Building Bridges

1. Building Bridges College-Community Partnerships to Foster Student Success

2. Background • PreCollege Enrichment Program • Urban School District-University Partnership • Population: Students in grades 9-12 with post-secondary aspirations who would be first in family to attend college • Curriculum: Literacy & quantitative reasoning experiential educational programming + early college awareness • Supplemental instruction: Tutoring, SAT prep, school year. Academic enrichment/employment, summer.

3. Background • PreCollege Enrichment Program, cont’d. • Staffing: Undergraduate mentors and MAT candidates • Training: Clinical faculty in education, counselors, teachers • College planning collaboration: Guidance counselors, admission counselors, financial aid counselors

4. Restructuring for Urban Student Success (RUSS) • Partnership of three urban public universities • Focus: identifying solutions to address structural issues that impede student success in the first year of college • Learning communities as a structure that supports close faculty/student interaction, curricular integration and a setting to deliver services to students in a coordinated fashion • Students as workers or workers as students – how students identify-transition to student i.d. as key to success in the FY • Today’s college going population non-traditional age “new majority” students

5. Background • Proliferation of initiatives that focus on student success/college awareness • National intermediary organizations, identifying talented students and providing early intro to FA • Longstanding college partnerships w/ federal support – e.g., Upward Bound • Locally funded (foundation/privately) - CBOs • Small school movement & charter high schools

6. Challenge • Emphasis on early college awareness tends not to include early conversations about how students pay for college. • Mentoring programs –focus on college admission requirements– standardized tests • Counselors – focus on price / helping students to meet deadlines and to complete FAFSA (January). • Small and larger schools – challenge to deliver information early enough to influence decisions

7. Consequences • Students with fewer educational resources are • getting into the process later • making application decisions without complete info • Completing process later (SAT2s, Profile) • Once admitted and aided, not sure what to ask, how to prepare or what to expect – need coaching! First semester circumstances cause them to feel off balance, unprepared, and out of place…

8. Addressing Aid Early On • Early awareness w/ students • Cost out pathways to and through college • Discussion of factors that can enhance aid • Outside scholarships and loan forgiveness programs • Explanation of direct and indirect costs (true cost of attendance) • Embed into curriculum for effective delivery • Community College to Four-year Public • Four-year Pubic • Four-year Private

9. Early Awareness w/ Parents • Terminology - demystify • College pathways - orientation • Partnership - shared responsibility / family decision • Items to address in a straight forward manner with examples • Borrowing for college/loan obligation concerns • Disclosing personal financial info (FAFSA) • Non-custodial parent information

10. Early Awareness w/ Counselors/Coordinators • Support delivery of ‘college financing’ curriculum for students • Share information about packaging policies at schools to ensure that students have “diversified” lists of colleges (avoid having one case generalized to whole) • Reinforce message not only about meeting deadlines but about preparing and sharing information to support completion of process, etc. • Organize case studies to familiarize counselors w/ areas where professionals exercise judgment and where families may need to share or ask for info.

11. Conclusions • Empower with information (pre/post) • Build trust (holistic approach) • Work to address wait and see tendency • Communicate (emphasis on clarity, presentation of options/choices, and areas where students can to take control)

12. Questions? • Heather Woodcock Ayres hayres@wellesley.edu