Education Week - November 5, 2014 - 14

WAR ON POVERTY: Progress and Persistent Inequity
"I'M A SUCCESSFUL COUNSELOR IF I CAN BREAK A WELFARE CHAIN,
if I can make a student a tax-paying citizen and not a tax draw."
JOANNA ORR, high school guidance counselor in Johnson City, Tenn.
College-Access Programs
Face Growing Challenges
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 13
cally expanded since the Higher Education
Act launched the predecessor
of today's Pell Grants, the K-12 and
higher education systems continued
to operate almost entirely independently
of each other for generations.
Now, that's starting to change. As part
of the conditions of receiving federal
stimulus money after the 2008 economic
crisis, almost all states have
linked their longitudinal data systems
to be able to track students from preschool
through college. The more than
40 states (plus the District of Columbia)
that have received waivers from
some provisions of the No Child Left
Behind law must report the number
and percentage of students who attend
higher education after high
school. And the office for civil rights
at the U.S. Department of Education
now collects data on and investigates
so-called "resource inequities," including
gaps in poor or minority students'
participation in Advanced Placement
and dual-credit courses and collegeplanning
and mentoring programs.
Maryland and Hawaii now even
count college-going rates as an additional
measure of school success
for federal and state accountability
purposes, and Nevada likewise holds
schools accountable for whether their
students must take remedial classes
once they get to higher education.
Tennessee doesn't have that kind
of accountability, but its Tennessee
Promise initiative has focused high
school educators with a guarantee
that all high school graduates beginning
with the class of 2015 will receive
a senior-year college-application mentor
and two years of free community
college or technical school.
"A decade ago you didn't even have
the data or infrastructure to do the
research [on best practices for college
bridge programs], and now we do have
it. I feel like we're right on the verge
with the right will and resources to
crack this problem," Ms. Constantine
said. "I think the accountability
on high schools will increase. That's
where there is more federal and state
leverage. ... But I do think for improving
persistence what is going to have
to happen is postsecondary institutions
themselves will need to become
HARD CLIMB: Scenic rolling hills dot the landscape throughout the northeastern
corner of Tennessee. A local high school guidance counselor says that, 50 years
past the start of the War on Poverty, college remains an elusive goal for many
students; only about a quarter of students apply to postsecondary schools.
COLLEGE-ACCESS PROGRAMS: WHERE THEY STAND NOW
ELIGIBILITY
UPWARD BOUND
The program, created under the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964,
provides grants to colleges, universities, and state or local community
groups to promote college-going among high school students from lowincome
families and those in which neither parent has a postsecondary
degree. Services differ from site to site, but generally students apply
in 9th or 10th grade and may receive additional tutoring; cultural
enrichment activities like museum visits; and guidance in the college
selection, application, and financial aid process. Students also can get
added instruction in literature, writing, mathematics, and science on
college campuses after school, on weekends, and in summer.
TALENT SEARCH
The program, part of the Higher Education Act of 1965, shares the
same basic goal of Upward Bound, but it also extends to the middle
school level and encourages partnerships among high schools, higher
education institutions, and community groups to identify students
in these earlier grades and ensure that they are on track for higher
education. The grants support generally less-intensive programs than
Upward Bound, but are still focused on academic tutoring and access
to challenging coursework, career-aptitude tests, college academic
and financial counseling, and campus visits.
All students in a particular project
must be ages 11 to 27 and two-thirds
must be low-income and potential
first-generation college students.
Family-income-eligibility guidelines
are essentially the same as those for
Upward Bound. Students must have
completed 5th grade.
As of fiscal 2013, Talent Search has just
under $128.1 million in grants for 452
awards, representing nearly 300,000
students. Its estimated fiscal 2014 funding
is slightly more than $135.5 million with
no new grants awarded. This is down from
about $270 million in total funding a decade
ago. The average cost per student is $428.
All students in a program must be
ages 13 to 19, either low-income or
potentially the first generation to go
to college; two-thirds of a program's
participants must be both low-income
and first generation. As of 2014, a
family of four making $35,775 per year
in the contiguous 48 states, $44,730
in Alaska, or $41,145 in Hawaii would
qualify. Students must have completed
8th grade.
As of fiscal 2013, Upward Bound has just
under $250 million in grants for 816 awards,
representing nearly 60,000 students.
Its estimated fiscal 2014 funding is
$266.7 million, with no new grants awarded.
This is down from about $270 million in total
funding a decade ago. The average cost per
student is $4,170.
more accountable."
Mr. Carnevale, however, argued
BUDGET
that holding colleges more accountable
for the percentage of students
who graduate and go on to get wellpaying
jobs is backfiring on low-income
and minority students: "If you
don't have higher grad rates, faster
graduation, and better jobs, you die
[as a college]. And the only way you
are going to do that on a declining
budget is to get better-and in this
case that means more affluent and
white-students."
Dividing Path
PELL GRANT (EVOLVED FROM EDUCATION OPPORTUNITY GRANT)
Another creation of the Higher Education Act of 1965, the
program provides needs-based grants to low-income students for
undergraduate- and some graduate-degree programs at about 5,400
colleges and universities. The grants can continue for 12 semesters.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education
14 | EDUCATION WEEK | November 5, 2014 | www.edweek.org
Student aid is determined through
analysis of student and family income
and assets, as well as college-going
costs, and whether the student attends
full- or part-time.
From July 1, 2014 to June 30, 2015, the
maximum grant is $5,730.
More than 80 percent of new white
college freshmen between 1995 and
2009 attended one of the 468 most
selective four-year universities, while
only 9 percent of black and 13 percent
of Hispanic new freshmen enrolled at
those schools. By contrast, the huge
growth in community colleges and
other two-year programs has been
driven by minority students: Roughly
seven out of 10 new black and Hispanic
college students attended openaccess
two- or four-year colleges from
1995 to 2009, while there was no
growth in white students at those
institutions.
But there's a catch: Mr. Carnevale
and others have found that community
colleges typically have fewer
resources and higher dropout rates
than more-selective schools. In fact,
top performers who scored 1200 or
better on the sat college-entrance
exam who attended open-access
two- or four-year colleges completed
their degrees a little more than half
the time-28 percentage points less
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Education Week - November 5, 2014

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