Increasing Economic Diversity at College

~ Laura

Increasing college access and retention for lower income students is one my long standing, pet topics.

When I worked for a policy center in grad school, we did a study on why good students (a GPA of B- or better) dropped out of the CUNY colleges. We were hired by the CUNY administrators to do the study. They gave us a huge randomized list of these good dropout students. We tracked down as many as we could, and asked them why they left. Many said that they hadn’t really dropped out. They took time off. Others transferred. Many said they had a family or financial crisis. Others complained about advisors or the poor sequencing of classes.

For those who didn’t transfer to other schools, personal crisis and bad advisors were the biggest  issues.

The Upshot has a great article that lists some new programs aimed precisely at the students in my old study. There are efforts to create independent advisors for these students.

Leonhardt wonders what colleges will do if they start getting more students at their door who are prepared, but don’t have the income to pay for tuition. Will colleges start cutting corners to keep tuition affordable?

 

Published by Laura

9 thoughts on “Increasing Economic Diversity at College”

  2. As chair of a department, I will agree that bad advising is a HUGE problem. I get so frustrated that I can do little to get some of my problem faculty to do better. And it’s exhausting that I have to advise not only my regular load of students, but also the students who have crappy advisors. Other faculty here are up in arms as we’re starting to hire more professional advisors, particularly for those at risk students, but I couldn’t be happier. I don’t think professional advisors should completely supplant faculty, but if someone can take help with picking specific classes off my plate, then I will have more time to talk about big picture issues with my students.

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    1. Poor sequencing of classes is a huge issue as is class scheduling. I work with a number of people who went to for profit schools and paid the price but the main impetus for their choice was schedules. Many schools still assume that students can take classes at any time, and if a class isn’t offered one semester students can just get it the next. Sometimes 2 required classes are offered in one semester but one at 9:00 am MW and the other at 2 pm TTh. How can that coordinate with a job? I know schools have complex scheduling issues but it would be useful if scheduling could be more consistent, and students could schedule classes in blocks.

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      1. I think that wouldn’t work with the more traditional students. Anyway, I always tried to avoid long blocks of classes. That way I could be more prepared/not miss Gunsmoke any day. Also, being able to schedule classes in blocks would seem to require at least some of those classes to be early in the morning. That’s just nuts.

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  3. My older cousin, the oldest of five from a working class family, went to City College back when it was free. She joked that since she lived at home, her only expense was subway fare. She says she didn’t even have to buy books because as an English major, every book she needed was a novel and therefore could be taken out of the public library — which is exactly what she did.

    Now, of course she exaggerated for effect. I’m sure she had some required classes outside of the English department that she had to buy textbooks for. But the larger point remains, there were once places in this country (at least, NYC, Cincinnati, California) where college was free. Too bad we can’t go back in time and study what retention rates were back then. I’d bet notably better. Even the best advisor can’t counsel someone out of being broke.

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      1. The real problem in America is that admissions people are also salespeople. if you lose your job for not recruiting students you’re going to take people who don’t belong in college. I’m a professor and an academic advisor and I’m also required to call up prospective students and urge them to come even when they don’t have the qualifications.

        The figure we keep hearing is that eighty five percent of second tier and third tier universities are going to be largely out of business in 15 years. We are told that we have to keep accepting students in order to keep from going bankrupt. Sometimes I wish I could advise them that you’re not ready for college and you should keep your money.

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      3. “85%? Who keeps saying that figure?”

        Yeah, that figure does sound like it’s worth poking at and figuring out where it came from.

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