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

In Search of a Match: A Guide for Helping Students Make Informed College Choices

This guide is designed for counselors, teachers, and advisers who work with high school students from low-income families and students who are the first in their families to pursue a college education. It offers strategies for helping these students identify, consider, and enroll in "match" colleges -- that is, selective colleges that are a good fit for students based on their academic profiles, financial considerations, and personal needs. Many of the suggestions in this guide are based on insights and lessons learned from the College Match Program, a pilot program that MDRC codeveloped with several partners and implemented in Chicago and New York City to address the problem of "undermatching," or what happens when capable high school students enroll in colleges for which they are academically overqualified or do not apply to college at all. The key lessons of the College Match Program, which are reflected in this guide, are that students are willing to apply to selective colleges when:* They learn about the range of options available to them.* They engage in the planning process early enough to meet college and financial aid deadlines.* They receive guidance, support, and encouragement at all stages.Informed by those key lessons, the guide tracks the many steps in the college search, application, and selection process, suggesting ways to incorporate a match focus at each stage: creating a match culture, identifying match colleges, applying to match colleges, assessing the costs of various college options, selecting a college, and enrolling in college. Because many students question their ability to succeed academically or fit in socially at a selective college, and because they may hesitate to enroll even when they receive good advice and encouragement, the guide offers tips and strategies to help students build the confidence they need to pursue the best college education available to them. Each section also suggests tools and resources in the form of websites and printed materials that counselors, advisers, and students can use, as well as case studies to illustrate the experiences of College Match participants throughout the process

Bringing Developmental Education to Scale: Lessons from the Developmental Education Initiative

While over half of all community college students are judged to need developmental (or remedial) reading, composition, and/or mathematics classes, these courses — which students are often required to complete before they can enroll in courses that confer credit toward a degree — typically present major roadblocks to student progress. To address this issue, the Developmental Education Initiative (DEI) was created in 2009. Fifteen highly diverse community colleges that had been early participants in Achieving the Dream, a national community college reform network, each received a three-year grant of $743,000 to scale up existing interventions or establish new ones that would help students progress through developmental courses more quickly and successfully. The colleges typically identified two or three “focal strategies” — most often, student support services and new instructional strategies — for achieving these goals. This second and final report from the evaluation relies on both qualitative and quantitative data to examine the implementation of these focal strategies

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, aiming to help them graduate ready for the rigors of college. But in every school district where students struggle, there are academically capable low-income and minority students who do graduate from high school and are well 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. 1 This phenomenon — called “undermatching” — was first examined by Melissa Roderick and her colleagues at the Consortium on Chicago School Research. 2 Bowen, Chingos, and McPherson confirmed that students are more likely to graduate college when they attend the most academically demanding institution that will admit them. 3 More recently, a study by Caroline Hoxby and her colleagues gained popular attention for demonstrating that it was possible to increase the rate at which very high-achieving, low-income students enrolled in the most selective colleges and universities by providing them with tailored information about opportunities there. 4 In 2010, MDRC and its partners pilot-tested an innovative advising program, College Match, in three Chicago public high schools. It took on the undermatch challenge directly by delivering crucial information to help a broad range of academically qualified students and their parents make thoughtful decisions about college enrollment. College Match has now expanded to New York City. This practitioner brief presents practical lessons from the College Match Program in Chicago. 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