College Access & Equity

Posted by Andrew Berrios

As more and more troops return from battle-torn countries they are faced with multiple transitions. The transition to civilian life, and for some higher education, can be difficult. Community colleges are usually the starting point for academically rusty veterans. The question becomes what are these institutions doing to help our veterans as they transition?

In a research study published in the Community College Journal of Research and Practice, these issues are explored in more depth and recommendations are suggested. The article, “Veterans Coming Home to the Community College: Linking Research to Practice”, explores various initiatives suggested by veterans and faculty members. With the induction of the Post 9/11 GI Bill, institutions of higher education are receiving more federal veteran-based funding than ever before. What are institutions of higher education doing to ensure veterans receive equitable access to a college education while providing programs that support completion? The community college-based study identified five major themes that support a ‘Veteran Friendly’ campus.

1. Credit streamlining (allowing military experience to count toward college credit)
2. Program/services streamlined (more online access)
3. Cohort veteran groups (allows for development of group support)
4. Specially trained counselors/advisors (offer PTSD services)
5. Interventions/programs in place to handle veteran issues (difficulty with academics, dealing with immature students, etc.)

The issues raised are concerning and relevant to many veterans. The transitional programs provided for veterans are carried out prior to the termination of their contractual obligations. Unfortunately, the last thing on a service member’s mind is college and how to access it. Veterans are usually occupied with living arrangements, family transitions, and the life changes that come with reentering the civilian life. Transitional programs need to be at the site level and provide tangible support. Veterans are often left to navigate unfamiliar territory in their pursuit of a degree. After the sacrifices they have made for our nation, the least we can do is provide supports to help them access higher education.

Posted by Justin Marques

The DREAM Act was created to provide undocumented students in-state college tuition and a possible path towards citizenship.  National legislation has yet to be approved, but select states have established their own DREAM Act policies.  Unfortunately, due to a variety of factors including the segregation of students based on actual and perceived academic abilities, such policies have yet to show success in providing higher education access.   Gonzales (2010) exposes the major structural barriers negatively tracked Latino and undocumented students’ face.  For undocumented students interested in going to college, the existence of the DREAM Act and similar programs has a limited impact if no one provides knowledge of the program or advocates for the student.  California’s DREAM Act (AB 540) cannot ensure college access when “postsecondary participation among undocumented respondents is facilitated through their position in school in relation to teachers and counselors” (Gonzales, 2010, p. 273).

Schools that select students for academic enrichment programs and negatively track the remaining majority of students create a segregated educational environment.  Positively tracked students benefit from an environment that strengthens learning and development of social capital, and are often shielded from the broad problems that are present at many large urban schools.  Undocumented students spoke of having teachers and an administration that offers little advocacy, preparation, and support towards college access.  Beliefs of undocumented student underachievement and segregation within schools make the California version of the DREAM Act ineffective.  Often teachers and counselors had little awareness of the AB 540 policy.  The majority of students who are tracked toward lower academic programs don’t wish to be seen as uninterested in academics, but they need support and guidance from teachers and the school administration.  If a wider range of students were able to associate with teachers and students placed in achievement programs, they could obtain important social capital about college access and the availability of the AB 540 policy and its benefits.  Also, supportive relationships with teachers could be created.  Students interviewed also spoke of concerns about being able to afford college because of not being eligible for financial aid.

A few students were lucky to have supportive teachers and counselors to guide them towards scholarships and alternate aid and funding options.  But such stories are few and far between, especially for those who are stigmatized based on their ethnicity and undocumented status.   Undocumented students make up a sizable population in our schools, especially in California and the Southwest.  Many have been in America nearly their entire lives, through no fault of their own.  By providing information and options about how to enter and pay for college, undocumented students can begin a path towards citizenship and make greater contributions to their communities and the economy.

Posted by Matt Mourovic

In addition to the access-impeding issues Contreras describes in Achieving Equity for Latino Students (e.g. language and cultural barriers, disproportionate numbers of inexperienced or low-quality teachers in majority-Latino schools), some Latino students must also contend with educational barriers that are tied to their immigration status.  Foreign-born children of undocumented immigrants are legally permitted to attend US public schools from kindergarten to 12^th grade because of the 1982 Supreme Court decision on Plyler v. Doe, which ruled that a 1975 Texas law barring undocumented children from public schools was in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14^th Amendment of the US Constitution.  After 12^th grade, however, undocumented students are unable to file for federal financial aid (no SSN = no FAFSA) and are ineligible to apply for state financial aid in every state except for California, New Mexico, and Texas .   As of October 2011, 38 states (all but CA, CT, IL, KS, MD, NE, NM, NY, TX, UT, and WA) require that undocumented students pay out-of-state tuition rates at state universities, which, in combination with the block on federal financial aid, puts those institutions out of reach financially for most undocumented students.  With no state or federal aid available, a college education may not be an option even in the 12 states that grant in-state tuition to undocumented students, and even if students are able to navigate this restrictive and potentially very expensive system, they remain “illegal” to employ in the US due to their residency status.

The Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act, AKA the DREAM Act, was first introduced to Congress in 2001.  The most recent version of the bill, introduced in 2010, would grant undocumented students a conditional permanent residency, provided that they have lived in the US for five consecutive years, have graduated from a US high school, are under age 30, and are “of good moral character.”  These students would have six years to complete two years of schooling toward a bachelor’s degree, complete an associate’s degree, or serve two years in the US military or be honorably discharged, after which they would be granted permanent resident status.  To date, no version of the DREAM Act has been passed into law.

There are an estimated 2.1 million undocumented children and young adults in the US.  In 2007-2008, the average cost per K-12 student in the US was approximately $10,700.  A quick glance at these figures shows that we are spending a staggering amount of money to provide a K-12 education to undocumented students, after which we provide nothing.  Both supporters and opponents of the DREAM Act should be able to agree that our current US policy is contradictory; what good does it do to spend so much money on a K-12 education only to bar the door to higher ed?

Posted by Mary Scherer

Each April, when high school seniors finally start to see letters in the mailbox, the rest of us receive news of colleges’ admission rates, numbers which we—and the institutions themselves—use to determine the ranking of elite colleges. This year, the rank-order itself did not change much from 2011, but the “percent accepted” numbers were smaller than ever for the top 20 schools reporting.

Among the Ivies, whose overall number of applications fell slightly from last year, two schools report their lowest-ever rates of admission: 5.9% for Harvard, and 6.8% for Yale. In fact, the only increased acceptance rates among the Ivies were for Columbia (up .5% from 2011 at 7.9% this year) and Brown (approaching double digits at 9.3%, up .6% from 2011). These slightly increased rates at Columbia and Brown might have signaled a bright spot in this year’s report were it not for the non-Ivy elites, all of whom report acceptance rates below last year’s. In several of these cases, the applicant pool was greater, allowing admissions committees to be more selective than ever in making their decisions.

Qualitative research on elite admissions shows that the “rough sort”, in which applications are put into three basic piles (easy accept, easy deny, and a large middle) based on at-a-glance factors like SAT scores and GPA, don’t shrink the pool nearly as much as one might hope. The large middle tends to be composed of students with extremely similar numerical values, extracurriculars, essays and letters of recommendation, making fine distinctions necessary. These distinctions are often based on how much financial aid the applicant would need, whether their parent is an alum, the rigor of their high school, the connectedness of their letter writers, or how they might contribute to diversity statistics. Some of these fine distinctions are even more arbitrary, such as the admission officer’s ability to tell a compelling story about the applicant, or the committee’s like/dislike for the guidance counselor at the sending school (see Mitchell Stevens, Creating a Class: College Admissions and the Education of Elites).

Dalton Conley, dean of social sciences and professor of sociology at NYU, says an admissions lottery is an idea whose time has come. He suggests setting a cutoff (i.e. scoring in the top 10% of one’s graduating class and the SATs nationally), expanding it as appropriate if it proves too narrow. He argues that “besides reducing some of the inequities, a lottery would single-handedly end debates over affirmative action, legacy admissions, and preference for student athletes.” Perhaps most significantly in light of falling admissions percentages at elite colleges, Conley argues an admissions lottery “would make where you attend college less important in terms of social status, since it would abolish the myth that selective colleges only best and brightest according to some tried and true secret formula.” It’s not too hard to imagine how this idea, when accompanied by the right statistics, increasing public disapproval for elitism and exclusivity in colleges (a clear challenge to our national self-perception as the flagship of the democratic free world) and increasing ambivalence over merit and affirmative action on the basis of race and class, might actually garner some political attention. At the very least, it would be a fascinating experiment with implications for how we conceive of individual deservingness and the social benefits of elite postsecondary education.

Posted by Jessica Brown

In the current environment of competition for spots in colleges and universities, especially for spots in selective institutions, some students are scrambling to find advantages in any way they can. Traditional support providers are also experiencing changes in their responsibilities, leaving students with a lack of direction. High school guidance counselors must give increasing attention to the prevention of dropout, drug abuse, pregnancy, and other personal student issues rather than advising students on college matters. Additionally, college admissions counselors are no longer able to take on a “counseling” role while their institutions push them to focus on marketing and recruitment (McDonough, Korn, & Yamasaki, 1997). Therefore, students with the financial means are turning to private college counselors. Other enterprises that make up the “entrepreneurial admission sector” include standardized test preparation and tutoring, mass media informational resources, and institutional enrollment marketing and management (McDonough, Ventresca, and Outcalt, as cited in Liu, 2011).

With the various forms of capital needed to have access to these resources, it is clear that this entrepreneurial sector is simply another way to reproduce the persistent inequalities in higher education attainment. It also continues to lead higher education into a “privatized and commoditized domain” (Liu, 2011, p. 17). Possibly the worst part of this situation is that colleges and universities seem to have embraced the commercialism (Clark, Bok, Slaughter and Rhoades, as cited in Liu, 2011), so the entrepreneurial sector is unlikely to go away. Liu (2011) suggests that if this is the case, maybe the best we can do is search for the value in these activities and work the existing structures into forms that could also benefit disadvantaged and underrepresented groups of students.

Posted by Alesia Brennan

In late February, 2011 Harvard and Princeton Universities announced they would return to offering early admission for the class of 2012. This was a reversal of Harvard’s 2006 policy change, which Princeton and the University of Virginia quickly adopted, that ended its early admissions program.

When Harvard ended its early admission program the decision was widely discussed by administrators as a step in the right direction in terms of increasing equity for low-income and minority applicants. Research based on 2005 CIRP data strengthens this argument. Park and Eagan (2011) found that applicants taking advantage of early admissions programs tend to be White, have parents with high income/education levels, have higher high school GPAs, receive encouragement about attending college from their parents, and attend high resource high schools. In short, already advantaged students are more likely to take advantage of early admissions programs, perpetuating social stratification, especially at elite institutions.

The news of Harvard and Princeton returning to early admissions programs begs the question, what changed in five years to justify this return? Harvard’s Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid, William R. Fitzimmons, argued the policy was always open to review and its reversal was based on the University’s desire to recruit and enroll the most talented students, something he argued was not happening at the desired level under the single deadline program. He also argued that the rise in the total number of students applying early over the past few years was indicative that early admissions is now open to a wider group of applicants.

As the policy reversal is so new, the effects of it, which are likely large, have yet to be truly determined. However, regardless of the reasoning put forth by Harvard administrators, I believe this is a step in the wrong direction for increasing equity in elite admissions and low-income and minority students will continue to lack parity in early admissions programs.

Posted by Sara Sandstrom

On February 23, 2012, a letter to the editor of the Smith College newspaper, The Sophian, was published (the original letter has been taken off the Sophian website, but can be found here).  This letter, from a wealthy Smith alumna from the mid-80s, expressed her worry that Smith’s admissions policies were no longer as stringent as they once were, and instead Smith now consists only of “A)lesbians, B)international students who get financial aid or C) low-income women of color who are the first generation in the family to go to college and will go to any school that gives them enough money or D) white heterosexual girls who can’t get into Ivy League schools.”   This letter also addresses Smith’s move to make the SAT optional and how that is a way to increase low-income black and Hispanic attendance, because it is common knowledge that those demographic groups score lower on the SAT and reporting the scores would lower Smith’s ranking in the US News and World Report.  The response to her letter by the campus community showed a remarkably diverse array of students, many of whom shared demographic characteristics with the author, all of whom spoke out about how the Smith community benefits immensely from the increased diversity across all categories.  See the response here.

This letter, while incendiary and offensive, points to an intentional move by Smith and other elite colleges to increase the diversity of their student bodies, specifically in regards to socio-economic status and race/ethnicity.  Smith’s president offered an open letter to the campus community lauding the increase in all types of diversity on campus and expressing her intention to open up Smith’s elite educational doors to all different types of students, not simply wealthy white women wearing pearls and cashmere.  This letter and subsequent response relates directly to Melguizo and Chung’s (2012) article titled “College Aid Policy and Competition for Diversity” recently published in the Review of Higher Education.  The article examines the connection between access to financial aid and elite education and educational attainment for low-income minority students.  Their study looks at financial aid packages at a variety of institutional types and the types of aid packages available to students (grants, loans, work-study, etc…) and found that the largest aid packages for low-income minority students are found at the most selective private institutions, and those packages are the most grant-heavy.  The selective institutions are thus best able to attract high-achieving low-income minority students by providing generous financial aid packages that are not loan-heavy and thus do not require years of repayment.  This is exactly how Smith has attracted a socio-economically and racially/ethnically diverse student body, and is also what the alumna letter is criticizing.  As college costs continue to rise, especially at the elite level, it is critical to point out that these institutions are paradoxically the most affordable for many of the poorest students.

The challenge of elite institutions to attract high-achieving minority and low income students is well-documented as a form of breaking down the white, wealthy stereotype of these institutions (e.g., Amherst College’s no-loan policy), and opinions such as the one found in this letter are likely far more rampant than most higher education scholars and participants would like to admit.  Elite institutions, often with large endowments and significant alumni contributions, tend to be able to offer much more institutional aid.  The public institutions, long considered (and expected to be) the bastions of educational equality and low-cost, high-value education are no longer the least expensive path to higher education for those at the lowest end of the socio-economic spectrum, as shown by Melguizo and Chung (2012).  However, it is important to note that even with large quantities of grant aid and work-study, the elite institutions are still not free for the poorest students and students often still end up taking out loans to finance their education.  This points to many future discussions and policy implications related to federal financial aid and the skyrocketing costs of higher education, especially in relation to Pell Grants.

Posted by Dan de la Torre

Community colleges in the United States have garnered new federal and state interest in the last couple of years, including the latest Obama initiative. In Massachusetts, renewed attention surfaced via a Boston Foundation report released in November 2011. This business-backed account makes a number of recommendations in its emphasis on school-to-work training goals. The report caught the attention of Governor Deval Patrick, who proposes changes including “the creation of new programs that are better aligned with regional labor market needs,” (Gov. Deval Patrick proposes unifying Massachusetts community colleges under statewide system).

These calls for reconfiguring community college curricula to produce more workers may sound familiar. The seminal critique by Brint & Karabel (1989), The Diverted Dream, used the history of America’s community colleges to make the case that occupational education was systematically cultivated by community college leadership. Leaders from the 1920s – 1980s were depicted as engaging in a long-term battle for legitimacy, funding, and stratified educational training, according to the authors. The push towards vocationalization is described as being relentlessly foisted on community college students, despite persistent preferences for transfer programs. Brint and Karabel concede that community colleges have steered through “contradictory pressures of capitalism and democracy, efficiency and equality, and diversions and democratization” (p. 232), throughout their existence. This last sentence is perhaps the most valid as it acknowledges that community colleges continue to be uniquely problematic in a hierarchical higher education system that imposes order and function, places unequal value on academic credentials, and has traditionally reinforced stratification of student groups.

Early evidence to support the idea of cyclical challenges comes by way of a report produced in 1989, the same year as The Diverted Dream, titled Transfer, Articulation, and Collaboration: Twenty-Five Years Later. Funded by the Ford Foundation, this research project was sponsored by the same American Association of Community and Junior Colleges (AACJC) that Brint and Karabel hold complicit in the organized move toward vocational education. A conspiracy-minded observer might suggest an intent to disseminate watered-down policy (control the message?) while pushing evermore towards occupational education. More likely, this comprehensive analysis of external and internal forces in the community college systems of 11 states, comparing studies done in 1960 and 1985, revealed that transfer and articulation had become so widespread as to merit attention and guidance. The report concludes with “national guidelines” (p. 80) for transfer and articulation policies that spell out roles and responsibilities of government and institutions.

The aim of highlighting the Ford report and its outcomes is simple: indeed there was large-scale systemic interest in the transfer function of community colleges at the same time that Brint and Karabel were fervently arguing otherwise. The juxtaposition of these competing forces for the direction of education in community colleges, a tension that continues today in Massachusetts, supports the position that these issues are not only cyclical, there are often counter arguments to be made. As long as the mission of community colleges remains to serve all comers, this controversy will persist.

Posted by Emily Perlow

Since 2009, President Obama has frequently challenged all Americans to obtain at least one year of college education. Now the Community College to Career program as part of his recent budget proposal, proposes to allocate $8 billion dollars toward business partnerships that prepare students for growing job markets in 2018. With the current economic climate, the scarcity of jobs, and the increasing realization that career choice rather than simple degree attainment plays a large factor in future success, there is greater emphasis politically, economically, and socially on the role that community colleges will play in educating America’s workforce.

According to a recent policy brief by the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) (Mullin, 2012), an increasing emphasis on completion rates and the return-on-investment for higher education may lead some colleges, concerned about measuring completion and debt-to-income benchmarks,  to be more discerning about admitting only those with a high likelihood of success, thereby limiting access. What does that mean for community colleges, having traditionally embraced an open access philosophy, that provide access to “nearly half of all minority undergraduate students and more than 40% of undergraduate students living in poverty” (Mullin, 2012, p. 8)?

Obama’s emphasis focusing on completion rates seem at odds with the focus on access. While the intention is admirable, when implemented at the state level, it may actually limit college access.  First, when government benchmarks are incentivized with access to funds, as is the case with The College Access and Completion Fund, it may cause states to supplant funds or restrict admittance to only the individuals formulaically likely to graduate. For example, while more community college enrollees are between the ages of 18 to 24, most of these students identify first as employees and secondarily as students wanting more job training (Mullin, 2012, p. 7). The majority of these students work, which is one of the primary risks for stopping out. If likelihood of completion is factored into admittance, they may not be admitted.

Additionally, recent changes to student financial aid policies for the 2012 federal year pose significant barriers to the priorities established by the Obama administration. Even with an increased commitment to funding Pell Grants, new changes by the Department of Education require that students earn a high school diploma, GED, or have completed homeschooling to be eligible for federal financial aid. Currently students who do not meet these criteria are able to take an “ability to benefit” (ATB) test to determine if they are ready for college level work. According to the AACC, currently about 60% of ATB students attend community colleges and these ATB students are disproportionately from underrepresented populations (Mullin, 2012, p.10). This policy may limit access to an important segment of Americans whom Obama’s proposed reforms intend to target.

The AACC’s policy brief concludes with a challenge: While the intentions of these proposed programs is positive, policy makers need to carefully consider the ways in which government programs and policies will impact the access of populations when implemented at the college level.

Posted by Matthew Bachmann

High academic achievement in high school is a critical component of access to a college education.  Academic achievement is often a significant barrier for students of low socioeconomic status for numerous reasons. Education Week recently published an article entitled “Who Is Responsible for Student Achievement?”  The author, David Cantor, seemingly without deliberate intent, presents the answer early in the article with the statement, “After all, what are the policies and programs [italics added] (the silver bullets) that will ensure kids across the country learn more and stay in school longer?”  (p.1).  In my opinion, policies and programs are the answer, if they use precision to target specific populations. Then all resources from finances to time and labor are conserved.  And the question of “who is responsible” can be more narrowly defined and those individuals can be more effective.

He continues with the question of how to improve student performance by asking, “what do we need to do to improve the quality of education?” (p.1) and receives numerous suggestions ranging from “smaller class sizes, getting more resources to the classroom, improving teacher quality, greater parental involvement, less testing, more testing, and more technology in the schools.”  He then refocuses to the point of the article asking, “Who is responsible for making sure students achieve at a higher level?” (p.1). The author targets parents, teachers, principles and administrators for an answer.  The resounding response from all groups was, “Not me.”  Everyone from parents to administrators “expressed the feeling of being at the breaking point”  (p.3).

The general fatigue and frustration expressed in this article by educators and parents alike is disturbing.  With so many resources targeting increased academic achievement and access to higher education we must expend these resources wisely to reduce both the financial and human costs associated with them.

See also a response to this article by FUEL.