the first year and progress toward declaring a major and earning a degree. She conducts evaluations before and after events to assess changes in students' knowledge of campus resources, their sense of belonging and connectedness, and whether they feel they are on track to earn a degree...."

Highlights from College Completion Annual Conference: Game Changers

The College Completion Annual Conference was this week.   <Read the entire report on the Chonicle of Higher Education webpage.>  Much of Monday's discussion centered on what Complete College America calls the "game changers"—strategies that it says can double the number of remedial students passing college-level courses, triple the graduation rates for students transferring with associate degrees to four-year colleges, and quadruple completion of career certificate programs.  Those include tying state appropriations to student performance; making introductory college-level courses, rather than remedial courses, the default placement for almost all students; and offering co-requisite remediation, which is offered alongside college-level courses, to those who need it.

Speakers also argued that too many students are placed directly in remedial courses on the basis of a single placement test, dooming many to a semester or more of courses they pay for but don't get credit for.  Mathematics educators described accelerated math pathways, like Statway and Quantway, that they say are more relevant to most students than the traditional sequences that trip up many learners  The approach, which was developed with the University of Texas at Austin's Charles A. Dana Center, is being used this fall across all of Texas' 50 community-college districts.

The group also heard from students. Kierra Brocks said that when she enrolled at Ivy Tech Community College, in Indiana, she missed the cutoff in math by two points and ended up in a remedial class that didn't challenge her. "It wasn't only money wasted but time wasted," she said. "It doesn't give you motivation to continue."

New Report from ACT and COE, Condition of College Readiness 2013: First-Generation College Students

"This report on first-generation students is significant because it acknowledges the necessity of developing policies to promote college readiness with the needs of this population in mind." <Click here to download this report from ACT and COE.>

"Not surprisingly, first-generation students lag behind their peers in meeting college readiness benchmarks in core subject areas.  The lack of families’ college background makes it all the more vital that schools with large percentages of first-generation students integrate supportive services into the required curriculum to create a college-going culture. Also, they must implement these services and strategies on a school-wide basis to ensure that all students are embarked on a path to college. Further, we recommend that schools partner with local colleges to offer dual enrollment in areas of greater propensity and interest for first-generation students. Dual-enrollment programs capitalize on students’ strengths and demonstrate to them that they are capable of doing college-level work.

The findings of this joint ACT/COE report underscore the importance of greater support for college access programs like TRIO and GEAR UP. For decades, these programs have provided academic tutoring, mentoring, counseling, and other supportive services to low-income and first-generation students to make the dream of college a reality. Recent federal initiatives have emphasized early childhood education; the nation must capitalize on that investment by continuing to support these students once they enter elementary and secondary school."  Maureen Hoyler, President, Council for Opportunity in Education

15 to Finish: Why don't college students enroll in 15 or more credits?

There has been quite a storm of reaction to the recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, "Redefine 'full time" so students can graduate on time, paper suggests."  Complete College America is holding their annual conference and released another policy brief that endorsed the solution to the college completion problem is to simply make students take 15 credits every semester till they get done.  They do an excellent job of stating the obvious:

• Most college students (69%) not enrolled in a schedule that leads to on-time graduation, even if they never changed majors, failed a course, or took a class they didn’t need
• Even among “full-time” students, most (52%) actually taking fewer than 15 hours, standard course load that could lead to on-time graduation
• At most two-year colleges, less than a third “full-time” students taking 15 or more hours
• At four-year colleges, typically only 50 % or fewer “full-time” students enrolled in 15 hours.

Then they state the obvious consequences of such actions:

• Taking 12 credits per term instead of 15 can add a year to a four-year degree or half a year to a two-year degree, even if students never fail a course, change majors, or take a class beyond their degree requirements.
• Students, parents, and public financial aid programs paying more for a degree when students have to enroll in more semesters.
• Students lose out on a year of employment and income if they spend an additional year in school.
• Fewer students served by institutions with limited capacity—advising, parking, dormitories, etc.
• Dropout rates are higher for students who take fewer credits.  In the 2004/2009 BPS study, 17% of students who completed 30 credits their first year dropped out without a degree by the end of six years, compared to 23% of students who completed 24-29 credits.(The difference in completion rates is even bigger, since the low-credit students are also more likely to remain enrolled without a degree.)

The simple solution, everyone takes 15 or more hours.  Or else.  From the CCA website, "Incentives [for enrollment in 15 or more credits] can be as simple as preferred parking on campus and as substantial as financial aid policies that reward credit accumulation.”  So if you don't keep up, give more financial aid to the students who are taking 15 or more and financially punish those that do not.  I looked through the CCA website and never read anything that explained why students would be so foolish to not enroll in 15 or more credits.  Readers of the article in the Chronicle provided the nuanced answer.  <Click here for a sample of their responses and my posting to a email listserv on this topic.>   Students don't have time due to working multple part-time jobs to pay for rising tuition, students bring to college credits earned elsewhere, students have family obligations, and the list goes on.  The answer is a lack of "time" and the students are smart to limit their course load to a level they can accomplish. 

I decided to dig deeper and went to the research studies the CCA was citing.  the 15 to Finish website, http://www.15tofinish.com/ contains the reports from a community college in Hawaii that has studied this issue.  <Click on this link for one of their research studies.>

Research Objective:  Impact of enrolling 15 or more credits on student performance.  First-time freshmen for the UG Community College campuses Fall 2009, 2010, 2011  Only 7.4% of the 17,960 freshmen took 15 or more credit hours in their first semester.  The average credit hour load was 10.6 hours.  Students divided into two groups:  took less than 15 or enrolled in 15 or more hours..  Each group organized by academic preparation, demographics, and academic success.

Findings of students who took 15 or more hours:

• Higher average Compas placement test scores.
• Were younger, tended to be recent high school graduates, and had a higher percentage with financial need met, and less likely to be an ethnic minority.
• Performed better as measured by first semester GPA, percentage with a “B” or “C+” or higher grade average, credit completion ration above 80%, and persistence.
• Students with higher academic preparation scores performed better academically 

The Research Study Conclusion:  “First-time students at the UH Community Colleges can successfully carry 15 credit hours.  Student success varies by academic preparation, with those students scoring higher on academic preparation preforming better…  Students taking 15 or more credits outperformed students taking fewer than 15 credits across all levels of academic preparation.  The fact that students taking 15 or more credits persist at higher rates may indicate greater student engagement.  The more important question is why so few students at the UH Community Colleges take 15 or more credits.  Analysis indicates that academic preparation is not the limiting factor.  The low percentage of students taking the higher credit load may indicate that 12 credits has become the culturally accepted norm for full-time enrollment.” 

Too bad they didn't ask the students why they did not take 15 or more.  More than half of the report are data tables that carefully document their findings.  But they did not analyze number of hours worked, number of jobs worked, and a host of other factors that help explain why students do not have time to enroll in 15 or more.  The study said the 15 or more students were younger.  I wonder about relationship status and number of dependents between the two groups.  Younger, academically prepared students with full financial aid probably do not have the financial needs and time obligations of the others.  And those that take less than 15 hours.  They number over 90 percent of the student body.  Would you not want to understand WHY?  This is the research the CCA cites as proof the answer is simple, make everyone take 15 or more credits without concern why they behave the way they do. 

It is obvious CCA is displeased with the federal government's definition of full-time status to receive Pell Grants is 12 credits.  Here is my question for the CCA, how long until you begin to lobby for raising the minimum credits to 15 to receive a Pell Grant?  It is only a matter of time.  It is such a simple answer.  Supposedly H. L. Mencken said, "For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong."

Best Education Practice: Tutoring College Students with Disabilities

Tutoring for Students with Disabilities.  Wichita State Univesity (KS)  (approved Promising Practice 10/15/13)  Taken from the abstract:  "TRIO DSS tutors are trained to work with students with disabilities, whether the disability is physical, psychological, neurological, or other.  Their training includes specific workshops on different types of disabilities and how to work with students with disabilities in individual situations.  Tutors are given the student’s learning styles (visual, auditory, kinesthetic, or a combination) and work with a student’s learning style, adapting their tutoring methods to match the student’s learning methods.  The tutoring program model of student academic support is designed to assist students with disabilities at the college level pass courses in which they face academic hardship due to their disabilities, and to help them move forward toward their goal of a four-year degree while experiencing new and innovative learning strategies".  [Click on this web link to download the education practice.]