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

Challenges of First Generation College Students

 From Stateline, "Encouraging first-generation college students by Adrienne Lu, Staff Writer.  As a senior at Taft High School in Lincoln City, Oregon, last year, Skyler Lopez didn’t spend much time thinking about his future.  Skyler’s identical twin Tyler had been aiming for Western Oregon University since the eighth grade—a daunting goal, since nobody in the Lopez family had ever graduated from college. But Skyler struggled in high school and had to scramble to even graduate. For him, college seemed like a stretch.  “A lot of it was laziness, a lot of it was worrying about the financial issues,” Skyler said.

When a campaign to encourage low-income and would-be first-generation college students to apply for college reached Lincoln City, a small tourist town on the coast of Oregon, Skyler’s school counselors urged him to apply.  He first applied to the local community college. But over the summer, he decided on a whim—again, with the encouragement of his counselors—to apply to Western Oregon University, the four-year college where Tyler would be starting school in the fall.  Today, Skyler, 18, has joined his brother as a freshman at Western Oregon, and hopes to become a high school counselor so that one day he can inspire students the way he was inspired.  Without the school counselor, “I wouldn’t be where I am now,” Skyler said. “That’s why I want to do that.”  Last year, close to 130,000 students in 24 states and the District of Columbia submitted more than 195,000 college applications as part of the American College Application Campaign, the effort that reached Skyler.

Creating a College Culture

The initiative encourages students whose parents are low-income or who didn’t go to college to apply to at least one college or university. Started in 2005, it is funded by philanthropic foundations and coordinated by the American Council on Education, which represents the presidents of U.S. colleges and universities.  High schools can customize their college application weeks to meet students’ needs, but all of them schedule time during school hours for seniors to submit applications, often aided by volunteers trained to answer questions.  

Schools try to drum up publicity and enthusiasm by holding raffles for students who submit applications, handing out “I applied” stickers and urging teachers to decorate their doors with photos and pennants showing their own alma maters. The Oregon University System created a YouTube video featuring people’s responses when they asked them to explain—in five words or less—why students should apply to college.  “It’s all about creating a college-going culture in our communities,” said Kate Derrick, a spokeswoman for the Tennessee Higher Education Commission, which coordinates the college application weeks in that state. “For us, it means for our students, it’s not a matter of if they’ll go to college, but where and recognizing that here in Tennessee, the jobs of the future will require college degrees.”

The American College Application Campaign began at a single high school in Siler City, N.C., and has since spread across the country. This year, about 2,000 schools in 39 states and the District of Columbia are participating.  National College Application Week is Nov. 11-15 this year, but many schools hold their events earlier so students can take advantage of early action and scholarship deadlines.  Many states have jumped in to help. In some, state employees coordinate the application drives, and some governors have signed proclamations to promote college application weeks.

The Burden of Being First

Bobby Kanoy, who directs the expansion of the campaign to new states, said that research shows the nation’s economy needs more college graduates. The percentage of 25- to 29-year-olds with at least a bachelor’s degree grew from 23 percent in 1990 to 33 percent in 2012, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Even so, the U.S. isn’t producing enough graduates with the skills to thrive in the country’s evolving economy.  “Unless we increase the number of students coming through the pipeline, we’re going to come up short,” of workers who are educated enough for the jobs of the future, Kanoy said. “If we come up short of people who can do these jobs… we either have to send the jobs offshore, or we have to import the talent.  Matt Rubinoff, executive director of I’m First, an initiative of the Center for Student Opportunity, a nonprofit aimed at supporting first-generation college students, said that while low-income students in middle school aspire to go to college at the same rate as their higher-income peers, they don’t matriculate at nearly the same rate.

Research indicates that a parent’s education is the greatest predictor of how well a student does in school and the level of education he or she achieves. Once enrolled, first-generation college students are four times more likely to drop out than peers whose parents have college degrees, Rubinoff said.  “Because of a lack of familial support and support in schools and in their communities, low-income first-generation students generally lack good information and support to navigate the college application process and the colleges that are most committed to their success,” Rubinoff said. While the college application is only one step among many for low-income and first-generation college students, experts say it is a critical hurdle.  “Studies show that if students do apply, they have a high likelihood of enrolling,” said Margaret Cahalan, acting director of the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education. 

The barriers for first-generation college students may be big or small, real or perceived.  Several high school counselors involved with the American College Application Campaign say that while most students have the desire to go to college, many first-generation students worry about not working to help support their families or fear taking on student loan debt, particularly in an uncertain job market.  Others, lacking the support of someone at home who has been through the college application process themselves, may be deterred by something as seemingly insignificant as not knowing what to put down for “permanent address” on an application form, or by an inability to pay application fees, which are often waived by colleges for low-income students.

Scared to Apply

At Ottawa Hills High School in Grand Rapids, Mich., college adviser Gabe Pena, who was the first in his family to graduate from college, said that some students are drawn to work at one of the assembly-line jobs in southeast Grand Rapids, which beckon students with wages of $10 an hour.  Other students avoid applications because they think they will have to fill out a lengthy application and write an essay, which is generally not true of community colleges. Pena said many students are excited to learn that the state offers a scholarship for many low-income students to attend community colleges.  “The majority of kids want to go to college,” Pena said. “There’s this grand idea of college – it seems like something unattainable, but they want to get there. I help familiarize them with all the options.”

Laura Klinger, a college adviser at two high schools in rural St. Claire County, Mich., said that filling out a college application is often the easiest part of applying to college. But going through that process and receiving a notice of acceptance can boost a student’s confidence, she said, and motivate them to continue through the red tape of orientations, housing deposits and financial aid forms.  “I think the value of having an adviser in the school is to try and help them with that process,” Klinger said.  Skyler said some of the students from his high school who don’t go to college get involved with “bad stuff” like drinking, drugs and partying. “I probably would have lived at home,” he said, reflecting on how different his life might be today. “I probably wouldn’t have gone (to college) and a lot of things would be a lot different.”

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

History of Learning Assistance Programs in the Mid to Late 1800s

As a historian, I have been interested in the history of learning assistance and developmental education.  Listening to the rhetoric of today as some argue for the elimination of developmental-level courses, a listener might think that such courses are a recent creation.  A careful review of the historical record reveals they have been embedded as part of American higher education since the start.  Below is the first of three parts of an examination of the 1800s.  These are excerpts from my 2010 book published by Jossey-Bass, "Access at the crossroads:  Learning assistance in higher education."

Recruitment of Academically Underprepared Students

After the U.S. Civil War, students who were considered academically under-prepared were aggressively recruited. Economic and social changes throughout the United States fueled by the Civil War significantly influenced expansion of learning assistance at more colleges. Many male students did not seek admission or left college to join their respective armies. Many colleges in the North and South replaced them and their tuition payments through expanded academic preparatory departments that supported underage students who were too young to enlist. Examples from the North include Valparaiso University in Indiana, which replaced college students through a rapid expansion of the academic preparatory department. Although the liberal arts college and theology school at Bucknell University closed temporarily in 1865, the academic preparatory school at the same college significantly increased its enrollment. Offsetting enroll­ment decreases saved many institutions from closing. Southern colleges followed the same pattern of Northern institutions through extended academic prepara­tory departments and acceptance of applicants formerly denied admission. In 1861 the University of Alabama created an academic preparatory department for boys twelve years and older. In 1863 the University of Georgia created Uni­versity High School and suspended rules prohibiting admission of boys younger than fourteen to the university. The Faculty Senate of South Carolina College in 1862 voted to admit young students to replace revenue lost by former stu­dents who had left the institution to join the Confederate Army (Rudy, 1996).

History of Learning Assistance Programs in the Mid 1880s

As a historian, I have been interested in the history of learning assistance and developmental education.  Listening to the rhetoric of today as some argue for the elimination of developmental-level courses, a listener might think that such courses are a recent creation.  A careful review of the historical record reveals they have been embedded as part of American higher education since the start.  Below is the first of three parts of an examination of the 1800s.  These are excerpts from my 2010 book published by Jossey-Bass, "Access at the crossroads:  Learning assistance in higher education."

Academic Preparatory Academies

In 1830, New York University created an early prototype of an academic prepara­tory academy. It provided instruction in mathematics, physical science, philoso­phy, and English literature (Dempsey, 1985). The focus, however, was acquiring basic academic content knowledge, not the cognitive learning strategies that are often prerequisite for mastery of new academic material. These academies were a necessary bridge for many college aspirants as a result of the lack of formal sec­ondary education for many. The U.S. education movement started from the top down. First, colleges and universities were established and then public elemen­tary and secondary schools were developed. Some colleges functioned essentially as both high schools and rigorous colleges. The academic preparatory academies supported the rising academic rigor of postsecondary institutions and provided an access conduit for those seeking a college education. The academies expanded with surprising speed in a short time. By 1894, 40 percent of first-year college students had enrolled in college preparatory courses (Ignash, 1997).

Academic Preparatory Deparments Become Part of the College Curriculum:  Late 1800s

Since the beginning, tutorial programs were the most common form of aca­demic enrichment and support at most prestigious institutions such as Har­vard and Yale. Many college administrators responded to the high number of students academically underprepared by creating a special academic depart­ment that was essential to meet their academic needs. In less selective institu­tions, the number of underprepared students outnumbered those not requiring additional support. For example, the University of Wisconsin in 1865 could place only forty-one of 331 admitted students in “regular” graduation credit courses. The majority of the new students admitted were restricted to remedial courses (Shedd, 1932). Quality of primary and secondary education was uneven or missing in most of the United States. Most colleges provided instruction in basic skills of spelling, writing, geography, and mathematics, as they were the only venue for such instruction (Brier, 1984). Instruction in basic content areas lengthened the undergraduate bachelor’s academic degree to six years or more (Casazza and Silverman, 1996).

In 1849, the University of Wisconsin established the first modern learning assistance program. Instead of offering remedial courses through an external academic preparatory academy, Wisconsin created an academic department for these courses and hired a separate faculty to teach them. The Department of Preparatory Studies instructed students through remedial courses in reading, writing, and arithmetic. Because of an insufficient number of tutors to meet the academic needs of most admitted students, the institution quickly responded by establishing the new academic department. Of the 331 admit­ted students, 290 enrolled in one or more remedial courses in the preparatory studies department. These courses were similar to those offered at a public high school (Brubacher and Rudy, 1976). Many institutions across the United States implemented the Wisconsin model of learning assistance (Brier, 1984). The department persisted until 1880. Continuous internal political battles among the department, campus administrators, and the rest of the university faculty served as a catalyst for its demise. Faculty members from outside the depart­ment demanded its elimination because of the fear of stigma for the university. College administrators tried to appease critics through strategies such as renam­ing the department. New campus administrators finally closed the department after its short and contentious history (Curti and Carstensen, 1949).

Academic preparatory departments emerged at more than 80 percent of all postsecondary institutions (Canfield, 1889). These departments bridged the gap between inadequate academic preparation of high school graduates and college-level curricular expectations (Clemont, 1899). Review of college admission documents indicated that the farther west the college was located, the lower the entrance requirements for the institution as a result of insuffi­cient preparation in high school. As the public school movement spread from the Northeast farther south and west, college entrance requirements of the institutions eventually rose. After a half century of use, however, remedial col­lege credit courses were entrenched in most colleges.

History of Learning Assistance in the Early to Mid 1880s

As a historian, I have been interested in the history of learning assistance and developmental education.  Listening to the rhetoric of today as some argue for the elimination of developmental-level courses, a listener might think that such courses are a recent creation.  A careful review of the historical record reveals they have been embedded as part of American higher education since the start.  Below is the first of three parts of an examination of the 1800s.  These are excerpts from my 2010 book published by Jossey-Bass, "Access at the crossroads:  Learning assistance in higher education."

Academic preparation academies emerged during the mid-1800s. These new postsecondary education units provided education equivalent to public high schools, which were not common in most of the United States at the time. Col­leges recognized that tutoring as it was being practiced was insufficient to serve the needs of the expanding college student population. Often academies oper­ated in the local community rather than on the college campus. In addition to tutoring, the academies enrolled students in remedial classes in reading, writ­ing, and mathematics. This phase was a short one, as the expansion of public education across the United States replaced the need for many of the new academies. The composition of the student body changed little during this phase. Most students were white males from privileged families. Because most students were involved with learning assistance and from the upper class, lit­tle stigma was attached, as it was perceived as a natural part of the education process, a process that was available to so few at the time.

Impact of Jacksonian Democracy

Some historians identified several elements of Jacksonian democracy as affecting U.S. society in the mid-1800s. Whites benefited from the exten­sion of voting privileges, middle-class workers and small shop owners received financial support, and education was extended to more of the pop­ulation. One application of Jacksonian democracy was expansion of post­secondary education through common schools, public education, and an expanded curriculum for more people in the middle class rather than only the most privileged.

During this time, expansion of postsecondary education was essential to support development of the economic middle class of merchants, tradesman, engineers, agriculturalists, and scientists needed to meet the needs of the grow­ing nation and to support its economic development. This intersection of interests among political progressives and economic forces indirectly supported learning assistance as a means to ensure higher productivity of colleges to grad­uate sufficient numbers of skilled workers and leaders.

With poor or nonexistent secondary education and even inadequate pri­mary education in some cases, however, many college aspirants could barely read and write (Craig, 1997). The number of those who tutored and the num­ber who received tutorial assistance were nearly identical to the number of teaching faculty and their enrolled students (Brier, 1984), documenting the extensive involvement of learning assistance in postsecondary education. Since the early years, debate has continued about how to meet the needs of admitted college students. Providing tutoring for students was insufficient to meet their needs during this time. More services would emerge.

One option for meeting students’ academic preparation needs was to pro­vide remedial and developmental courses in the institution’s curriculum. Proponents of elitism in postsecondary education prevailed temporarily against that option, however. The fixed college curriculum prescribed the same slate of classical courses for all students, without regard to individual needs for development of improved learning strategies and mastery of fundamental aca­demic content material in mathematics and writing. Thus, academic prepara­tory academies continued to house remedial and developmental courses.

Counseling Makes a Difference for Low-Income Students Attending College

From Inside HigherEd by Scott Jaschik.    "A theme of several studies in the last year has been that there are plenty of academically talented low-income students who for some combination of reasons are not applying to competitive colleges to which they would probably be admitted.  A new study along those lines -- this time documenting the impact of intense college counseling -- was released Monday by the National Bureau of Economic Research. The study (abstract available here) found that a nonprofit group that focuses on college counseling in Minneapolis-St. Paul had a significant impact in increasing the rate at which low-income students enrolled in four-year colleges, including competitive institutions.

The study was conducted by Christopher Avery of Harvard University -- co-author (with Caroline Hoxby of Stanford University) of a study released in December that found that most highly talented, low-income students never apply to a single competitive college. That work has set off widespread discussions about what sort of interventions might make a difference.  Avery's new study looks at College Possible, a program that provides in-depth college counseling as well as tutoring on the ACT or SAT. Avery was able to study the impact of the program by comparing results on College Possible participants with those who applied to (and were not admitted to) the program despite having slightly better academic preparation.  The study found no statistically significant gains in ACT scores for those who participated in the program. Avery writes, however, that this may understate the impact of the program, because he suspects that some of those who didn't get into College Possible found test-prep services elsewhere.  But the study found a significant impact on College Possible participants in applying to and enrolling in four-year colleges, and especially to competitive colleges. More than 45 percent of the students in the College Possible program enrolled at a four-year college, while the figure in the control group was 34 percent. And the most popular college among those in the program was Augsburg College, a competitive liberal arts college that did not enroll a single student from the control group (though some would appear to have been academically qualified had they applied).  The findings could be significant in that the earlier Avery-Hoxby study noted that low-income students who enroll in more competitive colleges are more likely to land at institutions with better graduation rates, more financial aid, and more resources to promote their academic success.

Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/10/29/study-tracks-impact-counseling-low-income-students#ixzz2j7MWcOPu