RESUMEN

The current study uplifts the efforts of community-based college access and success programs (CAS) to support the college preparation, matriculation, and persistence of underserved students during COVID-19. Fifty-eight CAS across the United States completed an online survey that gathered information about organizational demographics, COVID-19 challenges, responses to challenges, and communication with constituents and funding needs during COVID-19. Results suggested CAS faced multiple challenges due to COVID-19 that affected the organization, staff, and constituents. Results also revealed organizations of varying sizes, locations, and demographics responded to challenges by revising existing programming for students, creating new programming for students and caretakers, and updating staff policies to meet ongoing and emergent needs despite limited resources. CAS are essential service providers for students who are under- and mis-served in formal education systems. Recommendations are provided for how such organizations can be invested in and better prepared for future disruptions.

Asunto(s)

COVID-19 , Humanos , Organizaciones , Estudiantes , Estados Unidos , Universidades

RESUMEN

Career and technical education (CTE) and college preparation curriculum in high school are often treated as mutually exclusive options rather than integrated, symbiotic tracks. However, increasingly career fields require some postsecondary education, and access to four-year college degrees are important for long-term earnings and mobility. In this two-year case study, we examined how 16 juniors enrolled in a CTE high school described and perceived their college and career aspirations. Our findings revealed that participants saw vocational and academic goals as mutually beneficial but experienced them through distinctive pathways, a disconnect amplified by a lack of resources in our sample site. While mechanisms to promote college-going existed, they were often only available to subsets of students and of limited utility. From this research, we suggest that the education system should expand dual enrollment opportunities, provide mentorship of diverse career possibilities, and begin integration between college and career planning earlier in students' schooling. Moreover, we examine the possibilities demonstrated by this case study for K-16 pathways and how postsecondary institutions can meaningfully engage with CTE schools to support this integration.

RESUMEN

This paper presents new evidence on how enrollment expansion affects higher education access and production with a focus on social inequality and institutional stratification. From 1999 to 2012, the world's largest higher education expansion happened in China that annual college enrollment dramatically increased from 1,083,600 to 6,888,300. We evaluate this exogenous, unprecedented policy using nationally representative student-level survey data and newly available confidential institution-level data. Enrollment expansion, which reduced per-student resources, negatively impacted college quality as measured by value-added on graduates' employment and earnings. The inequality in access between high- and low-SES students and the stratified production between college institutional tiers persisted during expansion.

RESUMEN

The challenges confronted by low-income high school students throughout school and across the transition to higher education and employment are well-documented in the US and many other nations. Adopting a positive youth development perspective (Lerner et al., 2005), this study reports findings from interviews with 18 low-income, racially and ethnically diverse graduates of an urban Catholic high school in the US. The interviews were designed to shed light on the post-high school experiences of urban high school graduates and to understand how students construct meaning about the value of school and work-based learning (WBL) in their preparation for meaningful work and life. The interviews highlight the perceived value of the academic and non-cognitive preparation students experienced through high school and WBL in relation to the challenges they encountered along the pathway to post-high school success and decent work. Overall, the findings suggest the potential of WBL for low-income youth in facilitating access to resources that build academic and psychological/non-cognitive assets, while also illustrating the role of structural and contextual factors in shaping post-high school transitions and access to meaningful work and life opportunities.

RESUMEN

Has access to selective postsecondary schools expanded or contracted? Evaluating this question has proven a difficult task because data are limited, particularly with regard to family income. We complement previous work and provide a replicable model of institutional analysis. This paper presents a detailed, quantitative assessment of admissions at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, an elite flagship public university-the type that is supposed to offer excellent opportunities to students from all backgrounds. We use an innovative measure of family income to compare applicant, admissions, and enrollment trends for low-income and minority students from 1972 to 2007. The unique aspects of this study include the more reliable measure of income and the ability to look at the full process from applications, admissions, and matriculations (demand and supply), not generally available in national datasets.