By Russell Garth
Executive Vice President

Many people who matter to private colleges and universities—not only prospective students and their families but also reporters and state government officials—still think of public institutions when they think of access for low-income individuals. But I’m reading a set of draft essays, written by CIC presidents, that describe real successes in educating these students.
    Let’s remind ourselves of some numbers. NAICU’s recent “Twelve Facts That May Surprise You…” booklet, for example, reports that low-income students (from families earning less than $25,000 per year) in private institutions constitute the same percentage of undergraduate enrollment as at public institutions (16 percent). Even more significantly, low-income students in private institutions are more likely to earn a degree (54 percent in six years versus 44 percent in publics); indeed in privates, 37 percent get the degree after four years. These facts don’t actually “surprise” me…or probably you. The question is: how do independent institutions do this?
    And here is where the essays are instructive. Last fall, with support from the Lumina Foundation for Education, CIC asked member presidents whether they would like to prepare an essay describing their own successes in educating low-income students. We invited 16 of the presidents (out of 43 who responded) to set forth their institutions’ numbers and to make some assessments about the reasons for their success.
    The book containing these essays should be ready later this year, but as a teaser I’ll highlight three emerging patterns. The first, of course, is dollars. A student’s financial situation is the definitional characteristic here, and all of the colleges profiled tackle this head on—first rounding up all relevant government dollars (Pell, state need-based grants, and federal and state educational opportunity program monies) then making real institutional commitments from both tuition dollars and fundraising revenue. And several, such as Dillard University (LA), work directly with families to reach a mutual understanding of financial feasibility.

    While the essays tell similar stories about money, they offer quite different—and compelling—rationales for the second pattern—the ways in which institutions reach out to particular low-income populations and tailor programs in quite precise ways.
    Hampshire College (MA), for instance, maintains cooperative relationships with two community-based organizations 20 miles away in Springfield, MA. These organizations have successful track records in preparing young African-American males through academic skills courses and the GED program. Merrimack College (MA) also begins the process of working with students before college. Students in the English as a Second Language program at a nearby high school are accepted into an Accept the Challenge program as freshmen or sophomores. They attend after-school programs two to four days per week, and are guaranteed full four-year tuition, room, and board scholarships if accepted to Merrimack.
    Alaska Pacific University, working with Alaska Natives, has developed a distinctive curriculum, with subject matter directly relevant to their situation and a format that includes a short-term residency coupled with Internet seminars. Wilson College (PA), serving single mothers, has established an unusual on-campus residential approach, so that student-mothers can live with the children in specially designed on-campus residencies that include day and evening child care services. St. Edward’s University (TX), in creating one of the very first College Assistance Migrant Programs (CAMP), has found that partnering with parents is one key piece of the puzzle in educating first-generation students who have very close family ties. I suspect that the willingness and ability of small to mid-sized private institutions to develop these finely nuanced programs is an important institutional strength when educating populations with whom other sectors of higher education have not been as successful.
    But now, to note a third general pattern, many of these essays also attribute their successes to more basic, overall characteristics of liberal arts institutions. Several essays include a sentence such as, “Our culture at St. Edward’s encourages an individual commitment on the part of faculty and staff to serving low-income students as a part of the university’s mission. In fact, many of our faculty members ask for CAMP students in their classes.” Or, in the Southern Vermont College essay, “Of considerable relevance is the availability of individual attention for students.” Indeed, I was struck by the almost matter-of-fact assumption that faculty members and other staff would devote attention to individual students—that what may well appear to others as critically important in helping these students succeed can be counted on by these presidents as merely routine. Southern Vermont’s president framed it as connection to college and opportunity to take advantage of those connections. These institutions have a foundation already in place that is more than half-way there.

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Last updated: July 5, 2002
Copyright © 2002 The Council of Independent Colleges