Failure by Colleges and Government to Bridge Inequality

<Click here to download entire commentary from NY Times.>

Sobering commentary in NY Times on the initial promise of college as levelor of inequality through GI Bill and early years of federal financial aid programs and subsequent failure to keep up the financial commitment to the majority in society without the social capital of the priveledged classes.  Following is a short excerpt from the commentary.  Be sure to read some of the comments to the article (as of the moment, they number more than 250).

"When the G.I. Bill of Rights of 1944 made colleges accessible to veterans regardless of socioeconomic background, Robert Maynard Hutchins, the president of the University of Chicago, worried that it would transform elite institutions into “educational hobo jungles.” But the G.I. Bill was only the first of several federal student aid laws that, along with increasing state investment in public universities and colleges, transformed American higher education over the course of three decades from a bastion of privilege into a path toward the American dream.

Something else began to happen around 1980. College graduation rates kept soaring for the affluent, but for those in the bottom half, a four-year degree is scarcely more attainable today than it was in the 1970s. And because some colleges actually hinder social mobility, what increasingly matters is not just whether you go to college but where.  The demise of opportunity through higher education is, fundamentally, a political failure. Our landmark higher education policies have ceased to function effectively, and lawmakers — consumed by partisan polarization and plutocracy — have neglected to maintain and update them. . . ." <Click here to continue reading.>

Postsecondary Peer Cooperative Learning 2014 Annotated Bibliography

Postsecondcary Peer Cooperative Learning 2014 Annotated Bibliography. Compiled by David Arendale.

<Click on this web link to download the document.>

I just updated my annotated bibliography on peer learning programs.  The bibliography is 160,000 words and 340 pages in length.  It features every article or report published on six of the major peer learning programs in higher education:  Accelerated Learning Groups (developed by Sydney Stansbury at University of Southern California), Emerging Scholars Program (developed by Uri Treisman at UC-Berkeley), Peer-led Team Learning (developed at City Univeristy of New York), Structured Learning Assistance (developed at Ferris State University), Supplemental Instruction (developed at the University of Missouri-Kansas City), and Video-based Supplemental Instruction (developed at UMKC as well).

Peer collaborative learning has been popular in education for decades. As both pedagogy and learning strategy, it has been frequently adopted and adapted for a wide range of academic content areas throughout education at the elementary, secondary, and postsecondary levels due to its benefits. The professional literature is filled with reports of individual professors integrating this approach into postsecondary classrooms in diverse ways. Increased attention has been placed on this practice due to claims by some programs that carefully coordinated and managed learning programs with specific protocols can increase student persistence rates towards graduation, supporting both student goal aspirations as well as bolstering institutional revenues..

This annotated bibliography does not attempt to be inclusive of this broad field of literature concerning peer collaborative learning. Instead, it is focused intentionally on a subset of the educational practice that share a common focus with increasing student persistence towards graduation. At the end of this overview, several suggestions are made for differentiating the models from each other and the level of institutional resources and resolve with implementing them.

The six student peer learning programs included in this bibliography meet the following characteristics: (a) the program must have been implemented at the postsecondary or tertiary level; (b) the program has a clear set of systematic procedures for its implementation that could be replicated by another institution; (c) program evaluation studies have been conducted and are available for review; (d) the program intentionally embeds learning strategy practice along with review of the academic content material; (e) the program outcomes include increased content knowledge, higher final course grades, higher pass rates, and higher college persistence rates; and (f) the program has been replicated at another institution with similar positive student outcomes. From a review of the professional literature six programs emerged: Accelerated Learning Groups (ALGs), Emerging Scholars Program (ESP), Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL), Structured Learning Assistance (SLA), Supplemental Instruction (SI), and Video-based Supplemental Instruction (VSI). Some of the programs share common history and seek to improve upon previous practices. Other programs were developed independently.

<Click on this web link to download the document.>

Senators Consider Changes in TRIO and Gear Up College-Prep Programs

I read with interest this article from the Chronicle of Higher Education.  It is not a surprise that too often policymakers think that just throwing more money at a problem/challenge is all that is needed. Reading the statements from some of those at the meeting, it appears they think just providing larger Pell grants is all that is needed. And an option is to kill off TRiO and GEAR Up to find more money. Who said it, "simple solutions to complex problems are almost always wrong." Having additional financial aid does not provide mentoring, tutoring, encouragement, counseling, and all the other resources needed for timely college completion. One of the problems is that our policymakers had lots of social capital, are 2nd or 3rd generation college-goers, family members who provided financial support to eliminate need for lots of college part/full-time jobs, and the rest. While they may think life was hard, it is no comparison to the students served by TRiO and GEAR UP. What students need is not a more generous ATM to dispense money, but a full-featured package to support their success. But that kind of answer does not fit the mold for a simple solution. -- David

Senators Consider Changes in TRIO and Gear Up College-Prep Programs By Andy Thomason

While President Obama was urging college presidents on Thursday morning to follow through on their new commitments to improve access for low-income students, lawmakers on Capitol Hill dusted off some older promises for examination.  The U.S. Senate's Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee met for a special "round table" to discuss changes in two federal programs that aim to improve access by helping needy and minority students prepare for college—TRIO and Gear Up. The hearing was part of the coming reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. 

Consistent with past reauthorization hearings' focus on simplifying federal higher-education policy, some senators on Thursday questioned whether the two programs were still relevant.  Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the committee's senior Republican, asked a group of five panelists if the budgets for TRIO and Gear Up, which each encompass several separate programs, would be better spent on more Pell Grants.  Members of the panel giving testimony largely defended the programs' benefits, saying they offer one-on-one counseling and support that many students cannot get anywhere else, among other things.  Tallie Sertich, director of the Climb Upward Bound program at Hibbing Community College, in Minnesota, said many students who received Pell Grants "still need the academic preparation that the TRIO program provides on the front end."

But senators and panel members agreed that simplifying federal student aid was in order. Senator Alexander alluded to past testimony that recommended shortening the main federal-student-aid application and informing students during their junior year of high school how much aid they will receive, among other changes.  Ron Haskins, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who testified on Thursday, said such simplification "has been a great idea for years," and the committee should ask the Department of Education why it has not happened.  Other panel members stressed that simplification was only part of the solution. "We need a bunch of big strategies to make a big dent" in the access problem, said Douglas N. Harris, an associate professor of economics at Tulane University.

Senators and panel members also focused on how to improve elementary and secondary education in order to increase college access. "Kids from low-income families come to the K-12 system already seriously behind," Mr. Haskins said, adding that "the K-12 system makes them further behind."  Sen. Elizabeth A. Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, widened the discussion, asking panel members to suggest ways to drastically increase the number of degree holders over the next several years. Members of the panel suggested more spending on TRIO and Gear Up, along with a greater focus on community colleges and precollege education.  Sen. Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa and chairman of the committee, concluded the hearing by suggesting that the way forward for TRIO and Gear Up may be "incentivizing states to come up and support" the programs.

Study finds key criteria that determine college success for low-income youth

<Click on this link to download this report.>

A five-year study by UC researchers that included a survey of California youth and interviews with more than 300 young adults about their interactions with educational institutions has identified the five key issues that matter most for understanding and improving college success for low-income students.  The $7.5 million study, “Pathways to Postsecondary Success: Maximizing Opportunities for Youth in Poverty,” spotlights the importance of student voices, an understanding of student diversity, asset-based approaches to education, strong connections between K–12 and higher education, and institutional support for students.  The study was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and was issued by the University of California’s All Campus Consortium on Research For Diversity (UC/ACCORD) at UCLA’s Graduate School of Education and Information Studies (GSE&IS).

“Our study began in 2008, at the onset of a critical economic downturn—the Great Recession—which impacted education and the labor market in considerably complex ways,” said UC/ACCORD director Daniel Solórzano, co-principal investigator on the study and a professor of social sciences and comparative education at GSE&IS. “It was clear the recession had an effect on both colleges and students. Budget cuts slashed enrollments at campuses and decreased the resources for those already enrolled. Many low-income students faced even greater financial instability from the scarcity of work or sudden unemployment of family members.  Therefore, at a time when students’ required additional support to stay on the path through college, the supports and conditions that are vital to their success were disappearing or overburdened on campuses.”

While “Pathways” reports on national data, the study focused on California, which has the largest number of community colleges (112). The vast majority of low-income students in California who pursue post-secondary education begin at community colleges.

Principal findings from the study include:

• Student voices matter: Education is a powerful force in the lives of low-income youth, and hearing what students say about their experiences is essential to understanding their educational pathways and outcomes. Financial difficulties, lack of available classes, transportation problems and a lack of availability of child care are obstacles to many low-income students’ success. Yet students reported that when they experienced caring educators and high-quality instruction in high school or college, this made a difference in their engagement and success in college.
• Diversity matters: Low-income youth are a diverse group, and understanding the similarities and differences in this student population enables administrators to better plan college success initiatives. In California, students of color make up the majority of community college enrollment, and many are the first in their family to attend college. Almost half (46 percent) of community college students are older, 54 percent work full-time and 16 percent are parents. “Common understandings of traditional college students may be less relevant as we plan for the growing number of community college students who are working full-time, raising families and have many responsibilities outside of school,” said Amanda L. Datnow, co-principal investigator on the study and a professor of education at UC San Diego. “These students are quickly becoming the majority, and we need to orient around their needs.”
• Assets matter: Report findings indicate that an asset-based approach helps education administrators tap into and foster students’ strengths in order to support college success. Low-income students enroll and often persist in college, although not always in traditionally defined ways. They arrive with high aspirations to do well and either finish their certificate program or transfer to a four-year college. Successful programs at the colleges affirm and tap into these assets.
• Connections between K–12 and higher education matter: High-quality K–12 schooling, combined with college preparatory resources, helps ensure college-going success for students. Nationally, 78 percent of low-income youth do not complete a college-preparatory curriculum in high school. In California, 85 percent of community college students require remediation in math and English to complete coursework they should have been taught in high school. Therefore, to ensure college readiness, better articulation between high schools and colleges needs to occur, and students need accurate information about enrollment practices and assessment procedures.
• Institutional supports and conditions matter: While funding cuts have resulted in reductions in mentoring programs and supports for students, financial difficulties, transportation problems and a lack of child care also frustrate many low-income students’ attempts to fulfill their goals. Low-income students are particularly dependent on financial aid to attend college, and information about resources—including academic and other services—must be integrated and streamlined to make the existing process less complicated and easier to access.

The multi-method study included the development of a monitoring tool to track educational opportunities for low-income youth. It also identified a set of indicators at the organizational level of community college campuses that support student success.

15 to Finish: Why don't college students enroll in 15 or more credits?

There has been quite a storm of reaction to the recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, "Redefine 'full time" so students can graduate on time, paper suggests."  Complete College America is holding their annual conference and released another policy brief that endorsed the solution to the college completion problem is to simply make students take 15 credits every semester till they get done.  They do an excellent job of stating the obvious:

• Most college students (69%) not enrolled in a schedule that leads to on-time graduation, even if they never changed majors, failed a course, or took a class they didn’t need
• Even among “full-time” students, most (52%) actually taking fewer than 15 hours, standard course load that could lead to on-time graduation
• At most two-year colleges, less than a third “full-time” students taking 15 or more hours
• At four-year colleges, typically only 50 % or fewer “full-time” students enrolled in 15 hours.

Then they state the obvious consequences of such actions:

• Taking 12 credits per term instead of 15 can add a year to a four-year degree or half a year to a two-year degree, even if students never fail a course, change majors, or take a class beyond their degree requirements.
• Students, parents, and public financial aid programs paying more for a degree when students have to enroll in more semesters.
• Students lose out on a year of employment and income if they spend an additional year in school.
• Fewer students served by institutions with limited capacity—advising, parking, dormitories, etc.
• Dropout rates are higher for students who take fewer credits.  In the 2004/2009 BPS study, 17% of students who completed 30 credits their first year dropped out without a degree by the end of six years, compared to 23% of students who completed 24-29 credits.(The difference in completion rates is even bigger, since the low-credit students are also more likely to remain enrolled without a degree.)

The simple solution, everyone takes 15 or more hours.  Or else.  From the CCA website, "Incentives [for enrollment in 15 or more credits] can be as simple as preferred parking on campus and as substantial as financial aid policies that reward credit accumulation.”  So if you don't keep up, give more financial aid to the students who are taking 15 or more and financially punish those that do not.  I looked through the CCA website and never read anything that explained why students would be so foolish to not enroll in 15 or more credits.  Readers of the article in the Chronicle provided the nuanced answer.  <Click here for a sample of their responses and my posting to a email listserv on this topic.>   Students don't have time due to working multple part-time jobs to pay for rising tuition, students bring to college credits earned elsewhere, students have family obligations, and the list goes on.  The answer is a lack of "time" and the students are smart to limit their course load to a level they can accomplish. 

I decided to dig deeper and went to the research studies the CCA was citing.  the 15 to Finish website, http://www.15tofinish.com/ contains the reports from a community college in Hawaii that has studied this issue.  <Click on this link for one of their research studies.>

Research Objective:  Impact of enrolling 15 or more credits on student performance.  First-time freshmen for the UG Community College campuses Fall 2009, 2010, 2011  Only 7.4% of the 17,960 freshmen took 15 or more credit hours in their first semester.  The average credit hour load was 10.6 hours.  Students divided into two groups:  took less than 15 or enrolled in 15 or more hours..  Each group organized by academic preparation, demographics, and academic success.

Findings of students who took 15 or more hours:

• Higher average Compas placement test scores.
• Were younger, tended to be recent high school graduates, and had a higher percentage with financial need met, and less likely to be an ethnic minority.
• Performed better as measured by first semester GPA, percentage with a “B” or “C+” or higher grade average, credit completion ration above 80%, and persistence.
• Students with higher academic preparation scores performed better academically 

The Research Study Conclusion:  “First-time students at the UH Community Colleges can successfully carry 15 credit hours.  Student success varies by academic preparation, with those students scoring higher on academic preparation preforming better…  Students taking 15 or more credits outperformed students taking fewer than 15 credits across all levels of academic preparation.  The fact that students taking 15 or more credits persist at higher rates may indicate greater student engagement.  The more important question is why so few students at the UH Community Colleges take 15 or more credits.  Analysis indicates that academic preparation is not the limiting factor.  The low percentage of students taking the higher credit load may indicate that 12 credits has become the culturally accepted norm for full-time enrollment.” 

Too bad they didn't ask the students why they did not take 15 or more.  More than half of the report are data tables that carefully document their findings.  But they did not analyze number of hours worked, number of jobs worked, and a host of other factors that help explain why students do not have time to enroll in 15 or more.  The study said the 15 or more students were younger.  I wonder about relationship status and number of dependents between the two groups.  Younger, academically prepared students with full financial aid probably do not have the financial needs and time obligations of the others.  And those that take less than 15 hours.  They number over 90 percent of the student body.  Would you not want to understand WHY?  This is the research the CCA cites as proof the answer is simple, make everyone take 15 or more credits without concern why they behave the way they do. 

It is obvious CCA is displeased with the federal government's definition of full-time status to receive Pell Grants is 12 credits.  Here is my question for the CCA, how long until you begin to lobby for raising the minimum credits to 15 to receive a Pell Grant?  It is only a matter of time.  It is such a simple answer.  Supposedly H. L. Mencken said, "For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong."

New Research Confirms Some TRiO Best Education Practices

Dr. Shawn Harper previews research findings he'll be releasing formally today about the black and Latino male students who succeed in New York City high schools (and he said there was no reason to believe similar qualities don't help similar students in other urban high schools). The study wasn't of elite charter schools or wealthier parts of the city, but of students who had achieved academic success in regular high schools. Harper found not only that such students exist (no surprise to him, but perhaps to those who lament the dearth of such students) but that many of them have no idea that they would be attractive candidates for admission to some of the most elite colleges in the United States.

Harper -- director of the Study of Race and Equity in Education at the University of Pennsylvania -- attracted considerable attention last year for a study in which he identified successful black male college students and examined the factors that led to their success. This new study is in a way the flip side of that research -- as his focus was on students in New York City high schools who could succeed in college (although he also included a group of New York City high school graduates who were in college for comparison purposes).

But what were the common characteristics that seemed to propel these students to succeed?

• Parental value of education. Many spoke of parents who related their own lack of education to their lack of money, and told their children they wanted better options for them.
• High expectations. The report says that "almost all" of the students in the study "remember being thought of as smart and capable when they were young boys."
• Learning to avoid neighborhood danger. Those who lived in unsafe neighborhoods reported parents who kept them inside whenever possible. Likewise, many of the students reported spending after-school hours in school buildings, in settings where they could study and also socialize in safer environments than were available to them near their homes.
• Avoiding gang recruitment. Many said that by becoming known as smart, and by having parents who didn't let them spend time outdoors, they weren't recruited into gangs.
• Teachers who cared and inspired. Harper asked the students to name and describe favorite high school teachers, and he noted that none of them had difficulty doing so, describing challenging teachers who knew and cared about them. He said that the teachers of these students are working in ways counter to the image of out-of-control urban schools.
• Reinforcement of college-going culture. One student noted that, at his high school, every day that a student was accepted at a college, the entire school was told about this over the public address system. While college-going might not be the norm for his socioeconomic group, he came to think of college-going as the norm from hearing these messages over and over again.

Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/09/30/new-study-explores-qualities-help-black-and-latino-males-succeed-high-school#ixzz2gOH4XCrF 
Inside Higher Ed 

MAEOPP Best Education Practices Center Posts Promising Practices

As I have shared previously through this blog, I lead a team of volunteers working to identify best education practices for TRiO and GEAR UP federal grant programs.  These programs focus on assisting first-generation college, poor, and historically-underrepresented students complete high school and college.  It is called the MAEOPP Best Education Practices Center.  It is cosponsored by the Department of Postsecondary Teaching and Learning at the University of Minnesota and the Mid-American Association of Education Opportunity Program Personnel.  To help highlight the MAEOPP Center through this web page I have added a new tab to the top menu bar, "Best Practices."  The web page displays my thoughts about best education practices and then provides web links to the MAEOPP Center web site.

We are beginning to post best education practices to the MAEOPP Center web site that have been approved through an external expert panel.  The practices range in age from middle school through college.  As new ones are approved, they will be posted to the web site.  Each submission will be complete enough to provide basic information about it and how to implement.  Contact information is provided so you can follow up with the developers to talk more.