HIP to COLLEGE 2012-2015: Creating Strong Funding and Nonprofit Networks for Latino Student Success

For the past three-and-a-half years, through the HIP to College initiative, Hispanicsin Philanthropy has worked diligently to strengthen the academic success of Latino students and the long-term community advancement that results from their earning postsecondary degrees. With the support of generous partners, such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the HIP to College initiative in North Carolina and Colorado worked to develop networks that support Latino students through high school and into college. Improving outcomes for Latino students is the priority of the HIP Education Focused Initiative. The success of this initiative has been remarkable. HIP is optimistic about the future of this work and its role in cultivating an educational landscape and partnerships in the United States that help Latino students thrive

Virginia College Access Resource Study: Region One Report

This research brief shares the results of a MERC study commissioned by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV) and supported by Virginia 529 about college access in central Virginia. The purpose of college access providers is discussed as well the current areas of need. A list of access providers in Virginia are listed at the end of the brief

Cracking the Code on Stem: A People Strategy for Nevada\u27s Economy

Nevada has in place a plausible economic diversification strategy—and it’s beginning to work. Now, the state and its regions need to craft a people strategy. Specifically, the state needs to boost the number of Nevadans who possess at least some postsecondary training in the fields of science, technology, engineering, or math—the so-called “STEM” disciplines (to which some leaders add arts and design to make it “STEAM”). The moment is urgent—and only heightened by the projected worker needs of Tesla Motors’ planned “gigafactory” for lithium-ion batteries in Storey County. Even before the recent Tesla commitment, a number of the more high-tech industry sectors targeted by the state’s new economic diversification strategy had begun to deliver significant growth. Most notable in fast-growing sectors like Business IT Ecosystems (as defined by the Governor’s Office for Economic Development) and large sectors like Health and Medical Services, this growth has begun to increase the demand in Nevada for workers with at least a modicum of postsecondary training in one or more STE M discipline. However, there is a problem. Even though many available opportunities require no more than the right community college certificate, insufficient numbers of Nevadans have pursued even a little STEM training. As a result, too few Nevadans are ready to participate in the state’s emerging STEM economy. The upshot: Without concerted action to prepare more Nevadans for jobs in STEM-intensive fields, skills shortages could limit growth in the state’s most promising target industries and Nevadans could miss out on employment that offers superior paths to opportunity and advancement. Which is the challenge this report addresses: Aimed at focusing the state at a critical moment, this analysis speaks to Nevada’s STEM challenge by providing a new assessment of Nevada’s STEM economy and labor market as well as a review of actions that leaders throughout the state—whether in the public, private, civic, or philanthropic sectors—can take to develop a workforce capable of supporting continued growth through economic diversification

Equity and Local Access to Jesuit Higher Education: The Catalyst Pilot

College access continues to be highly stratified across racial, socioeconomic, and first-generation status. Although there are numerous studies on college readiness programs, the research on the correlation between college proximity and college access is lacking or contradictory. Moreover, minimal research exists on college readiness programs within the context of place-based community engagement at a Jesuit university. This mixed-methods, action research case study investigated how to build accessible and equitable pathways to Jesuit colleges and universities within close proximity of historically underrepresented communities, focusing primarily on first-generation, low-income students of color from Northeast Spokane, Washington. Bordieu’s theories of cultural and social capital as well as Conley’s four facets of college readiness shaped the study. The results revealed that a college immersion program could have a positive and transformative experience on high school students’ perceptions of higher education over the course of just three days, whereas interviews with high school counselors, university admission staff, and a public school district administrator indicated that long-term key strategies were essential to improving local recruitment and building a P-16 educational pipeline

Academic Performance Among First-Year College Freshmen Following Participation in a Summer Bridge Program

The primary purpose of this study was to determine the differences in the academic outcomes of first-year academically underprepared TN Promise-eligible college freshmen who participated in a college bridge program. A comparative research design was applied to existing data, including first-semester GPA, first-semester credit completion rate, first college-level mathematics course GPA, first college-level English course GPA, and fall-to-fall persistence rates. A random sample of 412 first-time freshman college students from five cohorts was analyzed using descriptive statistics for eight research questions. These findings indicated that there were no significant differences among college bridge participants and non-bridge participants. Non-bridge program participants performed slightly better than bridge program participants for all research questions, including first-semester GPA, first-semester credit completion rate, first English course GPA, and first mathematics course GPA. Similar results were also found for research questions that analyzed underrepresented participants. However, despite finding that non-bridge participants achieved minor but consistently higher performance outcomes, the fall-to-fall persistence rates for bridge participants and non-bridge participants were nearly identical. Additional analyses indicated that low-income bridge participants slightly outperformed their low-income non-bridge peers in first-semester GPA and credit completion rate, and first-generation bridge program participants and first-generation non-bridge participants performed almost identically, though no statistical significance was found. This study documented the short-term academic effects that college bridge programs can have on academically underprepared college freshmen. These findings resemble similar findings from existing bridge program research that likewise did not find improvements in student performance or outcomes. Additionally, this study along with ambiguous findings from previous research, might indicate that bridge program efficacy is highly reliant on program design, purpose, and target populations, and the concept is not a universal approach to prepare students academically and socially for the curricular expectations of postsecondary education. Implications for future research and recommendations for policymakers are discussed

Different Approaches to Dual Enrollment: Understanding Program Features and Their Implications

Examines program features, challenges, and benefits of secondary-postsecondary partnerships that allow high school students to take college courses for credit, with a career-focused strategy for engaging underperforming students. Includes recommendations

Equitable Value: Promoting Economic Mobility and Social Justice through Postsecondary Education

While structural racism has been part of the United States since before its founding, continued racial and gender violence alongside the coronavirus pandemic have exacerbated racial inequities across the country. The disproportionate impact of these events on people of color has catalyzed nationwide activism leading to renewed conversations about who has true access to opportunity in this country. Against this backdrop, the Postsecondary Value Commission leveraged diverse voices and experiences to interrogate the role that postsecondary education can—and should—play in promoting opportunity, paving an equitable path to economic mobility, and dismantling centuries of racist, classist, and sexist attitudes and policies. To be clear: overall, postsecondary education offers individuals the opportunity to earn a better living and build a better life for themselves and their families, while also fostering a healthier, more democratic society. Yet, troubling disparities in access to these opportunities exist by race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and gender

Promoting College Match for Low-Income Students: Lessons for Practitioners

Most high school reform efforts understandably focus on boosting the success of low-income students who are underachieving academically, but in every school district where students struggle, there are academically capable low-income and minority students who do graduate prepared for college. Yet each year, many of these students choose to attend nonselective four-year colleges where graduation rates are distressingly low. Others enroll at two-year colleges, where degree completion and transfer rates are even lower. Many more do not attend college at all. In 2010, MDRC and its partners pilot-tested an innovative advising program, College Match, in three Chicago public high schools. This practitioner brief presents practical lessons from that program. It offers five strategies that show promise, that could be widely applicable, that counselors and advisers can integrate into their existing college guidance activities, and that can be implemented in college advising settings in and out of schools

Defying the Odds, Stories of Success: A case study of Foster Care Alumni in the Community College Environment

The purpose of this dissertation was to explore the lived experiences of foster care alumni and how these experiences influenced the individual’s decision to enroll in a community college, persist, and complete a degree. The dissertation drew from two conceptual frameworks, Bandwidth (Verschelden, 2017) and Capitals – cultural, social, and academic (Bourdieu, 1986; St. John, Hu, & Fisher, 2010). Foster care alumni were selected as the population due to their underrepresentation in college enrollment and poor completion rates. Moving beyond a deficit model that focuses on identifying obstacles, this dissertation focused on success stories of the foster care alumni in an attempt to highlight experiences that contribute to success. Each student who participated in this study is on target to complete a college degree this year. The dissertation tells the stories of six community college students using a case study methodology for data collection and analysis and narrative inquiry for data reporting. During the Fall of 2019, six students shared their stories. The stories were captured through semi-structured interviews that focused on the student’s experience in the foster care system and their entire college lifecycle (from choice to completion). The stories were analyzed, using deductive analysis, for themes related to the primary research question and sub-questions. An additional theme emerged through inductive analysis. The themes identified from the stories are Historical Hardships, Human Connections, Healthy Outlets, and Hopeful Futures. The findings highlight common themes in the student stories that point to the need for and influence of human connections, the benefit of engaging in healthy outlets, and the power of having a mindset that focuses on a hopeful future. The findings also showed, though, that despite achieving a level of success that the overwhelming majority of their foster care alumni peers do not experience, the students still struggle with historical hardships that impact their current lives. However, the students have defied the odds by persisting and moving forward to degree completion. Adviser: Brent Cejd