Minoritized and first-generation students are the most vulnerable populations at risk of stopping out or leaving early without a degree. “How do we onboard, support, and transition students into, through and then out of the first year, and design it in a manner so every student can succeed here?” asks Drew Koch, CEO of the Gardner Institute, a nonprofit organization focused on student success.
The Gardner Institute is just one of several organizations working with state and community colleges to study and redesign the early stages of students’ academic experience. Among them include the likes of the Institute for Evidence-Based Change and the Rand Corporation. Download the full case study to learn about the various educational interventions being tested, including:
- Simplifying curricula requirements to improve student performance on major tracks
- Nurturing a more caring campus to increase a feeling of belonging for students
- Providing intensive advising during students’ first year
The pdf that can be downloaded from that page, however, does focus on rural students and rural economies. Here's an excerpt:
As the national economy continues to create jobs around the nation, one region has been left behind: rural America. For many of the 46 million Americans who live well outside major population centers, finding a job that pays a living wage qualifies as a major challenge. That number comes from a recent report on rural community colleges from the Aspen Institute’s College Excellence Program.
Outside of the boom-and-bust cycles surrounding energy fracking and tourism, rural areas have struggled to grow their economies at the same rate as the rest of the U.S. Non-metro areas have lost ground in job creation compared to urban areas each year since 2009, according to a federal report.
Bearing the brunt are workers who often live far from employment hubs and in areas that are becoming even more depopulated. Small towns and remote counties often lack the infrastructure needed to create salaried professionals; workers residing in these areas are more likely than their urban counterparts to lack the broadband capability needed to work remotely.
And many of them hold traditional notions about what constitutes work, leading them to seek jobs that no longer are in demand or that don’t pay well. Rural workers generally must survive on lower incomes than those who work in the cities or suburbs.
Around one in three people in urban areas have earned bachelor’s degrees, compared to 19 percent of rural residents. But access to a four-year degree doesn’t necessarily determine a person’s long-term career success.
“People are trying to build pathways to economic opportunity where there are fewer places to go,” says David Bevevino, director of research and knowledge management at the Aspen Institute’s College Excellence Program.
The trick to greening the economic landscape, Bevevino and others say, may lie in working with what rural America has going for it.
There are more data points, like the fact 1.5 million students attend 444 rural two-year colleges.
And here's where the action seems to come in:
Several organizations around the country, aided by seven-figure grants from Ascendium, are working to utilize close-knit local ties and strengthen rural infrastructure by linking some of those students with employers in their regions who need more skilled workers.
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Creating rural educational programs that lead to more and better job opportunities for students might eventually help two-year institutions reverse a 37 percent downturn in enrollment since 2010.
Will be interesting to see what comes of this.
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