Martha Lamkin, president and chief executive officer of the Lumina Foundation for Education, spoke about the challenge of educating a new generation of college students—many of whom are from low-income families. Her presentation coincided with the release of a new publication, a joint project of CIC and the Lumina Foundation for Education, Powerful Partnerships: Independent Colleges Share High-impact Strategies for Low-income Students’ Success (Click here to view a report on the publication and the list of essay authors).

The following is an excerpt from her speech.

“Any successful college or university must rely equally on its academicians AND its fiscal officers. We all know that the real answers to higher education's most pressing questions are found—not atop the ivory tower, and not down on the bottom line—but somewhere between those two extremes....
    Much of what I want to discuss today comes from a new publication that celebrates the cooperative spirit on your campuses… Powerful Partnerships: Independent Colleges Share High-impact Strategies for Low-income Students' Success, Lumina Foundation's latest report.... This volume is, in essence, a partnership venture for Lumina Foundation and CIC. It is a collection of essays in which the presidents of 15 CIC institutions share the strategies they use to improve access and success among low-income students. These essays speak eloquently and forcefully about what you and your colleagues are doing to encourage and support the educational aspirations of financially strapped students....
    Your efforts on behalf of these students deserve the highest praise. Perhaps more importantly, they deserve emulation. It's not just that the programs and strategies highlighted in this new volume represent ‘the right thing to do.’ More and more, the demographic trends show us that assisting underrepresented students is ‘what we
MUST do’....
    The Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education...projects that, through 2012, more than 16 percent of public high school graduates will be from families earning $20,000 per year or less....
    Demographers also tell us that so-called ‘minority’ populations are rapidly becoming the majority…. Hispanics are expected to be the nation's fastest-growing group, representing more than one-fifth of the class of 2014.
    This growing diversity, though a positive and exciting trend, clearly presents challenges. It is certain to swell the ranks of students who need extra financial, academic, and social support to succeed in college. All of this leads to an inescapable conclusion: Despite your hard-earned successes in assisting low-income students, this is no time to relax....

    I'd like to suggest five steps that you and your institution can take as you make this important effort.

Step One: Make the Bottom Line a Top Priority

CAOs and CFOs can—and should—be partners in improving efficiency and controlling costs on their campuses.... Executives at virtually every college can take any or all of the following steps to benefit the bottom line:

• Use joint purchasing agreements; look for ways to streamline processes; forge agreements with other institutions to share facilities and programs.
• Set institutional priorities and...reallocate your resources in a disciplined way to meet those priorities.
• Make a conscious decision to limit tuition hikes so that they cover justifiable increases in direct educational expenses...
• Work with community colleges in your area to make it easier for students to transfer to your institution.

Step Two: Take a Holistic and Personal Approach

• Engage students early, working with high schools, middle schools, and families to make sure students are ready for college....
• Once students are enrolled, provide the academic and advisory support they need to succeed: tutoring, enrichment classes, mentoring programs....
• Work proactively and continually with students and their families to address financial issues.
• Foster programs and events that help students connect with, serve, and become part of a broader community.

Step Three: Get Real!

Though a college education is about more than simply getting a job, institutions can't—and shouldn't—ignore their real-world responsibilities to students. That means colleges and universities need to:

• Support work/study programs and paid internships....
• Link liberal arts courses to career options through effective career counseling, job shadowing, and other types of experiential learning

Step Four: Be What You Are, Just Be a More Intense Version

Make sure that your actions are guided by your institutional mission—and recommit yourself and your college to the passionate pursuit of that mission.

• If yours is a church-affiliated institution, rededicate yourself to your traditional
  service role.
• If you're an HBCU, renew your commitment to your core constituency.
• If your institution's purpose is rooted in the liberal arts tradition, play to that strength....

Step Five: Don't Go it Alone

   Reach out to cooperate with other entities that share your goals and can augment your efforts to assist low-income students....”

For the full text of Lamkin's address, click here

Limited copies of the book, Powerful Partnerships: Independent Colleges Share
High-impact Strategies for Low-income Students' Success, are available from CIC by calling (202) 466-7230. The book is also available on the Lumina Foundation's website, www.luminafoundation.org/publications/index.html.