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Higher education improves an individual's quality of life and provides the nation long-term economic gains, better health and increased civic participation. However, many students face difficulties in pursuing higher education. Lumina Foundation has surveyed the existing research to assess these difficulties. What We Know about Access and Success in Postsecondary Education documents the existing inequity across four dimensions of postsecondary access and success — preparation, awareness, financial issues and institutional responsibility.

What We Know about Access and Success in Postsecondary Education

Unequal opportunity continues to affect access and success in postsecondary education. In turn, limited educational access translates into limited life opportunities for millions of Americans.

Large and growing gaps in postsecondary educational access and success of students, based on their socioeconomic status, race and ethnicity, undermine the goal of equity delineated in the Higher Education Act of 1965. These gaps indicate that thousands of capable and motivated students face formidable roadblocks to a college education. The primary obstacles to access and success are unmet financial need, inadequate academic preparation, and insufficient information, guidance and encouragement. Students who overcome these barriers and enroll in college often face additional obstacles because college and university policies do not prioritize students' needs. Frequently, these financial, academic, informational and institutional obstacles penalize low-income students, including students of color, first-generation students and working adults.

Increased diversity in future college-age students will underscore the postsecondary access and attainment challenges facing the nation. Demographic trends show that most of the increase in the traditional college-age population will be students of color and students from low-income homes. Many also will be first-generation — that is, the first in their families to attend college. Economic changes also will increase the number of adult workers returning to postsecondary institutions for retraining, new skills and new opportunities. All of these students — low-income, first-generation, racial and ethnic minorities and working adults — will be needed in the workforce as the baby boom generation approaches retirement age.

Lumina Foundation for Education views postsecondary access and success through four dimensions: preparation, awareness, financial issues and institutional responsibility.

Preparation refers to individual motivation and skills, as well as curriculum, teacher quality, and the extent and availability of middle and secondary school resources. In part, the gap in college attendance rates by race and socioeconomic status is caused by similar gaps in the rates of students who participate in college-prep curriculum, graduate from high school, take the SAT or ACT, and apply to postsecondary institutions. Too often, lower involvement in college preparatory activities is directly related to local communities' economic wealth and how primary and secondary schools serve students of color.

Awareness refers to information about academic requirements, college prices, the application process, financial aid resources, fields of study, and the availability of academic and social support services. Many families — especially lower income families and those with parents who did not attend college — misperceive postsecondary education costs; moreover, students and their families are unsure about application requirements and financial aid options. The unfortunate reality is that low-income students and students of color do not have adequate access to relevant and timely information about preparing, enrolling and succeeding in college. To ensure that students and their families make informed choices about postsecondary education, we must close these gaps in awareness.

Financial issues refer to the shared responsibility of governments, postsecondary institutions, students and their families, philanthropies, and businesses to pay for college. This responsibility is shared because of the social and individual benefits society gains with increased levels of educational attainment. A fundamental barrier to increased college access and success is financial aid. Specifically, the barrier is the inability of federal, state and institutional financial aid programs to make up the difference between family finances and college prices. During the last two decades, the sticker prices of postsecondary institutions have soared, while the purchasing power of need-based grant aid has declined. Although financial aid dollars have increased, in many cases, these dollars have not kept pace with escalating prices and demands. Many state and institutional grant dollars have shifted to merit aid from need-based aid. In addition, loans have replaced grants as the primary method to pay for college. Because of these changes, students — particularly low-income students — find it increasingly difficult to afford a college education.

Institutional responsibility refers to the academic and social services, developmental education programs and campus climate that postsecondary institutions offer to meet their students' needs. More than any other entity, higher education institutions directly influence access and success. Ultimately, postsecondary institutions must develop programs and services to ensure equitable opportunity for their students. These services and programs require administrative policies and resources geared toward access, retention and attainment for an increasingly diverse student body.

The opportunity to enroll in a postsecondary institution and the ability to complete educational objectives (e.g., occupational training, certificate or degree attainment) should define postsecondary access and success. Only a concerted effort by federal and state policy-makers, educational providers and other interested stakeholders can lead to equity and excellence in postsecondary education. By improving students' awareness and academic preparation, changing postsecondary finance structures and enhancing institutional responsibility, the nation can extend this vital opportunity to a larger, more diverse population.

The following research-based evidence represents the knowledge base for Lumina Foundation's strategic direction and shows the inequity across the four dimensions of postsecondary access and success: preparation, awareness, financial issues and institutional responsibility. This evidence informs our program and research agenda to change the patterns of postsecondary access and success. The changes will flow through students and families, postsecondary institutions and public policy.

Research-based Evidence Related to the Four Dimensions of Access and Success

Beyond the four dimensions that bear directly on student access and success, other factors affect each of these dimensions. These factors include, but are not limited to, economic development issues (e.g., the availability of jobs requiring a postsecondary degree or certificate) and competing demands (e.g., parenting, employment, health and well-being). In addition to America's schools and colleges, which are accountable for their students, other social sectors — family and community, government and private organizations — can play a role in supporting policies and practices that expand college access and success.

Dimension 1 — Preparation

Axiom 1 — An effective K-12 educational system should provide core curriculum and the academic and social skills necessary for admission to postsecondary education.

1. High school graduation rates vary by student background characteristics (race, ethnicity, gender and socioeconomic status). 1


2. Investment in K-12 education varies among states, and among districts within states, according to relative wealth (e.g., property values) in those states and districts. 2


3. Public education is increasingly segregated by race, ethnicity and income; this segregation is not preparing high school students for the diversity they will face in postsecondary education and the workforce. 3


4. Secondary school curriculum and high school graduation requirements are not well aligned with college admission requirements. 4


5. A rigorous high school curriculum is highly predictive of college enrollment and success; yet, participation in college-preparatory curriculum varies by student background characteristics. 5


6. Supplemental college preparatory programs enable some students to overcome the inequities of K-12 education and enroll and succeed in college. 6


7. Standardized achievement test scores (e.g., SAT, NAEP) vary by student background characteristics and by school characteristics. 7


8. Completion of college application requirements, including taking college entrance exams and applying for admission and financial aid, varies by student background characteristics. 8


9. College attendance rates vary by student background characteristics and by school characteristics. 9


10. Significant numbers of students enter postsecondary education needing academic remediation in reading, writing and math, and these students disproportionately attend community colleges. 10

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Dimension 2 — Awareness

Axiom 2 — To make sound decisions, an informed public must understand college prices, the availability and extent of financial aid, and the range of accessible postsecondary institutions.

11. Students and parents lack reliable information about college, including price; this lack of accurate knowledge is strongly related to social and economic background. 11


12. College aspirations vary by student background characteristics and location of residence, but aspirations are seldom the primary reason students do not enroll in college. 12

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Dimension 3 — Financial Issues

Axiom 3 — Governments (federal, state and local), philanthropies, businesses, postsecondary institutions, and participating students and families share responsibility for college costs.

13. The share of college costs paid by students and families is increasing, while the share paid by governments is declining. 13


14. Students are increasingly working during college, which can reduce full-time enrollment and, if in excess of 15 hours weekly, can undermine student success. 14


15. Rising tuitions lead to lower enrollments overall or different college choices, especially for low-income students and students of color. 15


16. College affordability varies among states and among different types of students. 16


17. Community colleges are the most affordable institutions for all students. 17

Axiom 4 — Federal, state and institutional financial aid programs and policies are necessary to close the gap between family finances and college prices.

18. College prices continue to rise much faster than financial aid and family incomes, increasing the gap between family finances and college prices, especially for low-income students. 18


19. Need-based grants are the most powerful financial aid tool that governments and private organizations can use to increase college enrollment, especially for low-income students and students of color. 19


20. Merit-based financial aid and tuition tax credits disproportionately flow to students from the highest income levels. 20


21. During the last two decades, the trend in federal financial aid programs is to increasingly rely on student loans rather than student grants. 21


22. Non-need-based financial aid programs are growing at federal, state and institutional levels faster than need-based financial aid programs. 22


23. Need-based grants, educational debt levels and college tuition affect student persistence and attainment, especially for low-income and minority students. 23


24. Financial aid programs are not geared toward adult learners who have competing responsibilities associated with family and work. 24


25. Educational debt burdens are growing for college graduates, especially for low-income students; African-Americans; and those pursuing careers in social services, humanities, nursing and education. 25

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Dimension 4 — Institutional Responsibility

Axiom 5 — Colleges and universities should have administrative policies and resources (academic, social and cultural) geared toward access, retention, and attainment consistent with their mission and market niche.

26. Educational attainment rates at public and private four-year colleges and community colleges vary considerably by student background characteristics. 26


27. Community colleges serve the largest numbers of low-income students and students of color, and these students have more risk factors that impede student success. 27


28. Colleges must adapt to the unique needs of working adults by delivering curriculum in new ways, offering more weekend and evening courses, and providing family support services that facilitate adults' enrollment in degree or certificate programs. 28


29. Institutional practices in academic and student services have a strong influence on student retention and attainment. 29


30. Campus climate should be inclusive and welcoming for all students, especially first-generation students and students of color. 30


31. Developmental education can help students overcome academic underpreparedness and successfully complete degree or certificate programs. 31

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Endnotes - Page 1

1 Pathways to College Network (2004). A Shared Agenda: A Leadership Challenge to Improve College Access and Success (PDF). Boston, MA: The Education Resources Institute (TERI). Only about half of African-American and Latino ninth graders graduate from high school within four years, compared with 79 percent of Asian-Americans and 72 percent of Whites. An income gap also exists: More than 90 percent of students from the top two income quartiles graduate from high school compared to 65 percent of those from the bottom quartile — and this gap has not changed in 35 years.

National Center for Education Statistics (2003). The Condition of Education (PDF). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Table 17.2. Approximately 11 percent of 16- to 24-year-olds are school dropouts, but the dropout rate for Hispanics is especially high (27 percent). The school dropout rate varies considerably within the Hispanic population, from 14 percent for second-generation (or greater) Hispanics and 15 percent for first-generation Hispanics to 47 percent for Hispanics born outside the United States. The dropout rates for all students are higher than in the South (13.1 percent) and West (10.6 percent) than the Midwest (8.6 percent) and Northeast (8.8 percent).

The Interim Report of the President's Advisory Committee on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans (September, 2002). The Road to a College Diploma: The Complex Reality of Raising Educational Achievement for Hispanics in the United States (PDF). Washington, DC. High school completion rates for U.S. born and citizen Hispanics, 18- to 24-years-old is 81 percent compared with 84 percent for Blacks and 92 percent for Whites; however, the high school completion rate for foreign-born Hispanics who are U.S. citizens is only 70 percent and for foreign-born non-citizen Hispanics, it is only 40 percent.

Harold L. Hodgkinson (June 1999). All One System: A Second Look. San Jose, CA: The Institute for Educational Leadership and the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. In 13 states and the District of C Columbia, Blacks, Hispanics and Asians represent more than 30 percent of all high school graduates (California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland, Hawaii and New Jersey). In contrast, in 22 states, less than 15 percent of high school graduates were students of color.

2 Kevin Carey (2003). The Funding Gap: Low-Income and Minority Students Still Receive Fewer Dollars in Many States (PDF). Washington, DC: The Education Trust. In 22 states, the highest poverty school districts receive less funding than the lowest poverty districts; in 28 states, the highest minority school districts get less funding than the overwhelmingly White school districts. The Education Trust estimates that, in 39 of 49 states, the school districts educating the largest number of poor students have fewer resources than the districts serving the fewest numbers of poor students. This same pattern exists for school districts that serve the largest numbers of racial and ethnic minorities: in 37 of 49 states, the majority-minority school districts have fewer resources than predominantly White school districts.

National Center for Education Statistics (2003). The Condition of Education (PDF). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Table 41.1. Total general revenues per student in affluent public school districts, (i.e. those districts serving less than 5 percent of students below the poverty level) is $8,119, compared with $6,142 in districts with 25 percent to 35 percent of students below the poverty level, and $5,901 in districts with more than 35 percent of students below the poverty level. Federal categorical program revenues help to close this gap, but even with these additional revenues, the most affluent districts still receive between 5 and 22 percent more revenues per student than less affluent districts.

National Center for Education Statistics (1998). Inequalities in Public School District Revenues (PDF). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education. Districts with low percentages of poverty and minority enrollment have substantially more general education revenues than those with higher percentages of poverty and minority enrollments. Districts with higher median household income and median value of owner-occupied housing also have substantially higher general education revenue. "Categorical funds" support services to children with disabilities, children who are limited English proficient, and children who are "at-risk" or economically disadvantaged. This funding lessens the gaps in general education revenue between wealthy and poor districts (and between low- and high-minority districts). However, the funding does not sufficiently supplement base resources to result in equity with low-poverty districts.

National Center for Education Statistics, December (1996). Do Rich and Poor Districts Spend Alike? (PDF) Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education. On average, districts serving students in the nation's poorest communities incur costs of $4,375 per student, compared with $6,827 in districts serving students in the nation's richest communities (a 56 percent gap). Taking into account the variation in cost of living across the nation, the gap in expenditure per student between the richest and poorest districts is still 36 percent (or $5,139 vs. $3,782).

3 Erika Frankenberg and Chungmei Lee (August 2002). Race in American Public Schools: Rapidly Resegregating School Districts (PDF). Cambridge: The Civil Rights Project, Harvard University. This study looks at 185 school districts between 1986 and 2000. In only four districts did Black students' exposure to White students increase, and in only three districts did Latino students' exposure to Whites increase. In more than one-third of the school districts nationally, White students became more segregated from Black and/or Latino students; in almost every school district, Black and Latino students have become more racially segregated from White students. Thus, virtually all school districts nationally are showing lower levels of interracial exposure and the most rapidly resegregating districts for Black students' exposure to Whites are in the South. Summarizing the literature, the authors are mindful that minority-serving schools are strongly correlated with high-poverty schools, and these schools tend to have low parental involvement, lack of resources, less experienced and credentialed teachers, and high teacher turnover — all of which are factors that undermine academic and social preparation for college.

Amy Stuart Wells, Jennifer Jellison Holme, Alejandro Lopez and Camille Wilson Cooper (2000). "Charter Schools and Racial and Social Class Segregation: Yet Another Sorting Machine?" (PDF) In A Notion at Risk: Preserving Public Education as an Engine for Social Mobility (PDF). Ed. Richard D. Kahlenberg. New York: The Century Foundation Press. This article reviews charter schools and conducts a study of charter schools in 10 California school districts. Charter schools are less racially and socioeconomically diverse than the already segregated public schools. If racially and economically diverse schools improve educational opportunities (especially for Blacks and Latinos), then charter school legislation ought to specify racial and socioeconomic balance for charter schools. Unfortunately, in states with very diverse K-12 student populations, charter schools are primarily enrolling White and non-poor students; in states with a public school population that is primarily White and less poor, charter schools are primarily enrolling students of color and low-income students. Both patterns indicate that charter schools are more likely to replicate or exacerbate racial and socioeconomic segregation in K-12 education.

Douglas S. Massey, Camille Z. Charles, Garvey F. Lundy and Mary J. Fisher (2003). The Source of the River: The Social Origins of Freshmen at America's Selective Colleges and Universities. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Even among students at elite colleges and universities, Blacks and Latinos who graduated from racially segregated high schools have the most difficulty integrating with White students and other minority students. These feelings of "social distance" influence how they integrate on campus and, thus, indirectly affect their academic achievement.

Amy Stuart Wells and Robert L. Crain (1994). "Perpetuation Theory and the Long-term Effects of School Desegregation." Review of Educational Research 64 (4). African-American graduates of racially diverse schools had higher occupational aspirations and better understood the steps needed to obtain their educational and career goals than did high school graduates of all-Black schools. Further, African-Americans who attended racially mixed schools were more likely to be working in white-collar and professional jobs in integrated corporations and institutions.

Kassie Freeman (1997). "Increasing African-Americans' Participation in Higher Education." Journal of Higher Education 68(5). Interviews with African-American high school students revealed that a college campus was starkly different than many Black students' high schools — namely, African-American students expressed "intimidation" due to the cultural differences between "what a college campus looks like" (i.e., predominantly White) and what K-12 systems looked like (i.e., almost exclusively non-White).

Douglas S. Massey and Nancy A. Denton (1993). American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Residential segregation among different race and ethnic groups produces an institutional process of discrimination and unfairness; this process includes unequal educational opportunity, which stacks the deck against Black youth and undermines social mobility and socioeconomic progress. Residential housing markets, racial politics and prejudices produce a disadvantaged neighborhood environment for Blacks. Levels of Black-White segregation do not vary by social class.

4 Paul E. Barton (October 2003). Parsing the Achievement Gap: Baselines for Tracking Progress (PDF). Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service. Thirty-four percent of secondary level core academic courses in high-poverty schools are taught by teachers without at least a minor in the subject; 29 percent of secondary level core academic courses in high-minority schools are taught by teachers without at least a minor in the subject. Between 1996 and 2000, the percentage of eighth graders whose math teachers lacked certification in middle/junior high school or in secondary mathematics increased to 27 percent for Blacks, 26 percent for Hispanics and 22 percent for poor students.

National Commission on the High School Senior Year (October 2001). Princeton, NJ: The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. Raising Our Sights: No High School Senior Left Behind (PDF). Only 10 states have aligned their high school graduation with college admission requirements in English. Only two states have aligned high school and college requirements in mathematics.

Michael W. Kirst (2001). Overcoming the High School Senior Slump. San Jose, CA: Institute for Educational Leadership and the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. Graduation assessments seldom include material from the 12th grade. The college admissions calendar does not provide incentives for high school seniors to take rigorous academic courses. A lack of coherence between the senior year curriculum and college general education courses also undermines a rigorous 12th grade curriculum.

Michael W. Kirst and Andrea Venezia (April 2002). "Bridging the Great Divide Between Secondary Schools and Postsecondary Education." (PDF) In Gathering Momentum: Building the Learning Connection Between Schools and Colleges, Proceedings from the Learning Connection Conference. San Jose, CA: Institute for Educational Leadership and the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. U.S. education policy treats the K-12 education system and the higher education system as two distinctly different and unconnected entities, thus providing little incentive for consistent standards across the sectors. This disconnect between K-12 and higher education reinforces barriers that undermine student success, such as: (1) inequitable availability of college-preparatory courses in core subject areas leading to unacceptably high need for remedial education at the college level; (2) increased pressure for grade inflation to help students compete for college access; (3) differences in content and format of assessments used at the K-12 exit level and those required for admission to and placement in college; and (4) the lack of early and high-quality academic and college counseling in high school.

5 William G. Tierney, Julia E. Colyar, and Zoe B. Corwin (2003). Preparing for College: Building Expectations, Changing Realities (PDF). Los Angeles: University of Southern California, Center for Higher Education Policy Analysis. Seventy-one percent of students who enroll in a rigorous academic curriculum persist to four-year degree completion. According to the U.S. Department of Education, "rigorous" means at least four years of English and mathematics (including precalculus), three years each of science (including biology, chemistry and physics) and social studies, three years of foreign language, and one honors/AP course or AP test score. Academic preparation should begin no later than middle school, and students should be offered additional academic support, such as tutoring, test preparation, note-taking and study skills assistance, and academic counseling.

Paul E. Barton (October 2003). Parsing the Achievement Gap: Baselines for Tracking Progress (PDF). Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service. African-Americans represent 17 percent of the high school population but only 4 percent of Advanced Placement (AP) examinations; similarly, Hispanics represent 16 percent of the high school population but only 10 percent of AP examinations.

Pathways to College Network (2004). A Shared Agenda: A Leadership Challenge to Improve College Access and Success (PDF). Boston, MA: The Education Resources Institute (TERI). Only 28 percent of low-income students are enrolled in a college preparatory curriculum compared to 49 percent of middle-income students and 65 percent of high-income students; African-American students are three times as likely as White students to be placed in special education programs and only half as likely to be in gifted programs.

Clifford Adelman (1999). Answers in the Tool Box: Academic Intensity, Attendance Patterns and Bachelor's Degree Attainment. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI). The intensity and quality of secondary school curriculum has a stronger effect on bachelor's degree attainment than high school grades or standardized test scores. These effects are more pronounced for African-American and Latino students. Of all pre-college curricula, the highest level of mathematics a student takes in secondary school has the strongest continuing influence on bachelor's degree completion.

Karen Akerhielm et al. (1998). Factors Related to College Enrollment: Final Report. Washington, DC: Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance. Seventy-six percent of students in the bottom-income group and who take Algebra II attend postsecondary education, compared to 86 percent of middle-income students and 95 percent of high-income students. Additionally, 32 percent of those students in the bottom-income group who do not complete Algebra II still enroll in post-secondary education, while 55 percent of middle-income and 75 percent of upper-income students still enroll. Similar patterns of enrollment by income group hold when analyzing the impact of geometry, physics, chemistry, biology, and foreign language coursework on college enrollment.

Susan P. Choy. (2002). Access Persistence: Findings from 10 Years of Longitudinal Research on Students (PDF). Washington, DC: American Council on Education, Center for Policy Analysis. One out of five high-ability eighth graders whose parents did not attend college report that no Algebra is offered in their middle or junior high school. In contrast, one out of 10 high ability students whose parents had pursued education beyond high school reported no Algebra offered in their middle or junior high school.

Edward C. Warburton, Rosio Bugarin and Anne-Marie Nunez (2001). Bridging the Gap: Academic Preparation and Postsecondary Success of First-Generation Students (PDF). Washington, DC: US Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI). The proportion of first-generation students who took advanced mathematics courses in high school (e.g., pre-calculus and calculus) was lower than their non-first-generation peers — 23 percent vs. 25 percent and 20 percent vs. 31 percent, respectively. Further, 40 percent of first-generation, beginning postsecondary students completed Core New Basics, which is below high school curriculum, compared with only 28 percent of their non-first-generation peers. Conversely, only 9 percent of first-generation students completed a rigorous high school curriculum compared with 22 percent of their non-first-generation peers.

Patrick T. Terenzini, Alberto F. Cabrera and Elena M. Bernal (2001). Swimming Against the Tide: The Poor in American Higher Education. New York: The College Board. Lowest socioeconomic status (SES) quartile students (compared with highest SES students) are consistently underrepresented in the upper two quartiles in all academic ability areas: reading (44 percent vs. 78 percent), mathematics (44 percent vs. 82 percent), science (39 percent vs. 79 percent) and selected social science areas (45 percent vs. 79 percent).

Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance (2001). Access Denied (PDF). Washington, DC: Author. In 1999, 53 percent of college-bound high school seniors with family incomes between $12,000 and $18,000 completed college preparatory core courses in high school, compared with 60 percent of students with incomes between $30,000 and $36,000; 65 percent of students with incomes between $50,000 and $60,000; and 73 percent of students with incomes greater than $100,000.

Wayne J. Camara and Amy Elizabeth Schmidt (1999). Group Differences in Standardized Testing and Social Stratification (PDF). New York: College Entrance Examination Board. In 1997, 71 percent of students who completed one or more advanced placement examinations were White; 12 percent were Asian; 8 percent were Hispanic, and 5 percent were African-American. Further, differences in the years of science and math education completed across racial and ethnic categories remained even when controlling for parental education and income.

National Center for Education Statistics (2000). The Condition of Education (PDF). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education. Only 21 percent of high school graduates with family incomes below $25,000 were highly or very highly qualified for college, compared with 35 percent of high school graduates with family incomes between $25,000 and $75,000, and 56 percent of students with family incomes greater than $75,000. Further, 36 percent of White high school graduates were highly or very highly qualified for college, compared with 16 percent of Blacks and 19 percent of Hispanics.

Ramona S. Thomas (1998). "Black and Latino College Enrollment." Paper presented at the annual meeting of American Educational Research Association: Diversity & Citizenship in Multicultural Societies, San Diego, CA. Black and Latino students are typically underrepresented in college preparatory programs and over-represented in low ability (vocational and general) tracks in high school, while the reverse is true for White students. Tracking in high school may be the single most powerful determinant of college participation. Students placed in a college preparatory program are more likely to attend college than those assigned to general and vocational tracks.

6 Center for Higher Education Policy Analysis (CHEPA) (2002). Making the Grade In College Prep: A Guide for Improving College Preparation Programs. Los Angeles: University of Southern California. Based on a decade of research, CHEPA recommends nine strategies for improving the effectiveness of college preparatory programs: (1) programs must be systemically integrated across schools, colleges and universities. (2) Families must be involved as a vital resource for student learning. (3) Programs should begin early and occur over a sustained period of time rather than be crammed into just the summer before college. (4) Coordinated public funding from schools and community college districts, as well as state and federal government is necessary to allow practitioners to concentrate on program effectiveness rather than private fund raising. (5) programs must have rigorous evaluation.(6) Data should follow students from the senior year in high school through the first year of college to ensure success. (7) Programs should prepare students for the full range of postsecondary options. (8) Programs should focus on developing academic skills and providing supportive counseling. (9) Programs should document their effectiveness through cost-benefit analysis.

Adrianna Kezar (2001). "Early Intervention: Beyond Getting Kids into College." Education Digest 66 (8). Participation in the federal TRIO programs helps many students enroll and succeed in college: Upward Bound participants are four times more likely to earn a baccalaureate degree than nonparticipating students with similar backgrounds; 73 percent of Talent Search participants enroll in college.

Council for Opportunity in Education (2001). Directory of TRIO Programs, 2000-2001. Washington DC: Author. Sixty percent of Upward Bound participants enroll in college — more than double the enrollment rate of low-income students nationally. High school dropout rates for low-income Upward Bound participants is only 11 percent compared with the national average of 35 percent for all low-income students. Unfortunately, less than 10 percent of the more than 11 million students who qualify for TRIO services participate in TRIO programs.

Linda Jacovy (2000). The ABCs of School-Based Mentoring (PDF). Philadelphia: Private/Public Ventures. An evaluation of a Big Brothers/Big Sisters of America school-based mentoring program found that 64 percent of youth in the program developed a more positive attitude toward school; 58 percent achieved higher grades in social studies, language and math; 60 percent improved relationships with adults, and 56 percent improved relationships with peers. In addition, students who participated in the program were less likely to repeat a grade and their average number of unexcused absences dropped. (According to the authors, these programs are better suited for elementary schools.)

Melissa Roderick and Susan Stone (August 1998). Changing Standards, Changing Relationships: Building Family-School Relationships to Promote Achievement in High Schools (PDF). Chicago: University of Chicago, Student Life in High Schools Project. This study of partnership-building efforts in Chicago high schools found that schools that linked improving student achievement to building strong relationships with families saw the greatest improvement in student performance. These programs focused on academics and improving access to information about how students are doing, building parents' academic skills, bringing parents and teachers together to share issues and concerns, and building the schools' capacity to reach out to parents.

7 Paul E. Barton (October 2003). Parsing the Achievement Gap: Baselines for Tracking Progress (PDF). Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service. Research in student achievement highlights 14 factors correlated with student success — many of which cannot be manipulated by primary or secondary schooling. These factors include the developmental environment before school (e.g., birthweight, lead poisoning, hunger and nutrition); the home learning environment (e.g., reading to young children, television watching, parental availability); student mobility; and parental involvement with the school. Other factors include the school context that can be affected, such as rigor of curriculum, teacher preparation, teacher experience and stability, class size, and availability of technology-assisted instruction.

Patricia Donahue et al. (1999). "The NAEP Reading Report Card for the Nation and the States." Education Statistics Quarterly 1(2). White and Asian fourth-grade, eighth-grade and 12th-grade students score higher in reading than do Black, Hispanic and Native American students. Across the three grades in 1998, between 39 percent and 47 percent of White students were at or above the proficient level, compared with 10 percent to 18 percent of Black students and 13 percent to 26 percent of Hispanic students. In 1992, 1994 and 1998, the average reading scores for females were higher than males at all three grades.

Richard Rothstein (1998). The Way We Were? The Myths and Realities of America's Student Achievement. New York: A Century Foundation Report. One cause of poor academic performance by inner-city children is their unstable housing conditions; because they move more frequently, changing schools and teachers, they cannot benefit from consistent instruction. In addition, children in communities where good job opportunities are limited, even for those who stay in school, may conclude that school success is not worthwhile — such a conclusion most certainly affects motivation and achievement.

Christopher Jencks and Meredith Phillips, eds (1998). The Black-White Test Score Gap. Washington, DC, Brookings Institution Press. On most standardized tests, African-Americans typically score 75 percent to 85 percent below Whites. Both family income and parental wealth explain part of the "Black-White gap" on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised (which is part of the Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth database). The proportion of Blacks who scored in the lowest 5 percent in six separate nationally representative samples (between 1965 and 1992) is between four and eight times larger than the proportion of Whites who scored in the lowest 5 percent. Conversely, the proportion of Whites who scored in the upper 5 percent is between 10 and 20 times the proportion of Blacks.

L. Scott Miller (1995). An American Imperative: Accelerating Minority Educational Advancement. New Haven: Yale University Press. In the 20th century, racial and ethnic minorities made considerable progress in educational achievement (as measured by standardized test scores), but Blacks, Hispanics and American Indians remain overrepresented among low-achieving students and underrepresented among high-achievers. Variations among social classes do not fully account for racial and ethnic differences in academic achievement patterns. Large differences in achievement exist among racial and ethnic groups with similar socioeconomic resources. In general, Whites and Asians do much better than Blacks, Hispanics and American Indians at each social class level. Some reasons for these persistent inequalities in academic achievement are because racial and ethnic minorities have substantially different experiences with the formal education provided in technologically-based industrialized economies; they have different notions about what constitutes "intelligent" behavior; and they have different preferred modes of learning in the home, community and school. These differences are often compounded by language differences between home and school.

Edward C. Warburton, Rosio Bugarin and Anne-Marie Nunez (2001). Bridging the Gap: Academic Preparation and Postsecondary Success of First-Generation Students (PDF). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI). Forty percent of first-generation students performed in the lowest quartile of the SAT/ACT composite, compared with only 15 percent of non-first-generation students whose parents had at least a bachelor's degree. On the other hand, 33 percent of non-first-generation students whose parents had at least a bachelor's degree performed in the highest quartile, compared with only 12 percent of first-generation students.

Wayne J. Camara and Amy Elizabeth Schmidt (1999). Group Differences in Standardized Testing and Social Stratification (PDF). New York: College Entrance Examination Board. Mean SAT verbal and math scores were significantly higher for Whites than for African-Americans or Hispanics: Verbal (White - 526, African-American - 434, Hispanic - 456), Math (White - 528, African-American - 426, Hispanic - 460). This report also shows a direct relationship between socioeconomic status and SAT verbal and math scores: combined totals by income are 908 (< $20,000), 977 ($20,000-$25,000), 1020 ($35,000-$60,000), 1067 ($60,000-$100,000) and 1132 (>$100,000).

Ron Renchler (1993). Poverty and Learning. ERIC Digest, no. 83. Students with low socioeconomic status (SES) are clustered in schools that are grossly under-funded compared with students with higher SES. A study in 84 academic high schools in New York found that, for each additional $100 spent on classroom instruction, students gained as much as 18 points on the combined mathematics and verbal sections of the SAT (Lonnie Harp in Education Week, March 31, 1993).

8 Pathways to College Network (2004). A Shared Agenda: A Leadership Challenge to Improve College Access and Success (PDF). Boston, MA: The Education Resources Institute (TERI). Underserved students and their families are less likely than other students to explore an array of college options, take college admission tests, or complete admission procedures — even if they are college-qualified.

Edward P. St. John (2002). The Access Challenge: Rethinking the Causes of the New Inequality. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University, Indiana Education Policy Center. Of high-income, college-qualified students, 91 percent take the entrance exam(s) and apply to college, compared to 62 percent of low-income, college-qualified students. Furthermore, 17 percent of low-income students took the exams but didn't apply to postsecondary education in advance, while only 7 percent of high-income students behaved similarly.

Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance (2001). Access Denied (PDF). Washington, DC: Author. About 97 percent of students in the highest socioeconomic status (SES) quartile who also were in the highest achievement test quartile attended college in 1994, compared with only 78 percent of the highest-achieving students from the lowest SES quartile. Similarly, 77 percent of the lowest-achieving students from the highest SES quartile attended college, compared with 36 percent of the lowest-achieving students from the lowest SES quartile.

9 Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance (2002). Empty Promises (PDF). Washington, DC: Author. More than 400,000 college-qualified low- and moderate-income high school graduates are unable to attend a four-year college each year, and 170,000 of these students will not attend college at all.

Laura W. Perna and Marvin A. Titus (2004). "Understanding Differences in the Choice of College Attended: The Role of State Context." Review of Higher Education Research 24 (7). One-half (49 percent) of high school graduates in the lowest socioeconomic quartile did not enroll in postsecondary education the fall after high school graduation, compared to 7 percent of high school graduates in the highest socioeconomic quartile. A standard deviation increase in socioeconomic status increases the likelihood of enrolling in a four-year versus a two-year, in-state institution by about 50 percent.

Michael S. McPherson and Morton O. Schapiro (1999). Reinforcing Stratification in American Higher Education: Some Disturbing Trends (PDF). Stanford, CA: National Center for Postsecondary Improvement. College enrollment rates are increasing for all race and ethnic groups, but the gap between the enrollment rates of Whites and those of Blacks and Hispanics is larger today than in the 1970s. Controlling for race, the enrollment rate for a student from a family in the top fifth of the income distribution is 34 percentage points greater than for a student from the bottom fifth. Controlling for standardized test scores, the most affluent students have enrollment rates 22 percentage points greater than students from the bottom income group.

Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance (2001). Access Denied (PDF). Washington, DC: Author. Only 47 percent of highly and very highly qualified low-income high school graduates enroll in four-year colleges, compared with 67 percent of high-income high school graduates. Similarly, 61 percent of highly and very highly qualified White high school graduates enroll in four-year colleges compared with 44 percent of Hispanics and 28 percent of Blacks. Furthermore, almost 90 percent of 18- to 24-year-old high school graduates with family incomes above $75,000 participated in college in 1997, compared with about 77 percent of those with family incomes between $47,000 and $75,000; about 68 percent of those with family incomes between $25,000 and $47,000, and about 50 percent of those with family incomes below $25,000. An affluent high school graduate with low test scores is just as likely as a low-income high school graduate with high test scores to enroll in postsecondary education (78 percent and 77 percent, respectively).

Derek V. Price and Edward B. Reeves (2003), "School Poverty, School Accountability and Postsecondary Enrollments: A Challenge for Educational Reform in Kentucky," Journal of Poverty 7(4). Controlling for school performance on the state's Math Accountability Index, high-poverty schools in Kentucky send fewer graduates to postsecondary institutions than do low-poverty schools. Data also suggested that high-poverty schools increase their college enrollment rates by increasing their high school dropout rate.

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). Lower-income students are less likely than higher-income students to attend private colleges, four-year institutions, enroll full time, and live on campus.

Susan P. Choy (2002). Access & Persistence: Findings from 10 Years of Longitudinal Research on Students (PDF). Washington, DC: American Council on Education, Center for Policy Analysis. In 2000, 14 percent of the 18- to 24-year-old population was Black and 15 percent was Hispanic; yet, among students enrolled in four-year colleges, 10 percent were Black and 10 percent were Hispanic. Seventy-one percent of high school graduates who had at least one parent with at least a baccalaureate degree enrolled in a four-year institution within two years of high school graduation. In contrast, 27 percent of high school graduates whose parents held a high school degree or less were enrolled in a four-year institution within two years of high school graduation.

Paul Barton (September 2002). The Closing of the Education Frontier (PDF). Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service. In 1999, 66 percent of White high school graduates enrolled in college the following fall, compared with 59 percent of Black graduates and just about half of Hispanic graduates.

Tom Mortenson , ed (2001). "College Continuation Rates for Recent High School Graduates 1959 to 2000." Postsecondary Education Opportunity 107 (May). In 2000, 60 percent of male high school graduates enrolled in college compared with 66 percent of female high school graduates. These college continuation rates also vary by race and ethnicity: 66 percent non-Hispanic White, 56 percent Black and 53 percent Hispanic.

National Center for Education Statistics (2000). The Condition of Education 2000 (PDF). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education. Seventy-seven percent of college-qualified high school graduates with family incomes below $25,000 enrolled in some form of postsecondary education, compared with 90 percent of high school graduates with family incomes between $25,000 and $75,000, and 96 percent with family incomes greater than $75,000.

10 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. The proportion of students who took at least one remedial course dropped from 51 percent in 1982 to 42 percent in 1992. This decline took place principally for students who began in four-year colleges, where the remediation rate declined from 44 percent to 26 percent. Meanwhile, the proportion of students who required remediation and began in community colleges showed no change, remaining in the 61 to 63 percent range. The list of postsecondary courses with the highest percentages of failures is dominated by remedial English and pre-college mathematics.

The Institute for Higher Education Policy (1998). College Remediation: What it is, what it costs, what is at stake? (PDF). Washington, DC: Author. Approximately 75 percent of higher education institutions enrolling freshmen provided remedial writing and mathematics courses, while 57 percent offered remedial reading courses. Virtually all (99 percent) public two-year colleges offered remedial courses in each subject area. Between 1989 and 1995, there was little change in the percentage of students enrolling in remedial courses despite significant growth in total enrollment during the same period.

National Center for Education Statistics (2003). Community College Student: Goals, Academic Preparation, and Outcomes (PDF). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education. Among 1992 high school graduates who first enrolled in community college, 44 percent scored at or below the lowest level on reading proficiency, and 30 percent scored at or below the lowest level on math proficiency

W. N. Grubb (February 2001). From Black Box to Pandora's Box: Evaluating Remedial/Developmental Education (PDF), CCRC Brief 11. New York: Community College Research Center, Teachers College. Estimates of the proportion of community college students who need developmental education ranges, conservatively, between 25 percent and 50 percent, but could be as high as 75 percent.

John E. Roueche and Suanne D. Roueche (1999). High Stakes, High Performance: Making Remedial Education Work. Washington, DC: Community College Press. On average, almost 50 percent of all first-time community college students test as under prepared for the academic demands of college-level courses and are advised to enroll in at least one remedial class.

The Institute for Higher Education Policy and New England Resource Center for Higher Education (September 2002). Developmental Education and College Opportunity in New England (PDF). Washington, DC: Author. Nationally, students who enroll in developmental education are not all "under-prepared" high school graduates; a substantial number of returning adult students also enroll in developmental courses. Citing a 1997 study by Ignash in New Directions for Community Colleges, less than one-third of entering freshmen who took a remedial class in 1992-93 were 19 years old or younger — 46 percent were between 22 and 30 years old, and 27 percent were older than 30.

11 Alberto F. Cabrera and Steven M. La Nasa (2000). "Understanding the College Choice of Disadvantaged Students." New Directions for Institutional Research 107 (Fall). Upper-income students report several sources of information about college: parents, students, catalogs, college representatives and private guidance counselors. In contrast, low-income students rely almost exclusively on high school counselors. The authors state that "net of parents' gender and college expectations for the child, parents' education and having children in college exerted the strongest effects on parental knowledge of financial aid programs."

Pathways to College Network (2004). A Shared Agenda: A Leadership Challenge to Improve College Access and Success (PDF). Boston, MA: The Education Resources Institute (TERI). Underserved students and their families are often unfamiliar with how the education system works and do not have access to social networks that can provide this information; more specifically, low-income students and students of color are not well informed about the college admission process, and their guidance counselors often are less experienced in college counseling.

Andrea Venezia, Michael W. Kirst, and Anthony L. Antonio (2003). Betraying the College Dream: How Disconnected K-12 and Postsecondary Education Systems Undermine Student Aspirations (PDF). Stanford, CA: Institute for Higher Education Research. In Illinois, Maryland, and Oregon, only 42 to 47 percent of economically disadvantaged parents of high school students received college information compared to 66 to 74 percent of economically well-off parents.

National Center for Education Statistics (2003). Getting Ready to Pay for College: What Students and Their Parents Know about the Cost of College Tuition and What They are Doing to Find Out (PDF). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education. Just over half of 11th and 12th grade students and their parents had information on college costs (52 percent of students and 54 percent of parents). In 1998-99, average tuition and fees at a public four-year college were $3,297. On average, students expected the cost to be $5,799 and parents expected $5,366. One-quarter of both students and parents estimated tuition and fees to be more than $8,000. Within their own state, 25 percent of students and 31 percent of parents were able to estimate the tuition and fees at a public four-year institution within 25 percent of the actual cost. For parents, household income and education level were associated with the ability to accurately estimate costs.

American Council on Education (2002). Attitudes Toward Public Higher Education. Washington, DC: Author. A national survey of 700 adults suggests that the public significantly overestimates both tuition and fees and the overall price of public higher education. The average estimate for tuition and fees was $11,637, or three times higher than the national average of $3,754. Similarly, the average estimate for the overall cost of college was $20,361 — or 70 percent higher than the national average annual cost of attending a public four-year institution ($11,976).

Stan Ikenberry and Terry Hartle (1998). The Decision to Go to College: Attitudes and Experiences Associated with College Attendance among Low-Income Students. Washington, DC: American Council on Education. The amount and quality of information on college financing varies proportionately with socioeconomic status.

Karen Akerhielm et al. (1998). Factors Related to College Enrollment: Final Report. Washington, DC: Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance. When parents of high-test-score students who did not apply to any institution of postsecondary education were asked why their student did not apply, 25 percent of parents in the low-income group said they did not apply because they did not know how, compared to only 9 percent of high-income parents.

12 Clifford Adelman (2002). "The Relationship between Urbanicity and Educational Outcomes." In Increasing Access to College: Extending Possibilities for All Students. Eds. William G. Tierney and Linda Serra Hagedorn. Albany: State University of New York Press. By the early 1990s, there were virtually no differences by race, ethnicity or income, in high school graduates' plans to attend a postsecondary institution at some time. Plans to attend college immediately after high school did vary by income and urbanicity: about 70 percent of high school graduates from the lowest income quartile planned to enroll immediately in college compared with 79 percent of students from the middle quartiles and 86 percent from the highest quartile. While 82 percent of students from urban and suburban locations planned to attend college immediately after high school, only 72 percent of students from rural locations had such plans.

Patrick T. Terenzini, Alberto F. Cabrera and Elena M. Bernal (2001). Swimming Against the Tide: The Poor in American Higher Education (PDF). New York: The College Board. By the ninth grade, most students have developed occupational and educational expectations that are strongly related to socioeconomic status, all of them unfavorable to low-socioeconomic status students in comparison with their more affluent counterparts.

Laura J. Horn and Xianglei Chen (1998). Toward Resiliency: At-Risk Students Who Make It to College (PDF). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI). When most friends of a moderate- to high-risk student plan to attend a four-year college, at-risk students are six times more likely to attend a four-year institution compared with another form of postsecondary education, and 2.8 times more likely to enroll at an institution of postsecondary education than not to enroll.

Andrea Venezia, Michael W. Kirst and Anthony L. Antonio (2002). Betraying the College Dream: How Disconnected K-12 and Postsecondary Education Systems Undermine Student Aspirations (PDF). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Bridge Project. National data indicate that 88 percent of eighth graders expect to participate in some form of postsecondary education; in the six states studied for this project (California, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Oregon and Texas), more than 80 percent of African-American and Latino students surveyed planned to attend some form of postsecondary education.

Daniel G. Solorzano (1992). "An Exploratory Analysis of the Effects of Race, Class, and Gender on Student and Parent Mobility Aspirations," Journal of Negro Education 61(1). When comparing postsecondary education aspirations within socioeconomic status (SES) quartiles, Black men and women had higher aspirations than White men and women. For example, at the lowest SES quartile, 73 percent of Black women and 71 percent of Black men held postsecondary aspirations, compared with only 59 percent of White women and 49 percent of White men. This pattern also held true for African-American parents compared with White parents.

Shouping Hu (2003). "Educational Aspirations and Postsecondary Access and Choice: Students in Urban, Suburban, and Rural Schools" (PDF). Education Policy Analysis Archives 11 (4). Rural students are less likely than their suburban or urban peers to aspire to bachelor or graduate degrees but more likely to aspire to a high school degree or less.

Kassie Freeman (1997). "Increasing African-Americans' Participation in Higher Education." Journal of Higher Education 68(5). Interviews with African-American high school students revealed four factors that could improve college participation rates: improving school conditions, having more interested teachers and actively involved counselors, instilling college possibilities earlier, and emphasizing cultural awareness.

13 National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education (2004). Responding to the Crisis in College Opportunity, Policy Alert (PDF). San Jose: Author. In 2003, most states responded to budget shortfalls by reducing funding for higher education — disproportionately large cuts in state higher education appropriations were the principle cause of steep tuition increases. Thus, students and families bore most of the brunt of rising college prices through reduced college opportunity (fewer affordable choices), higher tuitions and increased debt.

Edward P. St. John (2003). Refinancing the College Dream: Access, Equal Opportunity, and Justice for Taxpayers. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Between 1976 and 1999, federal student aid per Full-Time Equivalent student (FTE) declined from $2,501 to $1,718; state and local appropriations remained constant around $4,500 during this period, and state grants per FTE increased from $169 to $323. Given the significant increase in college prices, students and families are paying an increasingly larger share of college costs.

Derek V. Price (2004). Borrowing Inequality: Race, Class and Student Loans. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers. As a proportion of education and general expenditures by institutions of higher education, the state's share declined from 41 percent in 1979 to 30 percent in 1996, while the share covered by tuition and fees rose from 27 percent to 36 percent (data from National Center for Education Statistics).

National Center for Education Statistics (2001). Study of College Costs and Prices, 1988-89 to 1997-98 (PDF). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education. Across all types of public institutions, undergraduate tuition and fees increased annually by an average of 4.1 percent at research/doctoral institutions, 4.2 percent at comprehensive institutions, 4.3 percent at bachelor's institutions and 3.4 percent at two-year institutions. The comparable annual percentage increase across all types of private nonprofit institutions was 3.6 percent at research/doctoral institutions, 4.1 percent at comprehensive institutions and 3.7 percent at bachelor's institutions. Direct state appropriations and tuition changes at public institutions have the largest statistical correlations. On the other hand, at private four-year institutions, institutional aid and average faculty compensation levels are strongly correlated with tuition changes. Average tuition at public four-year colleges in the state and average per capita income in the state also correlated with tuition changes at private four-year colleges.

William Trombley (2003). The Rising Price of Higher Education (PDF). San Jose, CA: The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. In 2002, 16 states increased tuition and fees by more than 10 percent, while 17 states spent less on student financial aid in 2002 than in 2001.

The Institute for Higher Education Policy (2002). Accounting for State Student Aid: How State Policy and Student Aid Connect (PDF). Washington DC: Author. Between 1986-87 and 1996-97, public postsecondary revenue from state and local governments declined approximately 10 percent. Between 1990-91 and 2000-01, tuition increased 42 percent at public four-year institutions and 26 percent at public two-year institutions.

Jane V. Wellman (2001). Looking Back, Going Forward: The Carnegie Commission Tuition Policy (PDF). Washington, DC: Institute for Higher Education Policy Working Paper. In 1995-96, the share of total education expenditures between families (39 percent); federal, state and local governments (49 percent); and philanthropy (12 percent) is significantly divorced from the 1973 benchmarks established by the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education — 30 percent families, 60 percent federal, state and local governments, and 10 percent philanthropic. The Commission's recommendation that economic access to college is a social responsibility that should be funded from the broadest possible revenue source is unfulfilled.

United States General Accounting Office (1998). Higher Education: Tuition Increases and Colleges' Efforts to Contain Costs (PDF). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, GAO/HEHS-98-227. For the 1989-90 academic year, government appropriations per full-time equivalent student (at four-year public institutions) were $7,100; by the 1994-95 academic year, appropriations per FTE declined to $6,200.

Michael Mumper (1998). "State Efforts to Keep Public Colleges Affordable in the Face of Fiscal Stress." In Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research XIII. Ed. John C. Smart. New York: Agathon. Between 1990 and 1995, mean state funding of higher education declined 0.6 percent annually, while Medicaid rose 10 percent, prison spending rose 8.5 percent, K-12 rose 3.7 percent and state welfare programs rose 1.6 percent annually.

14 American Council on Education (2003). Student Success: Understanding Graduation and Persistence Rates (PDF). Washington, DC: Author. Of students who began postsecondary education at a four-year public institution and did not work during college, 61 percent earned a bachelor's degree within six years; of students who worked 1-15 hours per week, 63 percent earned a degree. In contrast, only 29 percent of students who worked 35 or more hours per week earned a degree within six years. Similar findings are present among students who "stop out": 18 percent of those who did not work stopped out, compared to 17 percent of those who worked 1-15 hours per week and 37 percent of those who worked 35 or more hours each week.

Karen Akerhielm et al. (1998). Factors Related to College Enrollment: Final Report. Washington, DC: Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance. Only 19.3 percent of high-test-score, low-income students were enrolled in academic coursework full time and were not working, compared to 28.2 percent of similar middle-income students and 45.2 percent of similar high-income students.

Susan P. Choy. (2002). Access & Persistence: Findings from 10 Years of Longitudinal Research on Students (PDF). Washington, DC: American Council on Education, Center for Policy Analysis. During the 1999-2000 academic year, over one-quarter (26 percent) of undergraduate students at four-year institutions worked full time.

United States General Accounting Office (1998). Students Have Increased Borrowing and Working to Help Pay Higher Tuitions (PDF). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, GAO/HEHS-98-63. During the 1995-1996 academic year, more than two-thirds of full-time undergraduate students held jobs, working an average of 23 hours per week.

15 Thomas J. Kane (1999). The Price of Admission: Rethinking How Americans Pay for College (PDF). Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. A $1,000 difference in state public two-year college tuitions is associated with a 7.2 percentage point decline in college enrollments for low-income students; the same difference in state public four-year tuitions is associated with a 4.4 percentage point decline in enrollments for low-income students.

Donald E. Heller (1999). "The Effects of Tuition and State Financial Aid on Public College Enrollments." The Review of Higher Education 23 (1): 65-89. Tuition increases across all public two-year and four-year colleges between 1976 and 1994 resulted in an enrollment decrease of 0.5 percent at public four-year institutions and an enrollment decrease of 2.3 percent at community colleges.

Michael McPherson and Morton Schapiro (1998). The Student Aid Game: Meeting Need and Rewarding Talent in Higher Education. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Econometric researchers believe that a $150 increase in net costs (due to tuition increases and/or financial aid decreases) reduces college enrollment rates for low-income students by 1.8 percent.

16 Samuel M. Kipp III, Derek V. Price and Jill K. Wohlford (2002). Unequal Opportunity: Disparities in College Access among the 50 States (PDF). Indianapolis: Lumina Foundation for Education. In 14 states, more than 90 percent of public two- and four-year institutions are accessible to low-income dependent students; in 15 states, less than 25 percent of their public colleges and universities were accessible. (Accessibility means the institution was affordable and the typical student was qualified for admission). The picture is bleaker for adult students: in 21 states, less than half of all public colleges and universities are accessible for low-income, independent students; in 17 other states, more than three-fourths of public colleges and universities are accessible.

National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education (2004, 2002, 2000). Measuring Up: 2002 and Measuring Up: 2000. San Jose, CA: Author. In 2000, five states received an 'A' for college affordability. These states were California, Utah, Minnesota, Illinois and North Carolina. By 2002, California remained the only state with an 'A' for affordability. The indicators used to determine the affordability grade include: the share of family income needed to pay tuition, fees, room and board; the level of investment in need-based financial aid; and the extent to which students must rely on loans to pay for college. In 2002, 44 states had a 'C' or worse in affordability — and 12 states had a failing grade ('F'). By 2004, no state received an 'A,' and 36 states received a failing grade (F). The highest grade given was a 'B', to California.

National Center for Education Statistics (2003). Digest of Education Statistics, 2002 (PDF). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education. In 2001-02, the average total price for public colleges and universities (tuition, fees, room and board) was $9,199; but this price varied considerably among the 50 states — from as low as $6,296 in Oklahoma to as high as $13,450 in Vermont. In 16 states, the total price for college exceeded $10,000; in 10 states, the total price was less than $7,500.

Endnotes - Page 2

17 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.

18 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.

19 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.

20 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.

21 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.

22 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.

23 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."

24 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.

25 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.

26 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.

27 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 Mi