Document Category: Topic Reviews/ Summaries

Students Are Humans First: Advancing Basic Needs Security in the Wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic (2022)

The COVID-19 pandemic has undoubtedly exacerbated the challenging situation facing many students in colleges and universities in the United States. To promote student success and address equity issues in higher education, there is an urgent need to treat students as humans first and attend to their basic needs. In this essay, I present evidence pointing to the fact that the pandemic has made student basic needs insecurity even worse. However, well designed and successfully implemented emergency aid programs and other innovative interventions with equity at the center can help address problems in student basic needs insecurity. I present successful examples in addressing student basic needs insecurity and call for sustained and bold actions.

Challenges and Opportunities for Improving Community College Student Success (2010)

Many of the democratizing opportunities provided by community colleges are
diminished in the eyes of policy makers by inadequate rates of success. In
particular, large proportions of students who enter community colleges do
not persist for longer than a semester, complete a program, or attain a credential.
This review critically examines academic and policy research in
search of explanations, emphasizing what is known about challenges stemming
from three levels of influence: the macro-level opportunity structure;
institutional practices; and the social, economic, and academic attributes
students bring to college. It provides examples of how factors operating at
each level affect rates of success at key times, including the initial transition
to college, the experience of remedial education, and persistence through
credit-bearing coursework. The article also discusses potential and ongoing
reforms that could increase rates of community college success by addressing
one or more areas of influence (the macro, the institutional, or the individual).
It is concluded that increasing success in the open-access, public 2-year
sector requires reforms directed at multiple levels and cannot be achieved
with either student- or institution-focused incentives alone.

What Higher Education Has to Say About the Transition to College (2007)

Background: Higher education researchers have much to say about the transition to college.
This field focuses primarily on inequities in college participation and completion, the relative
importance of high school preparation, and the utility of financial aid in promoting
enrollment. This literature’s strongest conceptual emphasis is on theoretical models of student
retention. Less is known about other facets of the transition to college, including different
postsecondary pathways and college outcomes.
Purpose: This paper describes the major findings of research on the transition to college contributed
by higher education, and how further research might be improved. The specific areas
covered are college preparation, college access, persistence, and college outcomes. The
reviewed literature covered extant research on the transition to college as conducted by higher
education researchers.
Research Design: This essay is an analysis of extant research on the college transition in the
field of higher education
Conclusions/Recommendations: This review highlights the field’s major shortcoming as
undertaking insufficiently rigorous, empirical testing of theories on the transition to college.
Existing research on postsecondary pathways is often compromised by data or methodological
limitations, failure to be critical in attributing causality, and not differentiating effects
occurring at different measurement levels (i.e., individual vs. institution).

Unmarried Parents in College (2010)

Noting that access to higher education has expanded dramatically in the past several decades, Sara Goldrick-Rab and Kia Sorensen focus on how unmarried parents fare once they enter college. Contrary to the expectation that access to college consistently promotes family stability and economic security, the authors argue that deficiencies in current policy lead college attendance to have adverse consequences for some families headed by unmarried parents.
Although rates of college attendance have increased substantially among unmarried parents, their college completion rates are low. One explanation is inadequate academic preparation. Another is financial constraints, which can force unmarried students to interrupt their studies or increase their work hours, both of which compromise the quality of their educational experiences and the outcomes for their children.
The authors point out that although many public programs offer support to unmarried parents attending college, the support is neither well coordinated nor easily accessed. Over the past three decades, loans have increasingly replaced grants as the most common form of federal and state financial aid. Confusion about what is available leads many low-income students to the two most “straightforward” sources of income—loans and work, both of which involve significant costs and can operate at cross-purposes with public forms of support. Too much work can lead to reductions in public benefits, and earnings do not always replace the lost income.
A growing body of experimental evidence shows that providing social, financial, and academic supports to vulnerable community college students can improve achievement and attainment. Contextualized learning programs, for example, have enabled participants not only to move on from basic skills to credit-bearing coursework, but also to complete credits, earn certificates, and make gains on basic skills tests. Another successful initiative provided low-performing students with special counseling services and a small stipend of $150 per semester when they used those services. And researchers are conducting experimental performance-based financial aid programs at community colleges to test their effectiveness. Goldrick-Rab and Sorensen conclude that more effective support could enable unmarried students to complete college degree and certificate programs.

Higher Education in Wisconsin: A 21st Century Status Report (2010)

Wisconsin is at a crossroads. Even before the recent economic crisis, the state was lagging
behind our peers in Minnesota, Illinois, and Iowa in population growth, per capita income,
and the share of the population with more than a high school education. Without a significant
investment in education, Wisconsin will continue to fall further behind not only our peers in the
Midwest, but the nation as a whole.

The Dark Side of College (Un)Affordability: Food and Housing Insecurity in Higher Education (2016)

Some students from low-income families are unable to pay their college costs without experiencing material hardship. What they do to make ends meet (e.g., go hungry and homeless) inhibits learning and discourages persistence.

Strategic college leaders investigate the needs of their students and draw on the strengths of their institutions and those of their communities to meet those challenges: for example, by changing school policies and financial due dates, creating short-term interest-free loan programs at the beginning of the school year, hiring counselors with social-work backgrounds, working with local food banks and housing authorities, and offering free tax-preparation services.

Institutions can also collaborate with non-profit organizations such as the College and University Food Bank Alliance, Single Stop, and the Center for Working Families to help students access existing social-safety-net resources.

Changes to federal and state policies that increase access to food stamps or extend the school lunch program to college students could better support students with financial need.