No Longer an Exclusive Club

At its inception, higher education in the United States was an exclusive club. Anyone other than rich, white, males need not apply. A college degree was as much a status symbol as it was a pathway to a rewarding career. As colleges and universities evolved through the 1800s and early 1900s, the demographics changed a bit but campuses continued to be reserved generally for the wealthy.

Fast forward to June 22, 1944, the day Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the GI Bill into law and opened up access to higher education to soldiers returning from World War II and millions of veterans to follow. Add to this the inception of the federal Pell Grant in 1972 (initially the Basic Education Opportunity Grant) and it is easy to see the impetus for transforming higher education from being reserved for the elite to being open to the masses. In 1965, total enrollment in higher education was approximately 5 million. Ten years later, at the end of the Vietnam War, enrollments had doubled to over 10 million. By 2009, total college and university enrollments had again doubled, surpassing the 20 million student mark.

Instead of a status symbol, a higher education credential, from technical certificate through graduate and professional degree, is now essential to gain access to employment paying a family-supporting wage. In fact, the Georgetown Center for Education and the Workforce recently reported that 97% of good jobs, those paying a family-supporting wage, created since the end of the Great Recession went to college graduates.

As one would expect, as enrollments have swelled, student profiles have changed as well. Traditional is no longer traditional. Nationally, over 55% of post-secondary enrollments this past fall were over age 24 and almost 60% of all students attended part-time. These statistics have shifted even more dramatically at two-year colleges. As a result, the old model of serving students directly out of high school until they graduate two or four years later is becoming the exception rather than the rule. Through these changes, the gap in college-going rates of students from the lowest socioeconomic status families compared to the highest has narrowed significantly, meaning that far more students on campus today come from low income families. This also means that a large percentage of today’s students are the first in their families to attend a college or university.

These demographic changes present unique challenges. Not that low-income or first generation college students are less intelligent than their peers. They simply lack an understanding of higher education that others take for granted. Terms such as FAFSA, residency requirements, core requirements and accreditation are foreign to students who have no family members or friends to rely on for interpretation. Additionally, the financial challenges of a student from a low-income background are very real. Many skip purchasing textbooks because they are not affordable or they cannot afford to eat a meal while on campus. The combination of these challenges creates significant personal and financial barriers that prevent many students from successfully completing post-secondary credentials.

This is why programs like the Arkansas Career Pathways Initiative (CPI) are so important. CPI fills in the gaps for students who arrive on campus with the challenges described above and provides resources to remove the barriers. The program provides mentors, or coaches, to address personal struggles that CPI students are dealing with and to help them navigate the higher education maze. It also provides financial assistance for expenses such as textbooks and childcare that are not normally covered by state or federal financial aid. Remove barriers and students succeed.

Recently, a report entitled College Count$, a study of the CPI program, was released which shows that this approach works. Overwhelmingly. According to the study, CPI participants graduate at more than twice the rate of typical community college students across the nation. It works because it recognizes the issues that are likely to cause students not to succeed, it meets those students where they are, and allows students to focus more on what is most important: being a student.

Club membership is wide open through Arkansas CPI and similar efforts.