Retention & First Generation College Students

For many students, the road to college is a familiar one. Many graduating high school students have heard their parents reminisce for years about their college days and provide advice about how to succeed. For most, college isn’t merely a privilege: it’s an expectation, a necessary step on their career path.

This is not, however, the reality for all students. Nationally, around 30% of all graduates are the first in their family to attend college. The vast majority of these students are low-income, and many face passive reactions or even opposition from their family when they decide to attend college. If the United States hopes to reach Obama’s goal of having the highest proportion of college graduates in the world, this population is especially important: only eleven percent of these graduates actually finish college within six years.

How should higher education institutions support and retain these students?Â As many first-generation students enter college without the support network that other students have, colleges and universities must work hard to create in-house networks for these students. The University of Cincinnati provides one excellent model: help students with study skills, time management, the college transition and – especially key – dealing with their families during this new and confusing time.

While some might argue that such efforts – special housing for first generation students, additional coursework, staff support – would be exceptionally expensive, I would argue that higher education institutions cannot afford to ignore these students and let them drop out. Consider the situation from a business perspective: if you knew that you would have a 27% customer attrition rate, wouldn’t you focus your resources and efforts at lowering this number? Of course, it makes sense to also consider this issue from a social perspective: what impact, what new achievements would be possible for the US if we helped these highly motivated, resilient and tenacious young students develop to their fullest potential?

Second Home for First-Gens

COMFORT ZONE The Gen-1 Theme House at the University of Cincinnati gives first-generation freshmen a place to settle in to college life.

By DANA JENNINGS

As thousands of low-income, first-generation freshmen flock to campus in the next two months, many, despite their intelligence and optimism, will arrive only to be gone in an academic eye blink. Just 11 percent of them earn a bachelorâ€™s degree after six years, according to the Pell Institute, compared with 55 percent of their peers.

That fact was frustrating administrators at the University of Cincinnati, where more than 40 percent of its 5,000 freshmen this fall will be the first in their families to go to college. In its mission to get low-income, first-generation students through its doors, the university was succeeding. But once in, many were failing.â€œThese students find themselves on campus, and overwhelmed quickly,â€ says Stephanie A. Cappel, the executive director of Partner for Achieving School Success, a center devoted to university-community partnerships and outreach programs.â€œThey donâ€™t even know what questions to ask.â€

Students Rap Their Way to Achievement, Global Awareness

Back in 2008, students at the Ron Clark Academy became overnight celebrities after their politically-themed rendition of T.I.’s “Whatever You Like” attracted milliions of views on YouTube.Â The students, who penned the song “You Can Vote However You Like” to emphasize that voters should choose a candidate based on their political opinions and not on their race, were famous for their singing, dancing and rhyming skills.

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What Do California’s Budget Cuts Mean for Higher Ed?

As California struggles to solve its budget crisis, the most recent proposal for higher education includes 20% funding cuts to two public universities and the state’s community colleges.Â While stimulus funds will likely ease the blow for the short run, this move raises major questions about state support for higher education moving forward.Â While touchstone, populous states like California and Florida struggle with budget concerns, staff cuts and funding reductions, the remainder of the country is keeping a close eye on what direction these states take.Â How will higher education institutions compete in an era of lean funding, dramatically declining major donations, and students who can no longer afford the same price tag for their postsecondary degree?

Consider another example: Texas, with its lean spending and budget surplus.Â Texas taken quite a different road: dramatically reducing spending on state education support.Â While Texas is lauded by many as an example of balanced funding during tough times, some are concerned that their minimal support for higher education will have profound reverberations on students and their future success.

According to an editorial by the Dallas Morning News,

“A globally competitive workforce requires workers who not only graduate high school but who have the kind of higher educational options that pack their brains with the high-tech knowledge that their parents and grandparents never envisioned. Texas’ demographics are changing, and pretending the low-tax, low-spend model will work forever would be as unwise as the opposite approach, which brought California to its knees. Texas also should leverage its current economic strength to recruit the best minds available to do and show how.”

With so many states located in the gray area of budget woes between California and Texas, it is critical to think beyond the bounds of the federal stimulus funds for education.Â Can we continue to cut funding for higher education and still achieve our goals of higher enrollment in post-secondary institutions and a more globally competitive workforce?

In California Budget Deal, Bad News for Colleges in 2010

By JOSH KELLER

California officials reached a budget agreement late Monday that in closing a $26-billion gap will cause immediate damage to the stateâ€™s colleges and universities, leading to restricted admissions, reduced salaries for faculty and staff members, and sharply higher tuition.But the full effect of this yearâ€™s budget cuts will not be felt until 2010, when federal stimulus money is expected to dwindle or disappear and the stateâ€™s public institutions will face their most difficult financial decisions in decades.

Under the budget plan announced last night, the state will cut its support for California State University and the University of California by about 20 percent in the 2009-10 fiscal year. Community colleges will also see a cut in state support of about 20 percent, the largest in its history. The State Legislature is expected to approve the plan later this week.

For now, federal stimulus money will partially mask those cuts. But when the stimulus money recedes, this yearâ€™s budget will lead to sharply lower levels of support than the stateâ€™s prominent public universities are used to, college officials said.

â€œWhat is saving us in the short run could be setting us up for big problems in subsequent years,â€ said Robert Turnage, assistant vice chancellor for budget at California State University.

More…

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Department of Education Stresses Job Skills

Today’s article discusses the link between education policy and the skills needed for a successful career.Â As Martha Kanter clearly knows, students are too often allowed to leave school without the necessary emotional, social and practical tools to be effective in the world of work.Â The sweeping movement towards educational standards in the United States must include skills and metrics that stretch far beyond test scores and graduation rates – and Kanter’s efforts to link labor and education are a step in the right direction.

Â In order to be successful, students need critical thinking skills, an awareness of their gifts and talents, the emotional intelligence to build up a network of supporters and the internal motivation and maturity to make a positive impact both in the classroom and in the workplace.Â LifeBound’s Critical and Creative Thinking for Teenagers helps students develop all of these skills through the lens of medicine, nature, entrepreneurship and other core subjects.Â Learn more here: http://lifebound.com/lifebound-books/critical_creative_thinking.html

Job Training Is Stressed at Education Dept., State Leaders Are Told

By SARA HEBEL
Santa Fe, N.M.

Martha J. Kanter, the U.S. under secretary of education, told state higher-education leaders gathered here on Wednesday for their annual meeting that she would make improving job training a priority.

She said she wanted to better align federal education and labor programs that often operate in isolation from one another even though they have complementary goals of preparing people for the work force.

â€œI really want to marry work and education in a more systematic way,â€ Ms. Kanter said. More than half of the nationâ€™s college students work while they are enrolled, she said, and federal policy does not do enough to make sure they can effectively balance work and study.

Ms. Kanter spoke to the State Higher Education Executive Officersâ€™ meeting on her 15th day in office. In those first few weeks, she said, she had already met three times with officials at the Department of Labor. Today she and Jane Oates, the Labor Departmentâ€™s assistant secretary for employment and training administration, will appear together before a Senate subcommittee on employment and work-force safety to discuss their priorities for revamping the Workforce Investment Act, which provides money for job training at community colleges and elsewhere.

As an example of the disconnect in the current system, Ms. Kanter cited a federal youth-employment program. She said money was distributed through local Workforce Investment Boards without any emphasis to program recipients that they should continue their education to improve their long-term job prospects.

State officials praised Ms. Kanterâ€™s remarks.

Jack R. Warner, executive director and chief executive of the South Dakota Board of Regents, told Ms. Kanter he was â€œvery pleased to hearâ€ that she planned to push for better coordination and alignment in job-training programs. â€œI really find a disjunction there,â€ Mr. Warner said. â€œHigher education needs to play a stronger roleâ€ in such training.

The question of how state and federal governments should help working students came up at a conference session about rethinking student aid. Sandy Baum, senior policy analyst for the College Board, said that one needed public-policy conversation was how to best allocate financial aid to adult students. The central question for many students is not how they are going to be able to pay tuition itselfâ€”the focus of much current student-aid policyâ€”but how they can afford to pay basic living expenses while classes and study are preventing them from working as many hours as they could, Ms. Baum said.

Global Competition

On the issue of global competition, Ms. Kanter reiterated the Obama administrationâ€™s goal of stepping up American performance so that the United States is atop the world by 2020 in the proportion of residents who hold a degree or certificate. She said her recent conversations at the 2009 World Conference on Higher Education, held by Unesco in Paris last week, had given her ideas for how the United States might improve and made her concerned about how the country could slip behind.

Canadaâ€™s experience, she said, showed that an emphasis on helping colleges, students, and others adopt best practicesâ€”rather than putting a focus on accountability aloneâ€”could foster rapid improvement in student success. Her talks with Chinese officials demonstrated how actively other countries were also seeking to move up, she said.

During a question-and-answer period following her speech, Ms. Kanter fielded a question about whether the federal government should make at least some education beyond high school available to everyone.

Ann E. Daley, executive director of the Washington Higher Education Coordinating Board, asked whether the Obama administration had considered a new financing model for higher education, in which the concept of the governmentâ€™s providing everyone with a public education through the 12th grade would be extended to at least a 13th year.

Ms. Kanter said the idea was â€œcertainly worth looking at,â€ although she did not know whether it was something administration officials were specifically considering.

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Democratic Group’s Proposal: Give Every Student a Kindle

CAROL’S SUMMARY
An influential group of democrats is calling for every college student in the United States to learn from a Kindle. Certainly, costs could be saved in textbook outlays, but a key question remains about the way this technology might need to evolve to be effective for all kinds of learnersâ€”not just the verbal-linguistic, reading-inclined student. Here are some things to consider:

1) If students learn from an electronic device than a physical book, how would their study methods need to change and what might that technology need to do to enable student motivation and successful study habits?

2) How much would in-class learning need to change to engage students by providing a more rich learning experience based on human interaction?

3) What provision would need to be made for students who still want a tactile book? What would a transition over time look like where eventually these tools are used in high school?

4) How can learning experts and producers of Kindle-type devices come together for the best, student-centered outcomes?

5) How much will companies listen to students â€“all kindsâ€”as they develop these devices?

6) How will teaching change in the digital world where providing an â€œexperienceâ€ simulated and in person will be at the heart of learning?

7) What do we imagine effective learning to look like a decade from nowâ€”through self-paced methods and in-class experiencesâ€”and what measurements will we use to gauge progress? How will we se this technology to help the rising tide of developmental students in our country?

ARTICLE
New York Times
by Brad Stone
Some influential members of the Democratic Party want to give electronic reading devices to every student in the country. Amazon.com should like the name of their proposal: â€œA Kindle in Every Backpack: A Proposal for eTextbooks in American Schools,â€ by the Democratic Leadership Council, a left-leaning think tank, was published on the groupâ€™s Web site Tuesday.

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Aligning Jobs and Training

CAROL’S SUMMARY
According to Obamaâ€™s Council of Economic Advisors, jobs requiring an associateâ€™s degree or skills certificate are slated to grow slightly faster than those requiring a 4 year degree. Billions of dollars are proposed to buttress these programs through the nationâ€™s community colleges. Washington stateâ€™s model is of Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training is one of the best examples of curricula which match employerâ€™s demands. According to Christina Romer, Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors, â€œWe need to design our curricula with skills employers really need and want.â€

Americaâ€™s community colleges can do more to help students capitalize on the high growth jobs of the future, but they canâ€™t do this in their own silos. Effective outreach to surrounding high schools, â€œmiddle collegeâ€ programs which enroll juniors and seniors in high school in community college classes, and a strategic mission for success K-college is needed by teacher, professors, administrators, business and community leaders. The job market for 2008 looks very similar to the market forecast in 2016: flat in government, retail and finance and booming in health care, education and â€œgreen jobsâ€.

Now that the community colleges look like they will be fully funded for this mission, what can the high schools do to get more students prepared to hit the ground running with college level skills before they enroll in a trade school, a community college or a four-year institution? How can we raise the bar early and often to reverse the tidal wave of developmental learning and replace it with driven, purposeful and committed students who embrace challenge and their ability to contribute in school, at work, at home, in the community and in the world as a whole?

ARTICLEÂ

Inside Higher Ed

Jobs requiring only an associate degree or skills certificate are projected to grow slightly faster than those requiring at least a bachelorâ€™s degree in the coming decade, according to a new report from President Obamaâ€™s Council of Economic Advisors.

The report comes on the eve of a massive federal plan President Obama is about to unveil to help America’s community colleges. An early draft included billions for job training, low-interest loans for building projects and other funding streams to create free online courses.Â

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New Funding for Community Colleges: A Vital Resource for the American Workforce

On Tuesday, President Obama is expected to make a major announcement regarding federal support for community colleges.Â With up to $9 billion in federal support for community colleges rumored, Obamaâ€™s announcement serves as a recognition of the vital importance of theseâ€21^st century job-training centersâ€ that have the capacity to create the flexible American work force needed to compete in todayâ€™s global economy.Â This announcement comes at a period of critical mass for community colleges: many of these institutions are bursting at the seams due to increased demand for job retraining for the unemployed and because of students seeking a new option for affordable higher education.Â

This new support for community colleges will serve a wide array of populations.Â First, community colleges are a critical remedial option for underprepared college students, allowing them to gain the skills and abilities necessary to thrive in a traditional four-year institution.Â As noted in the article, the increased funding (including financial aid support) will be of great help to college students unable to afford the ever-increasing price tag of 4 year institutions, especially in an economy where personal savings have dwindled and many sources of financial aid have dried up.Â Â Â Another population that will be well-served by this proposal is foreign students.Â As more and more international students opt for community colleges as an affordable option to attain a higher education in the United States, the funding Obama will propose will help to create the capacity and space needed to educate this influx of students.

This funding for community colleges also has another beneficiary: both unemployed and working adults.Â Community colleges serve as a crucial resource for laid-off employees who need retraining due to changes such as the failure of their company or the exporting of their jobs overseas.Â Employed adults also would be wise to take advantage of this educational resource to keep their skills current and relevant in todayâ€™s rapidly evolving world of work.Â Finally, community colleges provide a launching pad for students over 50 wishing to reinvent themselves for the 20+ years remaining in their working life.

One final effort briefly mentioned in the Chronicle article involves the development of free, federally-sponsored online courses available through the community college network.Â These classes will enable students to step into the digital age and refresh their skills from home â€“ but they arenâ€™t a guaranteed boost to skills.Â Without the self-discipline, motivation and willingness to adapt to new technologies needed for students to succeed in an online platform, these courses will be much less effective.

In the end, Obamaâ€™s announcement comes as a challenge to the American student population and workforce: take advantage of the learning opportunities that surround you so that America can continue to provide the agile, skilled and enterprising working population that has made our country so great.

ARTICLE:

Obama Expected To Announce Major Proposal to Support Community Colleges

by Marc Parry

President Obama called for fresh financial support for Americaâ€™s community colleges on Sunday as two-year institutions anticipate the rollout of what could be a multibillion-dollar new proposal for an education sector that is straining to accommodate a surge in students amid the recession.

Writing in The Washington Post, Mr. Obama cast community colleges in a lead role as the country rebuilds its economy from the â€œwreckageâ€ of financial collapse. His call for reforming Americaâ€™s network of community colleges comes as the president prepares to visit Michigan on Tuesday for a speech about two-year institutions.

â€œOur community colleges can serve as 21st-century job-training centers, working with local businesses to help workers learn the skills they need to fill the jobs of the future,â€ Mr. Obama wrote in an opinion piece published on Sunday. â€œWe can reallocate funding to help them modernize their facilities, increase the quality of online courses, and ultimately meet the goal of graduating five million more Americans from community colleges by 2020.â€

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Hot Academic Jobs of the Future: Try These Fields

Many changes are expected in academia over the next few years. Tenured positions of the past may be replaced with more adjunct and part-time faculty creating a need for more virtual learning, self-paced study and hybrid classes. Students will need to have strong skills in self-advocacy and personal accountability to make the most of this new learning environment. High schools will need to promote those skills beginning freshmen year.

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How Much Is Too Much for College?

CAROL’S SUMMARY
College expenses have sky-rocketed. Authors Thakor and Kedar believe that when you graduate from college and a get a job, 25% of your earning will go for taxes and 15% should go to down payments for a car and eventually, a home. When the costs of college are way out of proportion to earnings in the first ten years, debt can become unmanageable. There are many options right now for students:

1) Begin at a community college. The community college is one of the best educational values around. If you start at a community college, build your basic college level learning skills, figure out your interests and abilities then you can transfer to a strong four year school or an Ivy League school, often with plenty of financial aid.

2) Go in state. A great deal of money can be saved by going to school in state. With the money you save, you can study in Shanghai, Dubai or Paris for a semester. You can take internships in cities like Chicago, San Francisco or New York City. These experiences will stand you in good stead as you build your career skills in addition to your knowledge skills.

3) Sacrifice. People who do well over the arc of their careers often sacrifice today so that they can have more in the future. In the book, The Millionaire Next Door, the authors chronicle many people who became millionaires by driving really old cars, taking the bus and shopping at places like Target and Walmart. So, delay gratification, quit spending on things you donâ€™t need and ride the bus or take your bike to school.

4) Work. Even if your parents can afford to help you pay for college, insist that you pay for at least half of your education. Why? Because if you donâ€™t have a stake in what you are doing, you are likely to waste your time by being undirected and unfocused. If you are paying for college, chances are you will figure out who you are, what you want and where you want to go in your life. Recommended work hours for college is 12-15 per week with a fifteen unit course load.

5) Plan for a bright financial future. Survey your options. Set your goals. Ask yourself what kind of life you want to live in five years, ten years, twenty years? What will you need to do to create that life? Who will you need to be? What will you need to earn? How hard will you need to work? What changes do you need to make today to make that happen?

Finally, your commitment to your own success matters much more than how much money you have or donâ€™t have today or what your IQ is or isnâ€™t. If you believe in yourself and you are willing to get an education and work hard, the world will be your oyster in any kind of economic climate.

ARTICLE
New York Times
by Rebecca R. Ruiz
In a Huffington Post article, Manisha Thakor and Sharon Kedar, authors of â€œOn My Own Two Feet: A Modern Girlâ€™s Guide to Personal Finance,â€ pose the question, â€œHow High is Too High for the Cost of Higher Education?â€

For years the subliminal messaging most of us received was that â€˜no price tag is too high for a quality higher education.â€™ As we rethink virtually everything in this post-AIG, post-Madoff, post-housing bubble world, it may be time to ask if that graduation cap tassel is really worth the financial hassle.

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Study Examines How Students’ Financial Behavior Is Formed, and How It Affects Their Future

CAROL’S SUMMARY
In the article below from todayâ€™s Chronicle, researchers at the University of Arizona are exploring financial patterns in college and long term success in college, career and life. To do this, they are looking at studentsâ€™ spending patterns in high school and the role that parents and schools may or may not play in financial education.

Three things are clear: One, if students get exposure in high school or before to managing money, delaying gratification, controlling their spending influences and planning ahead, they are likely to apply the same strategies to other areas of their life like being smart about not having sex or using birth control or delaying the impulse to insult someone or incite an argument.

They are also are more likely to apply the same critical thinking skills they use for managing their finances to other areas of their lives like planning for college and career success, which requires a great degree of self-knowledge and discipline.

Two, if students are in a home where smart money decisions are modeled, including living within your means, saving and staying out of credit card debt, they are more likely to form those patterns as adults. If students see a pattern of debt and heavy spending with their parents, they are likely to adopt those same behaviors. So, schools would do well to help parents with financial literacy and college planning beginning when their students are freshmen in high school.

Three, some students will not have a model at home of anything positive to follow financially or otherwise. These students will need to rely on this material being part of their student success course in the freshmen year of high school and other stair-step success classes throughout their high school career. If students realize and master these skills early in life, it can mean the difference between living in the housing projects and living successfully in a Habitat Home. It can mean the difference between not being hired for a minimum wage job and starting in a minimum wage job, then moving up the ranks to manager with a company who will pay for your college. It can mean the difference between a workforce that can solve problems creatively and one that doesnâ€™t see problems in the first place. It can mean the difference between graduates and workers who have strong thinking and leadership skills and people who are waiting around wondering why opportunities donâ€™t approach them. Letâ€™s change that dynamic.

ARTICLE
by Beckie Supiano

For most traditional-age students, beginning college marks a new level of financial independence. Itâ€™s a time when key financial habits are formed, but relatively little is known about how that happens or what impact those habits have on a studentâ€™s future. A new longitudinal study aims to find out.

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