40 percent of four-year college students At community colleges, 60 percent afford to go to school full-time for sev-
persist to graduation. Those percentages of students work more than 20 hours a eral years”…. and suggests “the need for
haven’t changed much in years. week. More than a quarter work 35 or better-organized and more cost-effective
What has changed is the demographic more hours weekly. programs.”
profile of today’s postsecondary student Twenty-three percent of all college
cohort. Seventy-five percent of the stu- students have dependent children. Hopeful signs upstream
dents currently pursuing higher educa- It’s a whole new ballgame in the same There may be innovative hope at the K-12
tion bear little or no resemblance to “Joe old ballpark. Many American colleges level. For example, pick a point “upstream”
College,” the youthful university student and universities were designed for and are in the K-12 education system in which co-
portrayed in even today’s movies. In our administered precisely for “Joe College.” horts of students could be selected with
mind’s eye he is supported and guided From a macro viewpoint, higher educa- the characteristic that they have an eight
percent or less chance of attending college.
Then, work with them so effectively that
85 percent attend college and succeed.
r
EtEntion praCtitionEr
That’s a hallmark of Knowledge is Power,
a charter school program pioneered by
David Yaskin
Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin. Their
students sign a contract committing to do
whatever it takes to attend college.
Deborah Bial, founder of the Possee
Foundation and a MacArthur fellow, got
the idea for a successful college access and
retention ‘posse’ strategy when a student
told her, “I would have never dropped
out of college if I had my posse with
me.” Now Bial selects and forms posses
of 10 students. She snags scholarships
that send the posse of friends to schools
like Bowdoin, Pomona, Middlebury and
Rice. Ninety percent have graduated.
Neither program relies on loans. And
both make student employment unnec-
essary. A whole new college funding sce-
nario would be needed to go nationwide
with either prototype.
by family, K-12 counselors and teachers. tion institutions and affiliated support
He enrolls well-prepared for college im- mechanisms have not changed enough. dummy down or smarten up?
mediately after graduation from a quality The school year, for example, hasn’t The decades-long American push for
high school, seeking a bachelor’s degree, changed much in fifty years. Courses start expanded college access has been seen
attending full-time at a four-year college. and finish by the calendar, with little tol- as a societal obligation by many. But a
He lives in a dorm, and does not have to erance for work or family disruptions in growing number of detractors inside and
work part-time or full-time. the lives of today’s students. Grants and outside higher education question any
While not extinct, this student spe- scholarships, while helpful, don’t cover car campaign to significantly increase the
cies represents a shrinking proportion of repairs, health care, rent or groceries. And number of American college graduates.
today’s college students. Even the moniker they too follow the academic calendar. In his 2008 book, Four Simple Truths,
“Joe College” is a bad fit. Women and girls And the K-12 education system grad- Charles Murray argues that most young
substantially outnumber males in higher uates more and more students unpre- people are just not smart enough to go
education, a trend that is intensifying. pared to succeed at college-level work. to college “as we know it” and should be
The conclusion of a recent report encouraged to pursue vocational train-
College demographics worth noting published by the Gates Foundation, ing. Likewise, educator Jackson Toby de-
Among students in four-year schools, highlights “serious questions about long- plores admitting undergraduates who are
45 percent work more than 20 hours a standing policies that seem profoundly unqualified for college-level coursework
week. ill-suited to students who simply cannot and blames them for the dismal intel-
6 T
oday’s
C
ampus subscribe at no charge at www.todayscampus.com
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