Helping Our Teens to College
By Albert B. Kelly
I came across some stats that I found absolutely amazing
courtesy of David Kirp, a professor at Berkley in a piece he wrote for the NY
Times.
To begin with, Dr. Kirp points out that there are roughly
200,000 high school graduates a year who have been accepted by colleges around
the country but they never bother to enroll. That’s an astounding number, but
it came as no surprise to learn that most of these students come from lower
income families and resource-poor school districts.
It’s not hard to figure out; kids from low income families
with everything that this implies, have far less support and help and they find
the admissions process to overwhelming to handle on their own. Come from a poor
district, and the guidance counselors have a case load that is itself
overwhelming.
Faced with this and any number of other challenges, and it
is no surprise that many of these students don’t enroll even though they’ve
been accepted. According to the numbers, only 3% of students from the lower
income brackets go to top universities.
But knowledge is power and it’s surprising how a little
knowledge on the admissions process opens doors at top universities for these
students. As an example, Dr. Kirp points to research tracking 40,000 seniors
from lower income families who scored in the top 10 percent on SAT and ACT
exams.
When these students got help in the form of information
telling them how to pick schools that matched their areas of interest,
information on graduation rates, cost estimates of each school, and other
important information, they were 78% more likely to be accepted by the top
universities.
Throw in a waiver of the application fee, and those numbers
went up. The researchers estimate that the cost for this targeted outreach came
to about $15 a head.
Another surprising number that Dr. Kirp cites is the upwards
of 40% of high school graduates in urban school districts that never step foot
on a college campus; many for the reasons mentioned earlier. Believe it or not
though, a simple text message to remind the student and offer support actually
gets results.
That’s right, a simple text message- and why not? After all,
we live in a mobile and digital and none more so than our young people.
A text message-based strategy used on a group of 5,000 young
people reminding them of enrollment deadlines, attaching links to enroll, and
offering an advisor, saw a 72% enrollment rate as opposed to 66% for those that
didn’t receive a text. The cost was $7 a head.
I don’t want to underestimate the great strides we’re already
making today. The Give Something Back Foundation founded by Bob Carr, in
partnership with Bridgeton-based SJ First Star Collaborative which is funded by
Pascal Sykes Foundation and managed by Melissa Helmbrecht, have awarded 53
college scholarships to Bridgeton area students.
But I mention the interventions of direct outreach to
students, in the various forms highlighted above, because they’re cost
effective and because we will continue to face many challenges with our
students.
And any tool or strategy that can connect our young people
with college will not only change their lives in the near term, but will
improve our community over time.
Not everyone young person graduating college will return to
our area as their career choices and opportunities will largely dictate where
they go. But enough of our young men and women will return and they will open
businesses, teach in our schools, sit in leadership positions, and shape our
future.
We may not all be here to see the fruits their labors and
the yield on our investment, but that makes it no less important a factor in
what our community will be in decades to come. We ignore this at our own peril.
But just as importantly, when dollars at a minimum, finding
tools that show measurable results- such as the use of counselors, providing
information packages, and using text messaging to connect- with minimum
expenditures is huge.
With limited resources, not every student can get a
scholarship, but this is something that can be done at the local level. It means
that groups and organizations such as the GSB Foundation, Pascal Sykes,
Bridgeton Public Schools, and our other community partners collaborating - but
it’s doable and affordable and we’ll be joining together to get it done.