Home: Newsroom: Newsletter: KnowHow2Go Campaign

The campaign, KnowHow2Go, attempts to engage students through television and radio public service advertisements, Web and e-mail outreach, billboards, bus shelter displays, and magazine and newspaper ads. The Ad Council is producing and distributing the media campaign, which is cosponsored by Lumina Foundation for Education and the American Council on Education.

Informed by qualitative and quantitative research, the campaign aims to bridge the information gap that keeps students from achieving their high aspirations for attending college. The college-going rate among certain segments of the population—low-income students, ethnic minorities, families without a college-going tradition—continues to lag that of other groups. Statistically, a low-income student who is well-qualified to do college work is less likely to attend and graduate from an institution of higher education than is a less academically capable student from an affluent home.

"The campaign is critical now because America has slipped in comparison to other countries in the proportion of young people who are earning college degrees," said Martha D. Lamkin, president and CEO of Lumina Foundation. "Even more important, the attainment gap between income groups is widening at the same time that low-income students constitute a growing share of the college-age population. We must reach out to these low-income students, so they can earn better opportunities, and so that America will have the educated population to sustain its economic and social vitality. This campaign aims to let these students know the right steps they must take; it also provides caring adults with information they can use to help these students."

Contrary to popular perception, the lack of college success among certain demographic groups doesn’t reflect a lack of aspiration. Students from those groups understand the benefits of higher education, and campaign research shows that nine of every 10 low-income teenagers believe it is likely that they will earn a college degree.

"To expand access to higher education we must better prepare our students -- and all of us have a role to play, colleges and universities, school systems, community organizations, and government," said Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings.

For the most part, however, those students have no idea how to make college happen for themselves--nor do their parents. Families are hampered by a lack of accurate information, and few information sources that sort everything out. A main focus of the campaign is to reposition behavior related to college, from unattainable dream to action-oriented goal.

Many low-income students with historically low college-attainment rates view college admission as a magical process, a transformative act, and a testament to the power of incantation: Stay in school. Stay out of trouble. Get good grades. Presto, you’re in college! For too many students, however, the spell often conjures up disenchantment.  Most low-income students who aspire to earn a college degree, including those who do well in high school, never do.

In addition to the advertising blitz, the initiative is undertaking a ground campaign to mobilize grass-roots resources—community groups, youth organizations, and schools intent on reaching out to these students. The idea is to reach low-income, “first generation” students in grades eight through 10 via media messages, provide them with practical advice for starting down the path to college, and direct them to resources that can propel them toward their goals. The American Council on Education (ACE) is coordinating and mobilizing this network of resource organizations.

Ads point students to a Web site at www.KnowHow2Go.org. The messages can be customized, as well, to direct kids to local resources. In Massachusetts, for example, PSAs will promote a new state Web site, ReadySetGotoCollege.com. California ads promote KnowHow2GoCalifornia.org. Illinois, Indiana and Ohio are among the states with localized campaigns.

The campaign seeks to inspire students to take action by employing creative, teen-friendly messages and tools. The Web site and campaign poster use imagery not seen in most college-awareness campaigns, such as a student plucking money from a tree and a donkey with a stick pin in its backside. These images speak to two of the four primary steps that the campaign identifies as leading to college. Step one is to seek help and “be a pain in the behind.” The picture of the donkey reinforces this message.

In a television spot dubbed “Paper Airplane,” students launch loose-leaf gliders from school buses, rooftops and schoolhouse windows. Adults on the ground open the planes to find a message from the students: Can You Help Me Go to College? The ad’s voice-over reminds viewers that “big dreams and good grades aren’t enough to get into college.”

“The PSAs talk directly to kids,” says David Cournoyer, Lumina program director. “There is a strong subtext that kids are first.”

The campaign also encourages students to push themselves, to find a college that is a good fit, and to pursue financial resources to pay for it. (Remember the money tree?)

More than most public service advertisements, extensive research informs the direction of the campaign. ACE and Lumina Foundation reviewed existing research on the attitudes toward college held by low-income students and their families. The groups also commissioned new research that directly influenced the campaign’s creative content, which was developed by Publicis New York, a global advertising agency that has worked on advertising campaigns for BMW, Coca Cola, Marriott and Whirlpool, among others.

The KnowHow2Go campaign will distribute the public service advertisements to 210 media markets in January, including materials in Spanish and English.

“Univision saw the work and loved it,” says Heidi Arthur, the Ad Council’s senior vice president of campaign management, referring to the nation’s largest Spanish-language television network.

Momentum is expected to build over several months, as the campaign gains currency. To date, the initiative has forged alliances with California, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Nebraska and Ohio, Cournoyer says.

Unlike public service campaigns that have encouraged people to buckle up their seat belts, donate blood and refrain from driving while intoxicated, trying to change complex attitudes and behaviors regarding educational access is much more challenging. Partners in the initiative will assess the campaign’s effectiveness in late summer or early fall.

“We’ll look at what is working and what is not and the Ad Council will do a ‘refresh’ of the campaign,” says Melanie Corrigan, ACE’s associate director of national initiatives. “We may stick with the message or we might shift to a more mentor- or adult-focused message.”

The campaign will formally run for at least two years, through 2008.

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KnowHow2Go focuses on action steps

Research into low-income families’ attitudes toward college strongly influenced the messages promoted in the Ad Council’s KnowHow2Go campaign.

A telephone survey conducted in January 2006 canvassed some 400 low-income teenagers, ages 13-18, who were enrolled in high school. Approximately 400 low-income parents and guardians of teenage students were surveyed, as well. Teenagers and their parents overwhelmingly indicated that the students were capable of succeeding in higher education.

The students themselves were particularly optimistic, with 91 percent responding that they are likely to receive a college degree. Older students, ages 15 to 17, were less optimistic than younger students, ages 13 to 14.

Parents’ confidence in their children accompanied their expectation that the students would take the lead in navigating the path to college. Approximately three-fourths of the low-income parents “strongly disagree” with the statement: “I don’t believe my child is college material.” But only one in five of the parents who were surveyed had “pushed their child to apply to or seriously consider college,” the survey found. Nearly three in every five parents said that decisions about college are the responsibility of students.

In March, a series of in-home “ethnographic” interviews were conducted to provide qualitative data about the attitudes of low-income families toward college. Researchers concluded that parents and students in these families live in a “bubble” that limits access to credible information.

To the extent that these families talk about college, discussions tend to focus on “the dream” of higher education rather than the actions that are necessary to achieve the dream. Knowledge of financial aid and the college application process was low, an informational vacuum that often is filled by misconceptions.

“Overall, the journey to get to college appeared to be more mysterious and difficult than the perceived experience of college itself,” according to the study’s findings. “A roadmap is clearly needed.”