California’s College Stopouts: The Significance of Financial Barriers to Continous School Enrollment

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By Veronica Terriquez, Oded Gurantz, and Ana Gomez.  In California, the majority of four-year and community college students do not complete their intended degrees and certificates on time (Chronicle of Higher Education, 2013; Fain, 2013). Many of these students “stop out”—that is, they leave college with the intention of returning later. Discontinuous enrollment is highest for students with lower academic preparation and lower socioeconomic status (Ewert, 2010; Goldrick-Rab, 2006). This is particularly troubling in light of the recent economic recession and the rising cost of higher education, which have both made paying for college more difficult. Students from lowincome backgrounds in particular may find they need to take time off from school to save money or to help their families pay their bills. Unfortunately, college students with discontinuous enrollment have significantly reduced likelihood of ever completing their degrees (Cabrera, Burkum, La Nasa, & Bibo, 2012), making this an urgent problem for higher education researchers and policymakers. In this policy brief, we describe the range of influences on the attendance patterns of California’s college students, focusing in particular on economic factors. Drawing from the mixed-methods California Young Adult Study (CYAS), we classify stopouts as students who enrolled in public or private community or four-year colleges and took a break from school for a term (quarter or semester) or more, not including summer, with the intention of returning. We include individuals who were on break from school but still planned to pursue postsecondary degrees, as well as those who had previously taken time off and successfully re-enrolled in postsecondary institutions. Who stops out of higher education? Over one third of students—and more men than women—stopped out of college. Overall, 37% of CYAS survey respondents who attended college reported stopping out at some point (Figure 1). Male students were more likely to stop out than female students (42% compared to 31%, respectively). Some students of color and those from low-income backgrounds were more likely than others to stop out. For example, 44% of Latino youth stopped out, compared to 34% of white youth. Results further suggest that African Americans exhibited high stopout rates, while Asian Americans exhibited comparatively low stopout rates.

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Importance of High School Conditions for College Access

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By Leticia Oseguera.  Students from low-income backgrounds are less likely than their peers to enroll in and complete college, thus limiting their employment prospects in a job market that demands increasingly higher skill levels. Often, reform efforts designed to address this problem focus on individual factors such as academic performance or parental education level. But an over-emphasis on student characteristics at the expense of attention to school culture and climate undermines a more complete understanding of student achievement. By exploring high school institutional factors—including academic curriculum, teacher qualifications, and school commitment to college access—we can explain the variation in the postsecondary pathways of students from low-income backgrounds more fully than if we focus only on family or “cultural” factors.2 If we overlook what is going on within schools, we may limit the potential impact of current policy initiatives on the academic success of low-income students. A focus on strengthening schools is a more proactive approach to ensuring student success. Earlier findings on the four-year trajectories of a national cohort of tenth graders illustrate profound differences in the pathways of students from low- and higher-income families and the central role of their high school experiences in preparing them for a range of postsecondary options.bIn previous analyses, only 14% of students raised in poverty completed a college preparatory curriculum when they were in high school, while close to a third (32%) of students whose families were not in poverty did so. A majority (57%) of lower-income students who finished high school without completing this type of curriculum pursued postsecondary education at the two-year level; just 34% enrolled in four-year institutions. In contrast, lower-income students who had completed an academic concentrator curriculum were more likely to enroll in four-year schools (75%) than in two-year colleges (23%). Higherincome students, on the other hand, largely entered four-year colleges and universities, whether they had (84%) or had not (49%) completed an academic concentrator curriculum. This previously published research is a stark reminder of the importance of school conditions in determining the obstacles that students face as they prepare for post-high school education and a range of career options.

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‘I Need More Information’ How College Advising is Still Absent from College Preparation in High Schools

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By Makeba Jones.  In the wake of the Great Recession, unemployment and poverty rates among young adults have dramatically increased, especially for those who have not earned bachelor’s degrees (Aud, KewalRamani, & Frohlich, 2011). College attendance and completion are critical for individuals seeking stable employment and economic mobility out of poverty. We know that the institutions at the end of the pipeline—colleges and universities—need to improve graduation rates for students who have grown up in poverty (Johnson & Rochkind, 2010a). As important, students who are earlier in the pipeline—i.e., in high school—need to be prepared for college-level work and expectations (Lee & Smith, 2001). For low-income youth, the transition from high school to college is a pivotal juncture; clearing the college-going hurdle immediately, without delay, increases the likelihood that they will earn four-year degrees (Ashtiani & Feliciano, 2012; Bozick & DeLuca, 2005). One of the most important components of preparation for a smooth transition is college advising. High school counselors are arguably as important as teachers in preparing low-income high school students for college. Nationwide, high school counseling is fragmented. Absurdly high student to counselor ratios, counselor knowledge gaps about college requirements, and increasing pulls on counselor time that have nothing to do with advising students have cracked counseling systems in many public schools (Adams, 2010; McDonough, 2005). And, in recent years, slashed education budgets have pushed already fragmented counseling systems to the breaking point. Our nation’s students are painfully aware of how their school counseling programs are failing them. In 2010, Public Agenda publicized troubling survey results from over 600 individuals between the ages of 22 and 30 about their high school guidance systems (Johnson & Rochkind, 2010b). Results showed an overwhelming failing grade; even young adults who had earned four-year degrees rated their school counseling as poor. The fact that the report presented a national portrait of dismal counseling for students from all socioeconomic backgrounds does not diminish the urgency to improve counseling for low-income students in particular.

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What Matters for Community College Success? Assumptions and Realities Concerning Student Supports for Low-Income Women

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By Vicki Park, Christine Cerven, Jennifer Nations, Kelly Nielsen.  As open-access schools, community colleges are vital institutions that provide learning opportunities and experiences for students of wide-ranging interests and backgrounds. Compared to four-year institutions, they serve greater numbers of low-income people and students of color (Provasnik & Planty, 2008). California, which has the largest community college system in the United States, enrolls nearly one-fourth of the nation’s community college students (Provasnik & Planty, 2008). The state has developed an expansive, low-cost system of community colleges to serve its especially large and diverse population (Sengupta & Jepson, 2006).  In line with national efforts, California has undertaken a series of reform initiatives to improve student success in the state’s community colleges, especially with respect to completion rates, which have not been up to par (California Community Colleges Student Success Task Force, 2012). For example, only 31% of the 2003–2004 cohort of California community college students seeking a degree either obtained a certificate or degree or transferred to a university within six years of enrolling (Moore & Shulock, 2010). In response to these types of statistics, and in order to improve retention and completion rates, Governor Brown recently signed into law the California Student Success Act of 2012. This legislation is designed to improve completion rates by requiring community colleges to develop student success and support programs with, among other things, expanded orientation, assessment, and educational planning services for students. These types of broad efforts have placed a spotlight on how support services can facilitate student success, and what institutional conditions must exist in order for them to do so. To better understand the barriers to and supports for student success, this report focuses on the experiences of one large segment of community college students—low-income women. In general, women have made significant gains in college enrollment and completion, often outpacing men in both categories (Horn & Nevill, 2006; Wang & Parker, 2011).

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Unequal Experiences and Outcomes for Black and Latino Males in California’s Public Education System

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By John Rogers and Rhoda Freelon.  Across the nation there is growing interest in improving the situation of young men of color, who are underrepresented in higher education and dramatically overrepresented in the criminal justice system (Lee & Ransom, 2011). Numerous studies have documented that black males enrolled in school often lag behind their peers academically, have less access to rigorous coursework, experience racial bias from school personnel because of lower expectations for boys of color, and are more likely to drop out (Gregory, Skiba, & Noguera, 2011; Holzman, 2010; Howard, 2008; Jackson & Moore, 2006; Sharon et al., 2010). Although it would be reasonable to expect that Latino males face similar challenges, there are few comparable studies that reveal their experiences. Given the new demographic realities facing the nation—and facing California in particular—it is important that we gain a better understanding of how both groups fare in the state’s public K–12 and postsecondary education system.  The research described in this policy brief is part of a larger study, Pathways to Postsecondary Success, which examines the educational pathways of America’s low-income youth, especially in California. We focus here on young black and Latino males because they are nearly 3.5 times as likely as white children to live in poverty (Davis, Kilburn, & Schultz, 2009) and, in comparison to many other California youth, experience relatively low high school and college graduation rates.2 With these issues in mind, we sought answers to the following questions:

1. What inequities do Latino and black males encounter in California’s public schools?
2. What disparities in educational outcomes do Latino and black males in California face?
3. Are some public high schools better than others at promoting the achievement and success of these particular subgroups? What characteristics do successful schools share?

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Mentorship and the Postsecondary Educational Attainment of Low-Income Youth

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By Mariam Ashtiani and Cynthia Feliciano.  The relatively low educational attainment of youth from low-income backgrounds has been a long-standing social problem in the United States. For decades, researchers and policymakers have been concerned with reconciling the ideal of an American educational system that allows ample opportunities for upward mobility with the reality that educational outcomes are strongly linked to other factors, including family income (Davis-Kean, 2005; Duncan, Yeung, Brooks-Gunn, & Smith, 1998; Duncan, Featherman, & Duncan, 1972; Mare, 1980; Teachman, Paasch, Day, & Carver, 1997). In an era that has witnessed staggering increases in class inequality, the importance of earning a college degree has never been greater, and yet the availability of resources that facilitate college access and completion for students who grow up in poverty is steadily declining (Duncan & Murnane, 2011; Kahlenberg, 2010). Mentors, who can serve as role models or spark a sense of possibility for the future, offer one important avenue for low-income youth to gain access to important information and tools necessary for academic success. This brief explores the significance of mentorship in the college entry and completion of low-income youth. Drawing from a nationally representative longitudinal study of American adolescents, we address three main questions:

1. Does being mentored affect the college entry and completion rates of low-income youth?
2. Are certain types of mentorship more beneficial to low-income youth than others?
3. Are certain types of mentorship more beneficial to low-income youth than to middle/high-income youth?

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Postsecondary Educational Pathways of Low- and Middle/High-Income Youth: Using the Education Longitudinal Study (ELS) to Examine Tenth Graders’ Transitions from High School

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By Leticia Oseguera.  This work examines the four-year trajectories of a national cohort of tenth graders by socioeconomic status to better understand pathways of educational movement.  Drawing on the Education Longitudinal Study, we identify large differences in post high school transitions, conditional upon the type of educational status one secures during high school, across low-income and middle/high-income samples. Only when we take into account college readiness at high school graduation do we see similar proportions of low-income and middle/high-income students make the transition to college immediately after high school graduation. As the population of low socioeconomic status students in the U.S. continues to expand and the importance of obtaining a four-year higher education degree increases, understanding students’ post-high school behavior in light of their secondary education outcomes can guide policy to identify and close the gap in the pipeline to college access.

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