"Even the best-prepared lower-income students - for example those who score in the top quartile on tests such as the SAT - entered college immediately after graduation from high school at rates nearly 20 percentage points lower than those of their highest income peers. Indeed, the college-going rate of the highest-socioeconomic-status students with the lowest achievement levels is the same level as the poorest students with the highest achievement levels. (Heller, 2002, p. 17)."
Heller, D., (2002). Condition of Access. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.
In this decade, it is projected that 4.4 million college qualified high school graduates will not attend a four year college and that 2 million will fail to enroll in any type of post secondary education. This disparity is due to a number of factors, including a lack of "college knowledge" related to issues of financial aid, academic preparation, and a reinforcement of positive peer emphasis on the sustained benefits of earning a college degree.
"While middle-income families and students do, in fact, struggle with educational costs, price changes are more likely to affect their choice of institutions than to determine whether or not they actually enroll and complete degrees. Low-income students, in contrast, make decisions about whether to go to college, not just about where to enroll. (Baum, 2003, p.1)."
Baum, S. (2003 January). “The Financial Aid Partnership: Strengthening the Federal Government’s Leadership Role”. The College Board National Dialogue on Student Financial Aid. Washington, DC: Pathway to College Network.
Our Deliverable for the College Decision Making Process.
On or before Fall of 2009, all learners will be provided free, on-demand access to the voices, perspectives, and experiences of successful first generation college students and undergraduates of all academic majors.Interviews will allow current students to discuss the college application and decision making process, including a reflection on the transition in academic expectations from high school to college.
All learners will be provided free, on-demand access to the voices of undergraduate deans of admissions, deans of financial aid, and deans of student life describing institution specific support structures to assist students in issues related to college access, enrollment, and persistence toward the attainment of a post-secondary degree.
New media college access strategies will allow all learners considering the pursuit of a post-secondary degree to benefit from the "college knowledge" of enrolled undergraduates and higher education executive officers. On-demand and userfriendly new media platforms will be customized, catalogued, and searchable according to institution type, region, academic major, and future career aspirations.
College Access
We will apply open source teaching to the implementation of new media college access strategies, empowering the decisions of first generation college students and families. This learning platform will be marketed directly to the user and address specific issues of financial need, peer support, and academic expectations.
Open Source Teaching will transform the college decision making process for all learners by providing access to an on-demand mp3 library of media files through which individuals can access regionally specific and personalized interviews of the following types of stakeholders:
1) successful college students (first generation students to college alumni);
2) the deans of admission at institutions of higher education;
3) the deans of student life at institutions of higher education;
4) the financial aid officers who specialize in need based grant aid; and
5) the professors who teach entering college freshman.
All interviews will be catalogued, searchable, and based on a learner centered interview protocol through which all participants are guided through the various stages of explanation, interpretation, application, perspective, empathy, and self-knowledge related to their personalized perspective on college. Learners will be able to access an entire audio interview track or catalogued tracks within all interviews.
The first phase of this new media archive will be collected over the span of 24 months, resulting in a comprehensive, on-demand platform that is pervasive among all teenage learners, with a specific emphasis on reaching first generation college bound students, beginning in the middle grades.
What You Can Do
Deans. Bridge the Gap Between High School and College.We will interview the deans of admission, financial aid, and student life, providing them with the opportunity to articulate the infrastructure and support provided at their institution related to college access, financial aid, and social networks to encourage persistence toward the attainment of a college degree.
This comprehensive collection of interviews within a single media database will provide all emerging student leaders and learners access to the "college knowledge" which is traditionally sheltered from first generation college students. All interviews will remain the sole property of the individual and will not be published without the express written consent of the participant.
If you are willing to provide 30 to 45 minutes of your time for an onsite interview, please contact college@opensourceteaching.org. All interviews will be captured using digital audio media. No video will be recorded.
Professors. Bridge the Gap Between High School and College. We will interview the professors who teach college freshmen and provide them with the opportunity to specifically articulate their academic expectations through an onsite interview. This interview will allow professors to describe in specific detail their academic expectations so that rising high school juniors and seniors are able to benefit from such information.
These interviews will be archived in an online and searchable media database. This database will be provided to students, parents, teachers, schools, and communities. Interviews will be categorized according to each academic discipline.
If you are willing to provide 30 to 45 minutes of your time for an onsite interview, please contact college@opensourceteaching.org. All interviews will be captured using digital audio media. No video will be recorded.
More Research. According to a recent survey of the Ad Council, only 20% of low income parents have pushed their child to apply or seriously consider college. Only 1/3 of low income parents believe that students should start thinking about college before they enter high school. Further, recent research from ACT finds that the academic skills necessary for college readiness are the same as the skills required to succeed and advance in the career technical workforce. Many students and parents have substantial misunderstandings about the transition from high school to college.
It must be communicated to students and parents early and often that the decision to forgo the attainment of a post-secondary degree is a multi-million dollar decision that all students make beginning as early as the middle grades. Simply the attainment of a 2-year degree increases the lifetime career earnings of an individual by $350,000. Attaining a bachelor's degree increases lifetime career earnings by an average of $1.1 million. (Appendix A, Figure 2, College Board, Education Pays 2004).
Levels of educational attainment also have significant correlations with voter participation. Nationally, only 28% of 18 - 24 years olds, whose highest level of education is a high school diploma, participate in national elections. This fact is in comparison to 61% of similar aged peers with a bachelor's degree. The voter participation gap increases with age, lingering between 25 and 42 percent among individuals with just a high school diploma, while the rate among individuals with a bachelor's degrees increases to levels as high as 96% among senior citizens.
Even in the later years the voter participation rate does not rise above 50% until the age of 65, among adults with only a high school diploma. This represents a 40% voter participation gap based simply on educational attainment levels (Figure 14a, College Board, Education Pays 2004).
