Josh Lerner '07: Class and college access in Rhode Island
Issue date: 3/7/08 Section: Columns
Last week I asked a group of 30 Central Falls ninth-grade students to raise their hands if they planned on going to college after graduation. As I've come to expect at my job, nearly every hand shot up. In my role as a college adviser with the Brown chapter of the National College Advising Corps, it's hard to ignore the sheer desire to go to college among the young people with whom I work. Unfortunately, because of the barriers in opportunity facing these students, many will no longer see these college dreams as reality by their senior year. Within four years, many of these hopeful hands will be lowered quietly to their desks.
In my work with the National College Advising Corps, my goal is to increase college enrollment and awareness among students within Rhode Island's urban districts. In talking with students about college, it is not my goal to push a value system predominant to a white, upper-class circle (one, admittedly, that I grew up with), but to be involved in a process that grants students opportunities they might not otherwise have. For the truth is that college access remains strictly segregated by class. Students from the top income quartile are almost twice as likely to attain a bachelor's degree as those from the lowest income quartile. Accordingly, low-income students are more likely to attend two-year colleges, but this says little about their potential to graduate from such institutions. According to the Rhode Island Board of Governors for Higher Education, the graduation and transfer rates for low-income students of color at the Community College of Rhode Island are 4.4 percent and 17.5 percent, respectively. In other words, close to 80 percent of these students entering CCRI will not finish with any type of college degree.
For low-income students whose parents have not attended college, the barriers to attaining a college degree are numerous. With often busier work schedules, higher rates of mobility and differences in language, families are less likely to know how to navigate the complicated processes of college admissions and financial aid. Economic difficulties at home lead many students to give up on college dreams early on, accepting the idea that college is prohibitively expensive before they learn how they can benefit from systems of financial aid. And with less time surrounded by college-educated adults, students often go through high school never having developed an accurate understanding of what college is and what a degree can do for them.
At school, these obstacles persist. Recent results of the New England Common Assessment Program highlight the disparity in achievement between low-income and upper-income districts, showing that the majority of public school students in low-income Rhode Island districts are academically unprepared for college-level work. With increased pressure to teach basic concepts in order to improve scores on looming tests, administrators and teachers in urban districts often find little time to focus on the seemingly far-off goal of college access. Meanwhile, according to Dr. Nicole Farmer Hurd, director of the National College Advising Corps, the national average student-to-guidance counselor ratio in low-income districts is more than 400:1. When college counselors are overburdened by case-loads, one wonders how it is possible for those students who need the most assistance to receive any support at all on their path to college.
The end result of these barriers is that, even for those low-income students who are academically qualified to enroll in a four-year institution, college access remains a distant dream. In the 2007 report of Education and Economic Mobility, Ron Haskins of the Brookings Institution notes that "at every step in the process of preparing for, applying to, attending, and graduating from four-year universities, students from poor families are at a substantial disadvantage." Somewhere along the line in that process - from learning about college options and filling out applications to finding academic and financial resources upon enrollment - the system breaks down. Too many students and their families lose their way.
This year, college advisers with the College Advising Corps at Brown have assisted over 400 students and their families in navigating the college admissions process, from start to finish. This position has allowed us to work one-on-one with extraordinary teenagers and meet their parents in family workshops, to drive caravans of seniors to visit local colleges and organize successful after-school tutoring programs, to cheer our students on in basketball games and swim meets and be a guest of their religious communities in local churches. As college advisers, we have been granted the privilege of entering into trusting and supportive relationships with students at a turning point in their lives. Their enrollment in college this summer will be a momentous achievement for them. But, in truth, it will be only one reward (of many) for the work we have done together this year.
These days, I feel lucky each time I sit down with high school seniors to work on a scholarship application or prepare for a college interview. I am excited to see where the work we do together now will take them in the future. Meanwhile, I think back to that ninth-grade group with their hands raised. Within six weeks, I'll have talked to the entire freshman class. And I wonder what it will take to keep those hands in the air.
Josh Lerner '07 wants you to
apply to be a college adviser
with the National College Advising Corps.
E-mail him at Joshua_Lerner@brown.edu
In my work with the National College Advising Corps, my goal is to increase college enrollment and awareness among students within Rhode Island's urban districts. In talking with students about college, it is not my goal to push a value system predominant to a white, upper-class circle (one, admittedly, that I grew up with), but to be involved in a process that grants students opportunities they might not otherwise have. For the truth is that college access remains strictly segregated by class. Students from the top income quartile are almost twice as likely to attain a bachelor's degree as those from the lowest income quartile. Accordingly, low-income students are more likely to attend two-year colleges, but this says little about their potential to graduate from such institutions. According to the Rhode Island Board of Governors for Higher Education, the graduation and transfer rates for low-income students of color at the Community College of Rhode Island are 4.4 percent and 17.5 percent, respectively. In other words, close to 80 percent of these students entering CCRI will not finish with any type of college degree.
For low-income students whose parents have not attended college, the barriers to attaining a college degree are numerous. With often busier work schedules, higher rates of mobility and differences in language, families are less likely to know how to navigate the complicated processes of college admissions and financial aid. Economic difficulties at home lead many students to give up on college dreams early on, accepting the idea that college is prohibitively expensive before they learn how they can benefit from systems of financial aid. And with less time surrounded by college-educated adults, students often go through high school never having developed an accurate understanding of what college is and what a degree can do for them.
At school, these obstacles persist. Recent results of the New England Common Assessment Program highlight the disparity in achievement between low-income and upper-income districts, showing that the majority of public school students in low-income Rhode Island districts are academically unprepared for college-level work. With increased pressure to teach basic concepts in order to improve scores on looming tests, administrators and teachers in urban districts often find little time to focus on the seemingly far-off goal of college access. Meanwhile, according to Dr. Nicole Farmer Hurd, director of the National College Advising Corps, the national average student-to-guidance counselor ratio in low-income districts is more than 400:1. When college counselors are overburdened by case-loads, one wonders how it is possible for those students who need the most assistance to receive any support at all on their path to college.
The end result of these barriers is that, even for those low-income students who are academically qualified to enroll in a four-year institution, college access remains a distant dream. In the 2007 report of Education and Economic Mobility, Ron Haskins of the Brookings Institution notes that "at every step in the process of preparing for, applying to, attending, and graduating from four-year universities, students from poor families are at a substantial disadvantage." Somewhere along the line in that process - from learning about college options and filling out applications to finding academic and financial resources upon enrollment - the system breaks down. Too many students and their families lose their way.
This year, college advisers with the College Advising Corps at Brown have assisted over 400 students and their families in navigating the college admissions process, from start to finish. This position has allowed us to work one-on-one with extraordinary teenagers and meet their parents in family workshops, to drive caravans of seniors to visit local colleges and organize successful after-school tutoring programs, to cheer our students on in basketball games and swim meets and be a guest of their religious communities in local churches. As college advisers, we have been granted the privilege of entering into trusting and supportive relationships with students at a turning point in their lives. Their enrollment in college this summer will be a momentous achievement for them. But, in truth, it will be only one reward (of many) for the work we have done together this year.
These days, I feel lucky each time I sit down with high school seniors to work on a scholarship application or prepare for a college interview. I am excited to see where the work we do together now will take them in the future. Meanwhile, I think back to that ninth-grade group with their hands raised. Within six weeks, I'll have talked to the entire freshman class. And I wonder what it will take to keep those hands in the air.
Josh Lerner '07 wants you to
apply to be a college adviser
with the National College Advising Corps.
E-mail him at Joshua_Lerner@brown.edu