Endnotes - Page 2
National Center for Education Statistics (2003). Digest of Education Statistics, 2002 (PDF). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education. Nationally, in-state tuition and fees at community colleges averaged less than $1,400 annually in 2001-02, compared to more than $3,700 at public four-year institutions and more than $16,000 at private four-year colleges and universities [Table 313].
Samuel Kipp III, Derek Price and Jill Wohlford (2002). Unequal Opportunity: Disparities in College Access Among the 50 States (PDF). Indianapolis: Lumina Foundation for Education. Community and technical colleges are consistently the most affordable postsecondary institutions. In most cases, low-income, dependent students do not need to borrow to attend community college; however, in nine states, more than half of community colleges are affordable for low-income, dependent students only through borrowing, and in 20 states, more than one-third of community colleges are affordable only if low-income, dependent students borrow. Community colleges are also the lowest priced postsecondary institutions for low-income, adult students, but in 38 states, more than half of community colleges are affordable for low-income, adult students only through borrowing.
Donald E. Heller (2001). "Trends in the Affordability of Public Colleges and Universities: The Contradiction of Increasing Prices and Increasing Enrollments." In The States and Public Higher Education Policy. Ed. Donald E. Heller. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. In 1971, students from families in the lowest income quintile needed 42 percent of their family income to pay for one year of a public four-year institution — by 1997, the poorest students needed 62 percent of their family income. The proportion of family income needed to pay for college increased for all but the most affluent students. In 1997, students from families in the second lowest income quintile needed 26 percent of their family income to pay for one year of a public four-year institution compared with 17 percent of family income needed for students in the middle quintile, 11 percent of family income needed from students from the second highest quintile, and less than 6 percent of family income needed for the wealthiest students.
College Entrance Examination Board (2000). Trends in College Pricing 2000. New York: Author. In 1972, middle-income families needed 27 percent of their income to pay for tuition and fees at a private four-year institution; by 1999, they needed 43 percent of their family income. This trend was worse for low-income families who needed 87 percent of their income in 1972 and 163 percent in 1999 to pay for one year of college at a private four-year institution.
The College Board (2002). Trends in Student Aid 2002 (PDF). New York: Author. In 1975-76, a maximum Pell Grant covered 84 percent of the costs of attendance at a public four-year institution (including tuition, fees, room, board, and books); in 2001-02, a maximum Pell Grant covered just 42 percent of the costs.
Edward P. St. John (2002). The Access Challenge: Rethinking the Causes of the New Inequality. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University, Indiana Education Policy Center, Report #2002-01. Adjusting for inflation, the net cost of enrolling in a public four-year institution, after the maximum Pell Grant, rose from $2,472 in 1980-81 to $5,034 in 2000-01.
The Institute for Higher Education Policy (1998). Do Grants Matter? Student Grant Aid and College Affordability (PDF). Washington, DC: Author. Between 1976 and 1996, net prices (the total price minus all financial aid awards) at public institutions of higher education increased by 28 percent for students from families with annual income below $40,000.
Joseph E. Stiglitz, Laura D. Tyson, Peter R. Orszag, and Jonathan M. Orszag. (November 2000). The Impact of Paying for College on Family Finances (PDF). Commissioned by Upromise, Inc. Presented to the National Conference of State Legislatures conference on "Funding Excellent Schools and Colleges for All Students," February 17, 2001. Between 1979 and 1999, after adjusting for inflation, tuition has risen 91 percent, while the average income of a family with at least one child has increased 17 percent. In 1978, for families with children who were at the 10th percentile of income, the cost of tuition at four-year colleges represented 27 percent of the family's income. By 1998, the cost of tuition represented 74 percent of a similar family's income.
National Center for Education Statistics (2002). Student Financing of Undergraduate Education: 1999-2000 (PDF). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education. After all types of financial aid and the expected family contribution were deducted, unmet need in 1999-2000 averaged $4,902 for dependent students with family incomes below $20,000; $4,710 for dependent students with family incomes between $20,000 and $40,000; and $4,597 for dependent students with family incomes between $40,000 and $60,000. The average remaining need in 1999-2000 for dependent students from families with income less than $20,000 was $3,765 at public two-year institutions, $4,203 at nondoctorate-granting public four-year colleges, $5,335 at doctorate-granting public four-year colleges, $6,024 at private nondoctorate-granting four-year colleges and $7,840 at doctorate-granting private four-year colleges. The figures for dependent students from families with incomes between $20,000 and $40,000 were $3,433 (public two-year), $3,452 and $4,904 (public 4-year), and $6,889 and $8,537 (private 4-year).
D. Bruce Johnstone (1998). "Financing Higher Education: Who Should Pay?" In American Higher Education in the Twenty-First Century. Eds. PG Altbach, RO Berdahl, and PJ Gumport. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Between 1979 and 1994, tuition, room and board as a percentage of family income increased from 15.1 percent to 26.2 percent for students in the 25th percentile of family income. For comparison, the percentage of family income needed to pay tuition, room and board at the median increased from 9.1 percent to 14.2 percent and from 6.3 percent to 9.1 percent for the 75th percentile. In other words, the cost of college for students in the top income quartile was proportionately lower in 1994 than the cost for students in the bottom income quartile in 1979.
Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance (2002). Empty Promises (PDF). Washington, DC: Author. The average annual work and loan burden facing low-income high school graduates is almost $6,400 at community colleges, more than $7,500 at public four-year colleges, and $11,450 at private four-year colleges. Unmet financial need for low-income students ranges from $3,200 at public two-year colleges to $3,800 at public four-year colleges and $6,200 at private four-year colleges.
Edward P. St. John et al. (2003). Expanding College Access: The Impact of State Finance Strategies (PDF). Indianapolis, IN: Lumina Foundation for Education. Need-based grants have a positive and substantial influence on college enrollments. Using data from 1992-2000, the authors estimate that each $1,000 increase in need-based financial aid increased statewide college enrollment rates 11.5 percent. In addition, the authors recommend a state-federal financial aid partnership that would set the maximum state need-based grant award at the tuition level of public colleges in the state — if this standard for state need-based grants was in effect during the 1990s in every state, an additional 1.2 million students would have enrolled in college during the decade.
Alberto F. Carbrera and Steven M. La Nasa (2000). "Understanding the College Choice of Disadvantaged Students." New Directions for Institutional Research 107 (Fall). Targeting grants to low-income students is likely to result in increased enrollments. For example, a $1,000 increase in grant aid increases enrollment rates for low-income students by 9 percentage points, while a similar increase in tuition would decrease enrollment rates by 3.4 percentage points. The same increase in grant aid has a 3-percentage-point positive effect for lower-middle and middle-income students.
Donald E. Heller (1997). "Student Price Response in Higher Education: An Update to Leslie and Brinkman." Journal of Higher Education 68(6). In general, grants have a stronger influence on college enrollment behavior than loans. African-American, Hispanic and low-income students are more price responsive than White and middle- and upper-income students. (Price responsive means that the students are less likely to enroll in college or are more likely to change the type of institution in which they enroll.)
Laura W. Perna and Marvin A. Titus (2004). "Understanding Differences in the Choice of College Attended: The Role of State Context." Review of Research in Higher Education 27(4). Increases in state need-based aid for traditional college-age students increases the likelihood of enrolling in an in-state four-year institution, public or private, though the effects are greater for private four-year institutions.
Martin Carnoy (1995). "Why Aren't More African Americans Going to College?" Journal of Blacks in Higher Education no. 6 (Winter). During the 1980s, there was a net decline in financial aid (after controlling for inflation) and fewer Blacks enrolled in college — this net decline in financial aid in conjunction with rising college prices affected Blacks more than Whites because a higher proportion of Blacks were from low-income families. Carnoy argues that "more high school graduates from poor minority families were competing for less financial aid in real terms," meaning the chance of receiving a grant went down by half during this period.
Donald E. Heller and Christopher J. Rasmussen (2002). "Merit Scholarships and College Access: Evidence from Florida and Michigan." In Who Should We Help? The Negative Social Consequences of Merit Scholarships. Eds Donald E. Heller and Patricia Marin. Cambridge: The Civil Rights Project, Harvard University. In 1998, the Florida Bright Futures scholarship rate was 42.5 percent for Asian/Pacific Islanders and 34.5 percent for Whites; in contrast, the scholarship rate for African-Americans was less than 9 percent and for Hispanics was about 18 percent. The Michigan Education Assessment Program scholarship rate was 52 percent for Asian/Pacific Islanders and 33.8 percent for Whites, compared with less than 8 percent for African-Americans and 24.6 percent for Hispanics. This inequity was also present among different income groups: Students who attended schools with the fewest students receiving free lunch had a 28 percent scholarship rate in Florida and a 46 percent scholarship rate in Michigan. In contrast, students who attended schools with the most students receiving free lunch have a scholarship rate of 11 percent in Florida and 16 percent in Michigan.
Melissa Binder and Phillip T. Ganderton, with Kristin Hutchens (2002). "Incentive Effects of New Mexico's Merit-Based State Scholarship Program: Who Responds and How?" In Who Should We Help? The Negative Social Consequences of Merit Scholarships. Eds Donald E. Heller and Patricia Marin. Cambridge: The Civil Rights Project, Harvard University. The New Mexico scholarhip program appears to have directed students to in-state colleges rather than out-of-state colleges and into four-year institutions rather than two-year colleges. Within the University of New Mexico (UNM) system, however, the largest enrollment response was among non-Hispanic White students from families with incomes greater than $40,000. In addition, considerable reductions in second-semester scholarship recipients suggest that many students could not maintain the minimum 2.5 GPA or otherwise dropped out after one semester. The authors suggest that the New Mexico scholarship program resulted in a freshmen class at UNM that was both wealthier and less academically prepared than before the program was implemented.
Christopher Cornwell and David B. Mustard (2002). "Race and the Effects of Georgia's HOPE Scholarship." In Who Should We Help? The Negative Social Consequences of Merit Scholarships. Eds Donald E. Heller and Patricia Marin. Cambridge: The Civil Rights Project, Harvard University. The evidence from Georgia HOPE indicate the scholarship does keep high-ability students, both Black and White, in-state rather than going out-of state for college; however, the increase in enrollment for Blacks has been at the less selective Georgia colleges, especially its HBCUs. At the University of Georgia and Georgia Tech, Black enrollment has declined since HOPE. Thus, the Georgia HOPE Scholarship is exacerbating the racial stratification of Georgia colleges and universities, which may negatively affect the wage premium for Black Georgians who now attend college in-state rather than out-of-state at more prestigious colleges and universities.
Donald E. Heller and T. F. Nelson Laird (1999). "Institutional Need-Based and Non-Need Grants: Trends and Differences Among College and University Sectors." Journal of Student Financial Aid 29(3). Between 1989 and 1996, the number of merit-based awards at four-year institutions decreased by 19 percent and 12 percent for low- and middle-income students, respectively. But the number of awards increased by 16 percent for high-income students. During this period, the size of merit-based grants increased by 117 percent.
Derek V. Price (2001). "Merit Aid and Inequality: Evidence from Baccalaureate & Beyond." Journal of Student Financial Aid 31(2). Among a nationally representative sample of 1992-93 college graduates, merit aid was primarily awarded to middle- and upper-income White students. African-Americans and Hispanics were less likely to receive merit-based financial aid.
T. R. Wolanin (2001). Rhetoric and Reality: Effects and Consequences of the HOPE Scholarship (PDF). Washington, DC: The Institute for Higher Education Policy. Very few low-income families receive any amount of HOPE Scholarship tax credit, which means that the federal HOPE tax credit does not improve college participation rates for poor students. The vast majority of low-income families fail to qualify for the HOPE Scholarship because eligible families must have a tax liability. In addition, the amount of HOPE Scholarship is reduced by governmental and institutional grants and scholarships and expenses such as room, board, books, and transportation are not included with tuition and fees expenses.
Barbara M. Jennings and Michael A. Olivas (March 2000). Prepaying & Savings for College: Opportunities and Issues. New York: The College Board, Policy Perspectives #3. Given that only the most affluent families have potential disposable income to invest in state pre-paid tuition plans, it is very likely that only wealthy and upper-middle class families will profit from such programs. Early data from Michigan indicated that 61 percent of the Michigan Education Trust's monthly payment option contracts were purchased by the richest two-fifths of the state's population; similarly, only 16 percent of investors in the Texas Tomorrow Fund reported incomes below $50,000.
Roberto M. Ifill and Michael S. McPherson (July 2004). When Saving Means Losing: Weighing the Benefits of College-savings Plans (PDF). Indianapolis: Lumina Foundation for Education, New Agenda Series 5(2). Families with incomes well below $80,000 are unlikely to benefit from 529 college-savings plans.
The College Board 2001. Trends in Student Aid (PDF). New York: Author. In 2000-01, federal programs provided $51 billion of the $74 billion in total available financial aid. Of the $51 billion in federal financial aid, $37 billion was in the form of student loans administered through the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP) or Ford Direct Loan Program. Since 1980, federal student loans have grown 516 percent compared with 232 percent growth in the Pell Grant program. During the 1990s, Pell Grants grew 23 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars, compared with 58 percent growth in FFELP and 425 percent growth in direct loans (tracked since 1994-95).
Derek V. Price (2004). Borrowing Inequality: Race, Class and Student Loans. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Between the 1992 and 2002, the Federal Family Education Loan Program and Ford Direct Loan Program more than doubled from $14 billion annually to more than $36 billion annually; in contrast, the largest federal grant aid programs (Pell Grant and Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant) grew by only 31 percent.
Patrick M.Callan (2001). "Reframing Access and Opportunity: Problematic State and federal Higher Education Policy in the 1990s." In The States and Public Higher Education Policy. Ed. Donald E. Heller. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Between 1987 and 1997, loan financial aid from all sources increased 106 percent in constant dollars, compared with a 57 percent increase in grants from all sources and a 19 percent increase in the Pell Grant.
Lumina Foundation for Education (August 2002). "Higher Education, Increasingly Important for All Americans, is Unaffordable for Many" (PDF). Illuminations. Indianapolis, IN: Author. Between 1991 and 1995, student loans paid for 95 percent of the increased charges to students at four-year public colleges. In the following four years, loans covered 62 percent of these increases.
Jerry S. Davis (1997). College Affordability: A Closer Look at the Crisis. Reston, VA: The Sallie Mae Education Institute. During the first half of the 1990s, loans represented nearly 97 percent of federal aid growth.
Karen Akerhielm et al. (1998). Factors Related to College Enrollment, Final Report. Washington, DC: Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance. Parents who are averse to debt, especially those from lower income backgrounds, have children who are less likely to attend college.
ECMC Group Foundation (March 2003). Cultural Barriers to Incurring Debt: An Exploration of Borrowing and Impact on Access to Postsecondary Education (PDF). Santa Fe, NM: Author. Using mortgage debt as an indicator of a family's willingness to assume debt, the researchers (Caliber Associates) find that differences in mortgage debt correlate to disparities in the willingness to finance higher education through borrowing. A prospective student from a family with a mortgage is more comfortable taking on educational debt, while a student from a family that rents housing may restrict their educational choices to postsecondary institutions that do not require borrowing.
Robert M. Hauser (1992). "The Decline in College Entry Among African-Americans: Findings in Search of an Explanation." In Prejudice, Politics and Race in America Today. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. African-Americans are less likely to borrow for college because the returns on a college education are lower for Blacks than Whites and because the debt levels required in many cases exceed their annual family income.
Donald E. Heller (2002). "State Merit Scholarship Programs: An Introduction." In Who Should We Help? The Negative Social Consequences of Merit Scholarships. Eds Donald E. Heller and Patricia Marin. Cambridge: The Civil Rights Project, Harvard University. Between 1991 and 2001, spending by the states on need-based scholarships for undergraduates increased by 7.7 percent annually, while spending on merit programs increased at an 18.3 percent annual rate.
National Association of State Student Grant and Aid Programs (2003). 33rd Annual Survey of Report on State-Sponsored Student Financial Aid, 2001-02 Academic Year (PDF). Prepared by K. DeSalvatore, L. Hughes and E. Gee. New York: New York State Higher Education Services Corporation. Twenty-six percent of all state aid dollars are funneled through non-need-based state grant program.
Donald E. Heller (2002). State Aid and Student Access: The Changing Picture. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers and the American Council on Education. In the 16 years since the National Association of State Scholarships and Grant Programs began to track merit programs separately, funding for such programs increased 336 percent in real dollars, compared with an 88 percent increase in need-based grant programs.
M. P. McKeown-Moak (1999). Financing Higher Education: An Annual Report from the States (PDF). Tallahasee, FL: State Higher Education Executive Officers Association. In the 1998 legislative session, 12 states implemented merit-based scholarship programs as a new form of state financial aid.
Jerry S. Davis (2003). Unintended Consequences of Tuition Discounting (PDF). Indianapolis, IN: Lumina Foundation for Education. At private four-year colleges, between 1995 and 1999 the average institutional grant award for students from families with incomes greater than $100,000 increased 145 percent, compared with a 17 percent increase for students from families with income less than $20,000; although the total dollars are significantly lower, this trend was also present at public four-year colleges — average institutional grant awards for the wealthiest students increased 159 percent compared with a 1 percent increase for the poorest students.
Y. Mulugetta (1999). Possible Long-Term Effects of Awarding Merit Aid. Paper presented at the Annual Forum of the Association of Institutional Research, Seattle, WA, June 1, 1999. The average merit award to college freshmen increased by 81 percent between 1989 and 1996, compared with a 28.6 percent increase in the average need-based grant.
Catherine Millet (2003). "How Undergraduate Loan Debt Affects Application and Enrollment in Graduate or Professional School." Journal of Higher Education 74(4). Undergraduate debt was a significant predictor of application to graduate or professional school. Students with debts ranging from $10,000 to $15,000 were 40 percent less likely to apply than students without undergraduate debt, and students with debts of $5,000 to $10,000 were 60 percent less likely to apply.
Michael Paulsen and Edward P. St.John (2002). "Social Class and College Costs: Examining the Financial Nexus Between College Choice and Persistence." Journal of Higher Education 73(2). A $1,000 increase in tuition reduces the probability of persisting college by 16 percent for poor students, 19 percent for working class students, 9 percent for middle-income students, and 3 percent for the wealthiest students.
Sandy Baum and Marie O'Malley (2003). College on Credit: How Borrowers Perceive their Education Debt: Results of the 2002 National Student Loan Survey (PDF). Braintree, MA: Nellie Mae Corporation. Over 85 percent of student loan recipients are enrolled at four-year institutions. Of those students who took out loans, 42 percent said student loan debt influenced their decision not to enroll in a graduate degree program and 17 percent said loans had a significant impact on career plans.
James Cofer and Patricia Somers (2000). "A Comparison of the Influence of Debtload on the Persistence of Students at Public and Private Colleges." Journal of Student Financial Aid 30(2). Medium and high debt levels reduce the probability of persistence between 4 percent and 7 percent for students at private colleges. Tuition levels and grant amounts exert more influence on persistence at public colleges than debt levels.
Sandy Baum and Diane Saunders (1998). Life After Debt: Results of the National Student Loan Survey (PDF). Braintree, MA: Nellie Mae Corporation. In 1997, 70 percent of Black, Hispanic and Asian/Pacific Islander borrowers who did not complete a degree reported that loans prevented them from staying in school. African-Americans with the greatest levels of debt burden disproportionately report that student loan debt changed their career plans or prevented them from attending graduate school.
United States General Accounting Office (1997). Challenges in Promoting Access and Excellence in Education (PDF). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, GAO/T-HEHS-97-99. An additional $1,000 grant reduces a first-year, low-income student's probability of dropping out by 23 percent.
Therese L. Baker and William Velez (1996). "Access to and Opportunity in Postsecondary Education in the United States: A Review." Sociology of Education 69 (Extra Issue). The authors report that grants and work-study financial aid awards are beneficial to persistence, but that loans are not. They also report "means-tested student aid is effective in compensating for the disadvantage of low-income, so that low-income students who receive it are as likely to persist in college as are more affluent students."
Brian Bosworth and Victoria Choitz (2002). Held Back: How Student Aid Programs Fail Working Adults (PDF). Boston, MA: Futureworks Corporation. Federal Direct Loans and Federal Family Education Loans are not available to students taking courses less than half time, and adult students make up a significant proportion of less-than-half-time students. Less than one-half of all less-than-half-time students receive Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants, and less than 1 percent of Pell Grant recipients were less-than-half-time students. Most state financial aid programs present similar barriers for adult students.
Samuel Kipp III, Derek Price and Jill Wohlford (2002). Unequal Opportunity: Disparities in College Access Among the 50 States (PDF). Indianapolis, IN: Lumina Foundation for Education. Low-income adult students have financial access to less than one-third of public four-year institutions and less than 5 percent of private four-year institutions. Median-income adult learners have financial access to 52 percent of public four-year institutions and 8 percent of private four-year institutions. Only public community colleges provide significant financial access for adult students (93 percent for median-income and 68 percent for low-income), and these require adult students to borrow.
Natala Hart, Director of Student Financial Aid, The Ohio State University (2002). Commented at Lumina Foundation for Education Academic Advisory Council Meeting and reaffirmed on. Federal and institutional needs analysis is based on the dependent student model and does not account for the unique family situations of many adult students. Further, the income thresholds for Pell Grant eligibility are significantly lower for an adult student, which reduces their eligibility for federal grant aid.
Council for Adult and Experiential Learning (2000). Serving Adult Learners in Higher Education: Principles of Effectiveness: An Executive Summary (PDF). Chicago: Author. Equity and financial flexibility are necessary to make college affordable for adult learners. Some exemplary practices toward this end include deferred payment options, financial aid availability for part-time students and incremental charging throughout the course of a program with equitable refund policies.
Sandy Baum and Marie O'Malley (2003). College on Credit: How Borrowers Perceive their Education Debt: Results of the 2002 National Student Loan Survey (PDF). Braintree, MA: Nellie Mae Corporation. The average undergraduate debt, for those who have taken out student loans, is $18,900. Nearly one out of five student loan recipients have educational debt burden greater than 17 percent. Students from low-income backgrounds and students of color report a greater feeling of debt burden, compared to their more affluent and White classmates.
Derek V. Price (2004). "Educational Debt Burden Among Student Borrowers: An Analysis of the Baccalaureate & Beyond Panel, 1997 Follow-Up" Research in Higher Education 45 (7). According to the U.S. Department of Education and student loan policy analysts, the rule of thumb for student borrowers is that educational debt burden should not exceed 8 percent. Among a national sample of 1992-93 baccalaureate degree recipients who borrowed for college, Black students were 1.5 times more likely than White students to have excessive educational debt burden (> 8%) four years after receiving the baccalaureate degree; Hispanics were 1.8 times more likely to have excessive educational debt burden. A similar situation was present for low-income students, who were more than seven times as likely as affluent students to have excessive debt burden. In fact, all but the highest income students were more likely to have excessive educational debt burden four years after earning the bachelor's degree.
United States General Accounting Office (2003). Student Financial Aid: Monitoring Aid Greater Than Federally Defined Need Could Help Address Student Loan Indebtedness (PDF). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, GAO-03-508. About 22 percent of federal aid recipients received aid amounts above their federally defined financial need; however, these students were more likely to be White, from higher income homes, be dependents, and have higher grade point averages.
Donald E. Heller (June 2001). Debts and Decisions: Student Loans and Their Relationship to Graduate School and Career Choice (PDF). Indianapolis: Lumina Foundation for Education. Between 1994 and 1997, the average educational loan balances declined for students who did not enroll in graduate school. Yet the rate of declining balances was much slower for African-Americans and lower-income students. In 1997, African-Americans had 49 percent of their undergraduate loan balance outstanding, compared with 37 percent for Whites. Lower-income students had 46 percent of their undergraduate loan balance outstanding in 1997, compared with 31 percent and 25 percent for upper-middle- and upper-income college graduates.
Jacqueline E. King (1999). Money Matters: The Impact of Race/Ethnicity and Gender on How Students Pay for College (PDF). Washington, DC: American Council on Education. Almost eight out of 10 African-Americans who earn a bachelor's degree borrow, and the average amount borrowed is $13,000. The average loan debt for African-Americans who complete an associate degree program is $6,500. Among Hispanic students who graduate with a bachelor's degree, almost 70 percent have debt averaging $11,500. For comparison, fewer White bachelor's degree recipients borrowed while in college, but their average indebtedness is slightly higher ($12,300).
Sandy Baum and Diane Saunders (1998). Life After Debt: Results of the National Student Loan Survey (PDF). Braintree, MA: Nellie Mae Corporation. In 1997, lower-income students who received Pell Grants were more likely than other undergraduate borrowers to have debt exceeding $20,000.
HigherEdInfo.org (2002). National Center for Higher Education Management Systems. For every 100 ninth-graders, 67 graduate from high school on time, 38 enter college, 26 are still enrolled after their sophomore year, and 18 graduate with a bachelor's degree within six years.
Kevin Carey (May 2004). A Matter of Degrees: Improving Graduation Rates in Four-Year Colleges and Universities (PDF). Washington, DC: The Education Trust. Nearly one out of five four-year colleges in America graduate less than one-third of their first-time, full-time degree-seeking freshmen within six years. The rates for students of color is bleaker: 299 of 722 four-year colleges with minority enrollment greater than 5 percent have a six-year institutional graduation rate below 30 percent. At 164 of those colleges and universities, the graduation rate is less than 20 percent; and at 68 of those four-year institutions, the graduation rate is under 10 percent. The typical American four-year institution has a graduation rate gap between Whites and Blacks of more than 10 percent (in one quarter of four-year colleges and universities have graduation rate gaps of more than 20 percent); the typical graduation rate gap between Whites and Hispanics is more than 7 percent.
United States General Accounting Office (2003). College Completion: Additional Efforts Could Help Education with Its Completion Goals (PDF). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, GAO-03-568. The six-year bachelor degree attainment rate for Whites and Asian Americans is 55 percent and for African Americans is 38 percent. Attainment rates also differ by first-generation status. For students who have at least one college graduate parent (baccalaureate degree), the six-year graduation rate is 59 percent; for students without a college graduate parent, the rate drops to 43 percent.
The Interim Report of the President's Advisory Committee on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans (2002). The Road to a College Diploma: The Complex Reality of Raising Educational Achievement for Hispanics in the United States (PDF). Washington, DC. Educational attainment rates vary considerably among different Hispanic population groups: in 2000, 11 percent of Mexican-Americans 25 years and older had at least a bachelor's degree, compared with 6 percent of Mexican immigrants, 14 percent of Puerto Ricans, 18 percent of Cubans, and 18 percent of Central or South Americans. For comparison, almost 29 percent of non-Hispanic Whites had at least a bachelor's degree.
U.S. Census Bureau (2000). "Your Gateway to Census 2000." United States Census 2000. In 1974, about 4 percent of Hispanic women, 7 percent of Hispanic men, 6 percent of African-American men and 5 percent of African-American women had completed at least four years of college. The comparable rate for White women and men was 18 percent and 11 percent, respectively. By 2000, almost 31 percent of White men had completed at least four years of college, compared with 16 percent of African-American men and 11 percent of Hispanic men. Similarly, 26 percent of White women had completed at least four years of college in 2000, compared with 17 percent of African-American women and 11 percent of Hispanic women.
Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance (2001). Access Denied (PDF). Washington, DC: Author. Six percent of low-income students earn a baccalaureate degree compared with 40 percent of students from the highest socioeconomic quartile.
Tom Mortenson (1998). ). "Institutional Graduation Rates by Control, Academic Selectivity and Degree Level 1983 to 1998." Postsecondary Education Opportunity 73 (July). Between 1983 and 1998, five-year institutional graduation rates at public four-year colleges declined from 52 percent to 43 percent; at private four-year colleges, five-year graduation rates declined from 60 percent to 56 percent. Graduation rates in 1998 varied by college selectivity for both private and public colleges: highly selective (71 percent public, 80 percent private); selective (50 percent, 64 percent); traditional (39 percent, 53 percent); liberal (35 percent, 42 percent); open (31 percent, 41 percent).
Clifford Adelman (2004). Principal Indicators of Student Academic Histories in Postsecondary Education, 1972-2000. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Institution of Education Sciences. Of all students who began postsecondary education at community colleges and earned at least 10 credits, 36 percent in the high school class of 1992 transferred to a four-year college, compared with 27 percent in the class of 1982 and 28 percent in the class of 1972. Of this transfer population, the bachelor's degree attainment rate was 72 percent for the 11- and 12-year histories of the classes of 1972 and 1982, and 62 percent for the 8.5 year history of the class of 1992. In other words, students who begin at community colleges, earn at least 10 credits, and transfer to a four-year college are as successful as those students who begin at four-year colleges.
American Council on Education (2003). Student Success: Understanding Graduation and Persistence Rates (PDF). Washington, DC: Author. Among students who begin postsecondary education at a two-year institution and who work 1-15 hours per week, 24 percent earn an associate degree and 14 percent attain a bachelor's degree. If a student works 35 or more hours each week, the attainment rates dip to 8.2 percent and 3.3 percent, respectively.
Derek V. Price (2004) Defining the Gaps: Access and Success at America's Community Colleges. Keeping America's Promise. Denver, CO: Education Commission of the States. According to the U.S. Department of Education, characteristics that place students "at-risk" of not succeeding in college are: (1) delaying postsecondary enrollment; (2) being a high school dropout or GED recipient; (3) enrolling part time; (4) being financially independent; (5) having dependents other than spouse; (6) being a single parent; and (7) working full time while enrolled. More than 70 percent of students who first enrolled in community colleges had at least one risk factor and more than 50 percent had two or more risk factors. In contrast, 72 percent of students who first enrolled at public four-year institutions (and 80 percent who began at private four-year colleges) had no risk factors (data from National Center for Education Statistics).
Alisa Federico Cunningham, A. (2002). The Policy of Choice: Expanding Student Options in Higher Education. Washington, DC: The Institute for Higher Education Policy. In 1999-2000, 55 percent of dependent students from families with incomes below $30,000 and 65 percent of adult students with incomes below $20,000 were enrolled in community colleges as first-year undergraduates.
Tom Bailey (2002). A Study of Institutional Practices that Promote Minority Student Success in Community College Occupational Degree Programs: A Proposal to the Ford Foundation. New York: Community College Research Center. Nearly half (46 percent) of community college students are 25 years old or older, about one-third are 30 or older, and about half are first-generation college students. Sixty percent of Hispanic and 46 percent of Black postsecondary students are enrolled at community colleges.
National Center for Education Statistics (2003). Community College Student: Goals, Academic Preparation, and Outcomes (PDF). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education. The community college remains the institution of choice for students of color and for students from less affluent family backgrounds: 88 percent of the 206 public two-year and four-year colleges and universities that have 50 percent or more minority enrollment are community colleges. In other words, 45 percent of all community colleges have minority enrollments of at least 25 percent.
Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance (2002). Empty Promises. Washington DC: Author. Among students at two-year public institutions, 70 percent live at home and 80 percent work an average of 27 hours per week.
Brian Cook with Jacqueline King (2004). Low-Income Adults in Profile: Improving Lives Through Higher Education. Washington, DC: American Council on Education. Center for Policy Analysis. Low-income adults enter college with a mix of family and work responsibilities and personal and academic challenges that make it difficult for them to succeed without highly supportive institutional and public policies. In 1999-2000, 40 percent of undergraduates 25 years and older (2.5 million students) had incomes below $25,000. Forty-six percent of low-income adult students are non-White, and 57 percent of low-income Hispanic adult students cite a language other than English as their primary language. Findings from focus groups of low-income adults suggest several challenges: managing competing demands for work, education, family and a desire for a social life; finances; campus advising and counseling; and self esteem.
Rick Voorhees and Paul Lingenfelter (2003). Adult Learners and State Policy (PDF). Denver, CO: State Higher Education Executive Officers. To encourage increased adult participation in postsecondary education, states should support academic policies that 1) make remedial education widely available to adults; 2) help remedial providers work with businesses to meet adult literacy needs; 3) support the use of distance education, especially if postsecondary institutions are responding to specific training or worker education needs; 4) insure statewide articulation agreements are monitored and enforced; 5) streamline program approval on college campuses.
Susan Gooden and Lisa Matus-Grossman (July 2002). Opening Doors: Students' Perspectives on Juggling Work, Family and College (PDF). New York: MDRC. Focus groups of current, former and potential students at six community colleges identified stable child care; personal support from family members, peers, and college faculty and staff; and accommodating employers as leading factors influencing their ability to stay in college, complete their programs of study within expected time frames, or enroll in the first place. Expanding on-campus support services and introducing new course formats that offer modularized or short-term training options with more flexible schedules may lower these barriers and enable students to complete courses more quickly. With regard to community college institutional supports, focus group participants who were able to take advantage of academic and personal counseling and flexible on-campus child care valued these services. Other students, however, either were not able to use these services, unaware of the services, or unsure whether they would be eligible for them. In addition to expanding the availability of these supports, colleges may want to increase their outreach and marketing efforts. Students also reported difficulty accessing work-based safety net programs such as Food Stamps, Medicaid, Earned Income Credits, Section 8 housing vouchers, and child care subsidies. Because these programs can provide key supports for work and education, colleges could improve students' access to them by developing partnerships with public agencies and community-based organizations.
Susan Golonka and Lisa Matus-Grossman (May 2001). Opening Doors: Expanding Educational Opportunities for Low-Income Workers (PDF). New York: MDRC. Colleges should offer support services for adult learners during college orientation or recruitment sessions. On-campus activities should include entire families in order to overcome potential students' apprehensions. Colleges should provide academic support services for adults, including tutoring, training, learning disability assessment, and remedial programs that bridge academic and occupational offerings. Colleges should provide child care, housing, transportation and mentoring services during evenings and weekends, as well as on weekdays.
Betsy Brand (April 2003). Rigor and Relevance: A New Vision for Career and Technical Education (PDF). Washington, DC: American Youth Policy Forum. Career and technical programs at postsecondary institutions should focus on occupational and technical pathways. These programs should be geared toward degree or certificate attainment and should be linked directly with labor market and employer needs. The federal government should provide support services for needier students to help them complete these programs.
Council for Adult and Experiential Learning (March 2002). Policies and Initiatives of State Higher Education Boards That Encourage Working Adults to Pursue Postsecondary Degrees (PDF). Chicago: Author. States should actively encourage new types of institutions and collaborative partnerships across institutional systems. Some examples are regional campuses, community learning centers and virtual university delivery systems. States also should increase coordination of workforce development agencies with postsecondary education providers to enforce articulation and credit transfer agreements and better provide adult student support services — such as counseling about nontraditional training programs; adult basic education and literacy programs; on-campus, reduced fee childcare; basic computer training seminars; and English as a second language (ESL) classes.
James Rosenbaum (2003). Universal Higher Education: Challenges and Alternative Strategies for Serving the New College Student (PDF). Paper presented at the Ford Policy forum 2004 held during the Forum’s 2003 Aspen Symposium, August 2003. Interviews with 60 faculty members and 60 students at seven community colleges revealed several bureaucratic obstacles to student success: coping with class schedules and requirements, filling out enrollment forms, registering for classes, applying for financial aid, making choices to accumulate credits toward a degree, and fitting in work and family obligations. Students report having to search all over campus to get information about specific program requirements, learn which courses lead to their desired goals and meet requirements most quickly. Many students never learn of the state and federal financial aid options available, and those who did often learned from family or friends, not from college staff.
Dudely B. Woodard Jr., Sherry L. Mallory, and Anne M. De Luca (2001). "Retention and Institutional Effort: A Self-Study Framework." NASPA Journal 39(1). Promising practices for colleges and universities to increase student retention include: providing opportunities for students to practice good academic skills, encouraging students to engage in out-of-class interactions with faculty; promoting students' opportunities to work with other students; engaging students in active learning; building supportive and inclusive communities; and setting high expectations.
Community College Survey of Student Engagement (2003) Engaging Community Colleges: National Benchmarks of Quality (PDF). Austin, TX: University of Texas, Author. The Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE) defines five national benchmarks of effective educational practices: 1) active and collaborative learning; 2) student effort; 3) academic challenge; 4) student-faculty interaction; and 5) support for learners. Community colleges that administer CCSSE can compare their performance to that of similar institutions; compare their performance across the five benchmarks; identify areas in need of improvement and monitor the effects of institutional initiatives; and track progress toward identifiable institutional goals.
Randi S. Levitz, Lee Noel and Beth J. Richter (1999). "Strategic Moves for Retention Success." In Promising Practices in Recruitment, Remediation, and Retention. Ed. Gerald H. Gaither. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, New Directions for Higher Education 108. Based on 20 years' experience on more than 600 college campuses, there are seven characteristics of successful student retention programs: 1) institutional responsibility for creating a culture of student success; 2) intensive, one-on-one contact with students most likely to drop out; 3) academic advising that is part of the required freshmen success courses; 4) faculty and staff outreach to at-risk students; 5) quality staff who build relationships with students and are rewarded for creating and sustaining a student-centered environment; 6) faculty recognized for excellent teaching (ideally tenure and promotion should be based on teaching excellence, but until then "great teaching" awards with modest monetary incentives should be given to 10 percent to 20 percent of the teaching faculty); 7) Faculty and staff who focus on the affective as well as the cognitive needs of students.
John N. Gardner (2001). "Focusing on the First-Year Student" (PDF). AGB Priorities 17 (Fall). Washington, DC: Association of Governing Boards. Including families in orientation and residence life activities boosts the comfort level of new students. Academic and social advisors should be trained, evaluated and rewarded for their important work in helping students successfully transition to college. First-year seminars can serve as a primary agent of socialization and success if they involve outstanding faculty; last a full academic term or longer; involve a high percentage of first-year students; and are challenging, credit-bearing, degree-applicable courses. Service-learning in the first year encourages civic engagement by students and enhances their connection to the large university community.
Council for Opportunity in Education (2001). Directory of TRIO Programs, 2000-2001. Washington, DC: Author. Participants in Student Support Services (a TRIO Program) persist into the third year of college at a 22 percent higher rate than students with similar backgrounds who do not participate in the program.
Paul Thayer (2000). "Retaining First Generation and Low Income Students." The Opportunity Outlook Journal, May. Washington, DC: Council for Opportunity in Education. In a review of the literature, especially as it relates to TRIO programs, Thayer lays out the key issues campuses must address in intervention programs for "at-risk" students. These issues address social adjustment, academic adjustment, supportive social communities, and a sense of social security.
L. Muraskin, J. Lee, and W. S. Swail (December 2004). "Raising the Graduation Rates of Low-Income College Students" (December 2004). Washington, D.C.: Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education. After identifying and studying institutions with high graduation rates relative to their peers, the authors found that a variety of institutional programs and approaches appear to have positive affects on student retention. Examples include summer bridge programs prior to freshman year, freshman year experience programs, freshman interest groups, block rostering of students, learning communities, flexible academic scheduling and other academic support programs.
Heather Wathington (2004). In Search of the Beloved Community: Understanding Student Interaction Across Racial and Ethnic Communities. Unpublished Dissertation. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan. Colleges and universities that recruit and admit students of color inherit a "racial malaise" from the increasingly segregated American public education system. Postsecondary institutions need to both accommodate this situation (e.g., students — White, Black, Latino and Native American — are not prepared for the diversity on college campuses) and challenge it by expanding students' knowledge about diverse groups and their experiences. Colleges and universities can accomplish this by increasing their recruitment and enrollment of diverse students, encouraging intergroup dialogue through formal campus programs, structuring learning and living communities that mirror campus diversity, and incorporating multicultural courses into general education requirements.
Patrick Velasquez (1998). "Cultural Activities and Campus Involvement." National TRIO Clearinghouse. Washington, DC: Council for Opportunity in Education. This monograph lays out a framework for "cultural democracy" at postsecondary institutions. Student support services can provide cultural activities that facilitate biculturalism on campus. Biculturalism refers to the process wherein individuals learn to function in two distinct sociocultural environments: their primary culture and the culture of the dominant mainstream of society.
Joe R. Feagin, Hernan Vera and Nikitah Imani (1996). The Agony of Education: Black Students at White Colleges and Universities. New York: Routledge. This research is based on focus group interviews with 36 randomly selected Black juniors and seniors at a state university and with 41 Black parents in nearby metropolitan areas that send students to the university. The conflict faced by Blacks who, under the guise of "integration," are forced to adapt to White views, norms and practices to succeed at predominantly White colleges. A central theme of this process is "black invisibility:" White professors, students, staff members and administrators do not see and recognize African-American students as full human beings with distinctive talents, virtues, interests and problems. For example, Whites view and articulate discriminatory incidents on campus as isolated events perpetuated by "bad apples" rather than as "recurring and integral part of the experience of being Black in a White-dominated society." For Blacks, events are evaluated based on both their personal experience and their historical group experience.
Philip G. Altbach (1991). "The Racial Dilemma in American Higher Education." In The Racial Crisis in American Higher Education. Eds. Philip G. Altbach and Kofi Lomotey. Albany: State University of New York Press. Colleges and universities committed to serving minority students are not accomplishing this goal. Reasons for this situation are: 1) special educational programs and other minority-serving programs are expensive and colleges have been unable or unwilling to reallocate resources; 2) staff, especially teaching faculty, are generally unfamiliar with minority issues; and 3) racial tensions between White and Black students have led to less informal interaction among racial groups and demands from minorities for separate social and living spaces on campus.
Kevin J. Dougherty (2002). "The Evolving Role of the Community College: Policy Issues and Research Questions." In Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, Volume XVII. Ed. John C. Smart. New York: Agathon Press. Despite the great extent of remedial education in higher education, very few two-year or four-year colleges conduct systemic evaluations of effectiveness; research that exists often has serious methodological flaws. Given the magnitude and importance of remedial education, especially for community college students, future research should feature random assignment to experimental and control groups or at least careful measurement of academic aptitude, motivation, and social and economic background. New research on remedial education must measure outcomes for noncompleters and nonremedial students as well as for remedial completers, controlling for student characteristics before remediation. Program effectiveness also should measure levels of academic proficiency relative to nonremedial students.
Hunter R. Boylan , Barbara S. Bonham and Stephen R. White (1999). Developmental and Remedial Education in Postsecondary Education. In Promising Practices in Recruitment, Remediation, and Retention. Ed. Gerald H. Gaither. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, New Directions for Higher Education 108. Research in developmental education indicates that remedial education programs using sound organizational and teaching strategies lead to higher passing and completion rates in courses, better student grades and higher retention rates.
Therese Kattner, ed (2001). "Remediation: The Question Isn’t Why, But Where." Recruitment and Retention in Higher Education 15(4). League of Innovation. This article follows more than 1,500 randomly selected remedial education students at 26 campuses for nine years. Sixteen percent earned four-year degrees, one-third earned associate degrees or work-related certificates, and 90 percent of those who had left school without earning a degree or certificate were employed in a "newtech" or office-related career job.
National Center for Developmental Education (as reported in "Remediation: The Question Isn’t Why, But Where." Recruitment and Retention in Higher Education 15 (4)). More than 30 percent of under-prepared minority students who pass developmental education courses at four-year colleges eventually earn a bachelor's degree.
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