Low-Income Students Who Dream Of College Swim Against The Tide

December 17, 2001

University Park, Pa. -- Public policy aimed at helping low-income students succeed in college must include not only financial aid, but also a wide-reaching, multifaceted program of preparation beginning as early as elementary school, according to a Penn State study.

"Current pre-college intervention programs are doing a good job, but most of them focus on one or two areas of need, rather than the full array of students' needs. Current programs also concentrate on individual students, rather than on whole cohorts or age groups of students in low-income schools," says Dr. Patrick T. Terenzini, professor of higher education and senior scientist with the Center for the Study of Higher Education.

"The goal should be to give all low-income students an equal shot at preparing for college. But significant numbers of these young people start falling behind in their readiness and awareness of what's needed for college by the 6th or 7th grade and never make it to the starting line," he adds.

Terenzini; Dr. Alberto F. Cabrera, associate professor of higher education at Penn State and senior research associate at the center; Elena M. Bernal, director of the International Research Office at Bryn Mawr College and doctoral student in higher education at Penn State, are co-authors of the monograph, "Swimming Against the Tide: The Poor in American Higher Education," published as Research Report No. 2001-1 by the College Entrance Examination Board.

"In the 8th grade, the desire to go to college is about as high among low-income students as among their affluent classmates," Terenzini says. "Whereas nearly all of the latter will realize their aspirations, only about two-thirds of the former will do so. Closing the aspiration-realization gap will require action on a broad front. Intervention strategies to aid low-income students have to begin in the 5th and 6th grades, not on the eve of college attendance.

"Compared to their wealthier peers, low-income students face major obstacles when it comes to preparing for college, making the academic transition from high school to college, and maximizing the college experience itself both from an educational and occupational standpoint," the Penn State researcher says.

Lower-income students grow up in cultures where access to education is much more difficult. They do not receive as much reinforcement or guidance from parents and schools, with the result that they are less inclined or able to pursue a rigorous high school curriculum, say the researchers.

"The role of culture can scarcely be exaggerated," Terenzini says. "For low-income students, being the first family member to go to college can involve a subtle but powerful psychological break from family tradition. Parents wonder, not without reason, whether those children who go to college will ever come home again as the same people. This holds particularly true for daughters in Hispanic families."

Often low-income students come from single-parent households, which can generate little or no savings for college, Terenzini notes. Seventy-six percent of low-income young people have parents with no college experience, compared to 98 percent of high-income students who have parents with college backgrounds and expect their children to carry on the pattern.

In 1998-1999, total federal and state financial aid for college students reached $64.1 billion, an 85 percent hike in constant dollars over the past decade. This increase in financial aid programs has enhanced opportunities to attend college on all socioeconomic levels, but class disparities clearly persist.

"An unintended consequence of the growing reliance on loans in packaging student financial aid may be to push some low-income students who fear an unmanageable loan debt to choose, instead, to work longer hours to pay their educational expenses," Terenzini notes. "The evidence shows that working longer hours, particularly off-campus, reduces students' chances to become academically and socially involved in their institutions, thereby reducing the likelihood that they will complete their degree programs."

Putting disadvantaged students on the road to college commencement means reaching their parents when their children are still in grade school, he says. The parents need information on financial planning for their children's college education and what will be required in the way of their children's high school curriculum and other aspects of their academic preparation.

Parents and children alike also need help in making the best match between the children's aptitudes and available degree programs. This would permit low-income students not only to obtain their degrees but also to do so in the shortest, least expensive amount of time, according to researchers.

For this to happen, a more tightly knit, long-term partnership is required between the federal government, state agencies, colleges and universities, schoolteachers and administrators, parents and students across the K-16 spectrum, Terenzini says.

"A key element in students' subsequent persistence and success in college is their secondary school curriculum, with Algebra II being particularly critical," he notes. "Poorer students score significantly below their more affluent peers on measures of specific learning areas and skills (e.g. reading, math, science and selected social sciences), as well as on general measures of academic achievement (e.g. ACT and SAT scores).

"In thinking about lower income students hoping to achieve a college degree, the metaphor of swimming against the tide is almost inescapable," says Terenzini. "The image is that of a large mass of swimmers struggling against a strong tide, in the grip of forces far stronger than they and ones they little understand.

"If the swimmers make any progress at all, it is slight. More often, they appear to be losing ground. The end is predictable. In the end, the question is whether we, as institutions, states and a nation, are willing to sit on the shore and watch," notes the Penn State researcher at the Center for the Study of Higher Education.

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Contacts:

Paul Blaum (814) 865-9481 pab15@psu.edu

Vicki Fong (814) 865-9481 vfong@psu.edu

EDITORS: Dr. Terenzini can be reached Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at (814) 865-9755, or at Terenzini@psu.edu by email. Copies of the monograph are available at: www.collegeboard.org/research/html/rr_indx.html