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 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.

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...."

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

Stories from Students How TRIO Supports Their Success (3 minute video)