#readingnotesandannotations

Fail State: The Resurgence of the For-Profit College Industry:

It’s incredibly wild to me how long for-profit institutions were able to operate under minimal detection for so long before politicians began to see a need for regulation. This is something that consistently happens in history when it comes to underrepresented and marginalized populations (i.e. the AIDS Crisis, the crack epidemic, etc.) and it makes me wonder how many people in Washington had skin in the game to keep it quiet.

A HISTORY OF FEDERAL STUDENT AID:

1 in 6 Americans has student loan debt.

48 states have need-based financial aid programs - what are the two that don’t? Why is it a state responsibility but federally supervised? But also not completely federally supervised?

only 8.2 million pell grants? Why are these so hard to get?

“Times have changed and I think our policy work has really not kept up with a lot of the changes we’ve seen.” TRUE.

1956 - first reserves fund created for funding higher education. This started us on the path to loans for college expenses instead of scholarships.

1958 - national defense education act built upon this idea of loans specifically for veterans to continue their studies. Perkins loans all came out of 1958 as campus-based aid.

1964 - work study created.

1965 - higher education act also brought loans into play along side the supplemental grant program. Meant to help more people in poverty get into higher education. so basically, white men in power destroyed a massive scholarship program and instead did a massive loan program to save money. rude. (the scholarship still happened but at a smaller scale.) Banks had to take on the burden of loaning out the money, so a complicated private/public partnership we see today was birthed from this compromise.

1972 - Sallie Mae created to help reduce some of the burden from banks as they took on the loans/warehoused them. This adds an additional complexity to the system and was used to help relieve some pressure as more and more students began taking out loans in the 70s/80s.

1978 - Middle income student assistance act removed eligibility for loans based on income. Allowing more people to use loans for college expenses. But this caused the budget deficit to rise significantly and Reagan repealed the act in 1981. 

1980 - PLUS program originates. Starts putting strain on parents to help their students pay for college by taking out loans themselves for their student’s education.

late 1980s/early 1990s - loans start defaulting at high rates, especially from for-profit institutions. Schools with high default rates were losing funding from the government.

1992 - switch from the current concept of banks actually loan the money for the government to the government loans the money directly. We saw an increase in loan limits from this and unsubsidized student loans appeared.

1993 - income-contingent repayment plans arise after students started borrowing more money since loan limits were increased and college costs were skyrocketing. This has led to the long-term repayment of student loans we see today. Obama reformed it to what we see today in 2010

Early campus partnerships set the framework for future federal aid programs as they proved things can work (work study, pell grants, etc.)

Schools would fill out something similar to the FAFSA to get funding for aid programs for students. Congress wasn’t happy with how schools were doing this so they created a basic grant program to protect institutions and have a better oversight of any new money going into schools. 

Federal government started creating incentives for states to create need-based financial aid programs. Ah, that resolves some of my questions from earlier. but, states didn’t stay committed to this concept and funding started to go down.

The Pell Grant is an incredibly useful and important resource and has been consistently changed and reimagined since it’s origin. However, the current strictness of who can receive it has been detrimental to access for those who need it.

Expected family contribution has remanence of it’s origin from Ivy League schools and it shows in how the FAFSA is designed. It really relies on the “expected family” as I have decided to call it and it fails to account for how vastly different families are. 

Overall, this has made me more confused as to why we are making all of these complex systems instead of reframing our idea of what higher education is for. Throughout recent history, higher education has been framed as a personal development and privilege, therefore a personal burden for financial coverage. But, just like k-12 education, it benefits all of society. So why make all of these complex, unnecessary systems, when we could fund it as a necessary societal program? 

2020 Student Loan Debt Statistics:

These statistics are astronomical, but incredibly reflective of the policies created/discussed in our first resource. This is what those have resulted in and I cannot believe it is beneficial for the government, the institutions, or the students to do it this way.

#RealCollege 2020: Five Years of Evidence on Campus Basic Needs Insecurity:

“This report describes the results of the #RealCollege survey administered in the fall of 2019 at 227 two- and four-year institutions across the United States. It also considers the cumulative evidence on campus basic needs insecurity amassed over five surveys from 2015 to 2019. The lessons the Hope Center has learned are drawn from over 330,000 students attending 411 colleges and universities.”

Basic Needs Insecurity was already a major issue for college students prior to 2020. I am curious as to what this data looks like post-pandemic. We reviewed similar data towards the beginning of the semester which suggests an increase in basic needs insecurity, but this runs every year so I’d be interested to see the change. I’d also be interested in seeing the change in how many students respond to the survey because I think that would also be indicative of an increased issue if result pools go down in numbers.

“Six in 10 community college students responding to the survey experienced food insecurity, housing insecurity, or homelessness during the previous year, whereas about half of four-year students did (Figure 9). Thirty-two percent of respondents from two-year institutions and 20% from four-year institutions were both food and housing insecure in the past year.”

I found this data interesting, mostly because I have a constant fear of basic needs insecurity for myself. I have overworked myself consistently throughout my education to prevent myself from getting to a place where I am threatened with homelessness or food insecurity. While it has never truly been a threat, I grew up poor and I am constantly over aware of finances and prevention. It also should not be my bottom line to avoid homelessness and hunger. That feels like what I’ve been doing, and from this data, that seems to be what all college students are doing to some degree or another. 

Being Gay at Jerry Falwell's University:

“But really, I am just gay-annoyed.”

This article was interesting because it highlights an incredibly interesting dichotomy of identity development and social expectations. While a religiously affiliated institution is far more likely to put pressure on a student developing their sexual identity, I believe we can find this at a microlevel at every institution. Identity development, especially when it comes to sexual and gender identity, can be an incredibly scary and painful process. However, this article simply did not go in the way I expected it to go when I read the title and the initial introduction which included this student’s decision to drop out.

This student found multiple areas of support, true support, at an institution one would expect to exile gay students. It helps highlight exactly how administrators, regardless of belief, can support students, and support them at institutions that may not accept the student’s identity. All of this student’s support systems could have easily turned a blind eye or isolated this student, but instead but the student first to encourage his own identity development.

Language of Appeasement:

This editorial piece targets an incredibly important piece of transforming higher education in the ways we have discussed wanting to see. The notion that diversity and inclusion efforts are the end all, be all, is wholeheartedly not true. This article discusses how equity and social justice are significantly more helpful in providing transformative change to institutional and systemic issues that are still prevalent in higher education. Ultimately, the small changes institutions are making, like hiring more faculty of color or admitting more students of color, are not only not sustainable, but not helpful in the long term. If we do not see a change to the reasons students and faculty don’t want to be at an institution, it doesn’t matter how many people you hire or admit. Turn-over and drop-out rates would actually increase because the issue still remains: we are continuing systems designed by colonization that hinge on white supremacy. Until we start focusing on equity and social justice education, we are simply confirming student’s views on the world. This has been proven through election results as the predominate group whom ushered in the era of Trump were college-educated, middle-class white men and women.

I also felt a bit of low self-efficacy reading this article. How do you fight for these changes when you’re constantly at whim of donors, prominent alumni, and boards of trustees who do not value this change? Why is that a battle faculty and staff are faced with? And will this be possible in my lifetime? Because I know so many young people with this mindset who want to do this work and ask the kind of questions Dr. Stewart provides in the differences between diversity/inclusion and equity/social justice. However, we are young. We are entry level. We are far from the ivory towers big decision makers sit in. And every day I feel that weight and that threat to the missions I have in transforming higher education. I can see this cycle repeating in some of my peers as well and so it isn’t even like a full generational thing where we can come in and sweep the floor. It shouldn’t be like pulling teeth to get people to care about others.

Justice and Equity PDF:

I won’t touch on this too much because it is an infographic that goes along with the article discussed above. However, please reference back to this for Big 4 Retreat in the fall!!! It is an incredibly helpful graphic that can break down these different ideas for your students.(It’s saved on your work computer, FYI)

Race on Campus (From The Chronicle of Higher Education):

What it Feels Like to be a Black Professor:

the notion of “twice as good” is something I’ve seen, predominately from minoritized groups. As someone with PTSD, I find myself with this mentality quite often. It’s a feeling of having to prove something to the dominant group. While I’ve heard rhetoric that I finally have a name for, around the culture of poverty, before, it has always come from dominant groups. It’s something I’ve never quite understood and when laid out like this, I still don’t understand but at least have a full view of the argument. 

The suggestion to embrace everyone as adequate ambassadors for their own fields and cultures is important. This is a big piece of my work and personal philosophy and I think it would serve everyone as useful.

The Invisible Label of Minority Professors:

Minority professors are often tasked with serving as mentors and guides to minority students as their identities help put students at ease, especially at PWIs. - This concept is called Cultural Taxation.

Cultural Taxation is exacerbated when the student population is diversified faster than the faculty population. 

Minoritized faculty members also often sit on committees and serve as DEI liaisons for the office, whether it is in their job description or not. It’s very similar to the expectation that students of color should teach their peers about racism.

How to combat this invisible workload:

1. Don’t say yes right away - have a discussion about your other priorities.

2. Make it count for them and you - involve students in learning opportunities that foster mentorship while also helping them develop.

3. Enlist the help of an ally - Have someone who can help you say no.

4. Think of the big picture - if you don’t take care of yourself, you will burnout quickly and that impacts the amount of students you can serve down the road.

5. Keep the goal in mind - remember what you’re aiming for and that you need to do things that serve you and your goals too.

When Pursuing Diversity, Victory is Hard to Define:

This section details examples of the concept discussed in Language of Appeasement. Universities respond to outcries with minor changes that truly don’t address the issues at hand.

Making Diversity Not the Work of One Office, but a Campus wide Priority:

Edit what you do to focus on DEI work. Doing a few small things well is better than doing a lot of things poorly.

When creating committees to tackle an issue, look for people who haven’t been involved before to bring in fresh ideas instead of grabbing the same few people every time. (This could also help cultural taxation.)

Promote events and successes. When people know it’s happening, they’re more likely to buy-in to the idea.

You need buy-in from the top, down. When it is an obvious intentional goal from the top, people are far more likely to join in, especially when it is an expectation set for everyone, not just a singular office.

Spread out the responsibility. When it’s everyone’s job (i.e. a council that includes people from across campus) it immediately becomes a campus wide effort.

Helping Black Men Succeed in College:

Programs specifically designed by and for black men to encourage success in college are one of the best ways to help black men persist. There are many examples of this at different universities.

A Liberal-Arts College Intervenes to Diversify Its Faculty:

Diversity advocates in the hiring process at Skidmore were trained in how to handle faculty hiring with DEI in mind. This targeted how to advertise for jobs with DEI in mind, how to tackle implicit bias in hiring, and how to make the interview environment welcoming to candidates. 

This process naturally brought in more diverse faculty and led to a cultural shift in the perception of one’s role in the hiring process.

‘A Little More Every Day’ How you can eliminate bias in your own classroom:

1. Evaluate the work, not the worker - you do no one any favors by expecting more or less dependent on the student’s identities and backgrounds.

2. Acknowledge that bias exists - if you don’t acknowledge your own biases, you can never fix them.

3. Self-assess - work through your own implicit bias.

4. Actively Listen - you aren’t always right. Listening to someone with a different opinion or view is important to understanding others.

5. Don’t expect a finish line - this is continuous, unfinished work. It’s kinda like working out, if you don’t use it, you lose it.

White Like You: The Challenge of Getting White Students to Grapple With Racial Identity:

Tackling issues of racism must also involve white students. Often we focus on teaching students of color about racial identity, but fail to teach white students the same concepts.

It’s important to push students to their learning edge, but not out of the conversation completely.

Confessions of an Ivy League Frat Boy: Inside Dartmouth’s Hazing Abuses:

First of all, I hate the description “really hot skanky cheerleader.” 

A Dartmouth Man sounds like what higher education was designed for which also makes sense considering it is an Ivy League school and they cling to tradition heavily. But still, gross.

As someone who is greek affiliated, it breaks my heart to read these stories because I was part of a very young organization (founded in 2003 as a local org, nationalized a bit later, and chartered on BSU’s campus in 2013) that had a deeply rooted idea of “hazing is bad.” All of our rituals involve verbal consent for each step in the process and not like “do you consent to drinking vinegar” like “do you consent to me giving you this wire to create a ring that fits your finger.” Touching is not a thing, and alcohol is far removed from any sorority related function. That is the culture of a greek org I understand and the fact that others experience this torment and abuse disgusts me to my core.

The backlash from the greek community for speaking out blows my mind even more because truly, why would you want to allow this to continue? Why is it okay behind closed doors and something to be pushed under the rug? Perhaps it is my own understanding of human decency, but I don’t like that my understanding doesn’t match others. People die from this. People get severely sick from this. People have lasting emotional responses from this. And it’s not always this graphic and terrible. It’s often emotional and psychological, especially within sororities. 

Alcohol’s Hold on Campus (From The Chronicle of Higher Education):

“More than 1,800 students die every year of alcohol-related causes. An additional 600,000 are injured while drunk, and nearly 100,000 become victims of alcohol-influenced sexual assaults. One in four say their academic performance has suffered from drinking, all according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.“ (page 10)

Colleges have failed to combat alcohol abuse on campuses effectively because they continue to approach the issue as though it is an individual problem that can be solved through education.

Environment - accessibility/ease of access to alcohol, leniency towards underage drinking, and traditions/organizations based in alcohol (ex. greek parties and tailgates.)

It takes a community to change the attitude around drinking and it’s hard to get the community on board. This makes me think about my time as an undergraduate intern in the Office of Admissions at BSU. I had a mom in a presentation prior to tours that asked me if BSU was “the way she remembered it.” I asked her to elaborate and she goes “Oh, you know what I mean.” Alums set certain expectations and tend to push back on cultural shifts like not being a party school anymore. 

1990s - college presidents declared alcohol abuse the greatest threat to campus life. This kicked off the need to research and understand student drinking.

The idea of getting “hard on drinking” has shown to help reduce binge drinking. However, I would like to push back that this only affects low-income students as the legal ramifications of these policies are costly and students who are heavily involved in cultures such as greek life that promote binge drinking in many ways are not actually punished in the same way.

This is also not just a campus issue but a societal issue. The United States has normalized binge drinking to an extreme. It’s expected at all holiday celebrations, in times of distress, and in times of joy. The way binge drinking is normalized within society adds to this issue in ways that we have not touched. 

The other issue is that college administrators can only do so much. They can program over high party times (ex. Late Nite.) They can push for more rigorous academics. They can provide ample educational programs around binge drinking. There’s so many things they can do, but what they can’t do is force students to do most of it. Higher education, as mentioned in an incredibly early reading in this course, is voluntary. Students put in what they get out and they can also choose whether or not to be there. This ultimately limits the reach administrators have immensely and we have to decide what is truly worth it.

A Nation of Wimps:

Overarching concept - parental protection is a good thing in moderation and hyperconcern is inhibiting development of students.

Past to Present: A Historical Look at Retention (Berger, Ramirez, and Lyons, 2012):

Context:

Students - they are at the forefront and caused a focus in retention. Prior to the last few decades of the 20th century, demand for higher education was low and not many students were seeking post-secondary degrees. However, when demand grew, the student population obviously grew and it became incredibly more diverse. To respond, colleges had to focus on retention and this became a complex, targeted issue to help retain diverse populations as higher education was built to serve rich, white, christian, cis, able bodied men. Campuses - the type of college matters in retention efforts. Private, selective institutions tend to have higher retention rates as the type of students they bring in are often the type of student higher education was designed for. On the other hand, community colleges tend to attract non-degree seeking students. Therefore, different types of schools face challenges with retention that are complex and individual to the campus itself. Educational Roles - As demand grew, so did the need for more complex roles of faculty and staff. Student affairs professionals were born from this pressure so faculty could focus on teaching and eventually specialized areas of academics and student affairs became necessary as well. Socioeconomic Conditions - Economics affects higher education trends. When the economy is good, less people enroll, and when it’s bad, more people enroll. Regardless, there has been an upward trend in the demand for a college degree which has forced people to go to college to even maintain their socioeconomic status, much less advance it. This shift in the job market has led to an increased need for students to go to college, and thus colleges must help in retaining those students. Policies and Interventions - Federal and state policies have increased access to higher education and also push institutions to retain students. Knowledge base - As demand grew, so did the need to understand retention. Thus, significant research has been done to assist retention efforts that student affairs professionals cannot ignore.

History: Prior to the 1900s, college was considered a luxury. Many of the men who attended college were not seeking degrees and were simply going to become ministers or to get into law/politics. A degree was not necessary for success in american society and prosperity was found more often in western expansion, farming, and trade jobs. Geographical barriers also prevented many from going to college as the pay-off of traveling to study was simply not there.  In the late 1800s, more students began to attend college. However, degree attainment was still not at the forefront of going. Students were often there to learn skills comparable to their fathers. Despite this, there is an increase in student interaction. The student population began to include women, not just elite men. The Morrill Land Grant Act in 1862 changed the college landscape completely as it required a higher education institution in each state that provided agriculture and engineering education. Suddenly, college is more accessible and there becomes a need for experiential learning as well. Colleges start creating programs and events for students to socialize and women’s colleges start popping up to cater to their needs. (Granted, those needs were how to be a proper lady but I digress.) The early half of the 1900s saw the early developments of retention. Institutions were remaining open and enrollment was increasing. Industrialization serves as a huge catalyst for this increase. With increase in demand, universities were suddenly able to be more selective in their admissions process as well. This allowed universities to make sure students were academically qualified and “weed out undesirables” (They mean people of color and disabled people. I know they didn’t say it but man what a polite way to say bigotry.) Institutions themselves became diverse in the students they serve as they offered different programs, religious affiliations, and populations of students. This led to a need to understand retention at different universities as the first studies about student “mortality” or their departure from institutions came about in the 1930s. However, this time period also saw the great depression and world wars 1 and 2 which led to obvious obstructions to college enrollment. Post-world war 2 was the golden age of higher ed as we saw a renewed interest in college and now an added bonus, degree attainment. With help of the G.I. Bill, veterans headed the charge to higher education. We see many acts after this such as the National Defense Education Act of 1958 and the Higher Education Act of 1965 that pushed higher education to the forefront. Suddenly, education was necessary for a better society. Degrees began to mean socioeconomic movement. However, these acts also led to an increasingly diverse student population. Higher education was not designed for people of color, veterans with potential visible and invisible disabilities, and people of varying socioeconomic backgrounds.  This led to the focus on “drop outs” in the 1960s. Retention was now a focus of institutions as degree attainment was important. However, minoritized students were dropping out at high rates. Civil unrest became common among students (looking at you, Kent State) and universities had to respond. To understand what was happening, many studies were done to understand this drop out phenomenon and ways to better support students. This is where Spady and Tinto come in.  The 1970s bring us to Astin and a need for student involvement. However, theories up until now were rather broad and not specifically focused on retention. Thus, the 1980s was the dawn of retention based theory. In the 1980s, enrollment was beginning to level out and universities wanted to continue to expand. Thus, they had to revamp their recruitment and retention efforts. Enrollment management was born from this need. We start seeing genuine change and retention efforts from the work done in the 1980s to understand retention with a diverse population of students. The 1990s brought about retention efforts to specifically retain minoritized students in effective ways focusing on social integration as opposed to academic integration.

Increasing persistence: research-based strategies for college student success Chapters 1 and 2 (Habley, Bloom, and Robbins, 2012):

Chapter 1: Defining, Refining Perspectives on Student Success:

Student’s failure to succeed in college was once considered a student’s shortcoming and has changed overtime to an institutional responsibility.

Student persistence is defined broadly as one who continues to be enrolled in an institution after matriculation. BUT people can’t agree on the standards of that. Lenning (1978) defines it as one who is continuously enrolled without interruption (i.e. dropping out). Astin (1975) also includes full-time status and degree seeking in his definition. Guthrie (2002) also added expected graduation within 2-4 years. (Odd considering the average student graduates in more than 4 years?)

The definitions of student persistence leave out a LOT of the student population. Part-time students account for approximately 38% of the student population and aren’t considered “persisters.” Transfer students don’t count in persistence. There are also “stopout” students who take a break from their degree and come back. “Stopout” students are different from “dropout” as they come back to complete their degree. This is hard to measure as breaks can be long or short periods of time. There is also “swirling” in which a student completes a degree while enrolled at two or more institutions simultaneously. When I first read this I was confused as to why anyone would do this, but then I consider how many people I knew who would take summer classes at Ivy Tech that transferred back to BSU to save money and complete their degree faster. However, because it is not consistent full time enrollment at only one institution, they don’t count in student persistence.

Students drop out for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it is academic rigor and the student was simply not prepared or had a sound reason to be at the institution. However, life also gets in the way. These students have been negatively described in literature for a long time and blame was placed on the student. (see shift in responsibility of retention above.) There is one positive descriptor: attainer. These students enroll, achieve a goal or get what they need out of higher ed, and then move on with their lives.

Retention is an institutional term, not a student term. It is a rate or percentage of students who return from one enrollment period to another. It is incredibly hard to determine and define retention as there are so many types of students persisting in different ways. How do you genuinely measure it? How do you decide which students are considered ‘retained’?

Cohort - full-time, first-time, degree/certificate seeking, who enter college during the fall term and are enrolled in courses creditable towards their degree/certificate/diploma. 

Graduation, completion, and persistence are interchangeable by institutions when discussing degree attainment. (BRUH WHY. THOSE WORDS MEAN DIFFERENT THINGS.) AND YET TRANSFER, SWIRL, AND STOPOUT STUDENTS AREN’T CONSIDERED IN THIS GROUP.

Students who do not progress in their degree at the same rate as their cohort are at risk of dropping out.

Chapter 2: Overview of Theoretical Perspectives on Student Success:

Astin’s Student Involvement Theory is useful in understanding the role of the institution in student success. 

Tinto’s interactionalist theory help us understand the role an institution plays in social and academic integration.

Kuh’s theory of student engagement helps us understand the role a student plays in their own success and how opportunity at an institution plays a role in this.

Spady’s model for college student dropout - 5 factors: academic potential, normative congruence, grade performance, intellectual development, and friendship support. In his empirical studies, Spady found academic potential to be the dominating factor in men and women. 

Bean and Eaton’s model of approach/avoidance - 4 psychological perspectives that lead to academic and social integration: positive self-efficacy, handling stress, increasing efficacy, and internal locus of control. When applied, these perspectives shape a student’s perception of college and university life. 

Bean’s Model of Student Departure explains the factors that contribute to student attrition. 

Becker’s human capital theory suggests students weigh the costs and benefits of continuing enrollment which affects retention.

Kuh and Love’s 8 cultural perspectives (on page 15-16 of this document and page 25-26 in the actual book) help explain the different cultural beliefs students may have related to student departure.

Habley’s retention model is on page 17 of this document and page 29 of the actual book.

Diversity and Inclusion on campus - Chapter 8 (Winkle-Wagner and Locks, 2014):

POC and women are more likely to leave postsecondary education than white people and men.

Retention rates have not changed much over the last 20 years despite studies and practical efforts.

Students from high income families are 3x more likely to complete a degree than students from low income families.

Tinto’s theory lacks diverse perspectives in empirical data and has been subject to criticism (Shocker.)

There are 3 areas that affect student persistence and empirical data seems to study each one individually. Those are student background; student adjustment, integration, and engagement; and institutional and structural influences.

Student backgrounds - families are crucial to students, especially BIPOC students. Tinto’s original theory did not account for this and suggested disconnection/disassociation with former culture/social circle to fully integrate into campus life. Several scholars have asserted that keeping BIPOC students connected to family is integral in persistence and degree attainment.

Student adjustment, integration, and engagement - student involvement does greatly improve success/persistence. Therefore, getting involved on campus helps retention. However, the models that surround this idea and the general concept of it fails to consider how minoritized students experience campus differently. This perspective places full responsibility on the student when not coupled with other areas. Meanwhile, students may feel isolated and limited due to being underrepresented on campus. These involvements could also have a pay wall that doesn’t allow students to get involved (Greek life is a great example.)

Institutional and structural influences - different institutions attract different students. The type of institution a student is at partially dictates their ability to succeed. (See first reading on this RNA for a more in depth description of how this plays out.) The resources offered to students affects student persistence as well. The campus climate also affects students. BIPOC students at a PWI will have a significantly harder time integrating into the campus climate than if they were at an HBCU, HSI, or even a tribal college. When an institution wasn’t built for a student, the student struggles. 

The foundations we built our understanding of retention on did not take into consideration minoritized students. Therefore, the retention efforts we have put forth were not in the best interest of minoritized students. This helps explain why retention rates have not seen drastic change despite studies and efforts to help. We’re still designing systems and practices that are centered around the people higher education was originally designed for. We HAVE to switch gears to center our minoritized students if we want to see genuine change in retention.

A STRONGER NATION: Learning beyond high school builds American talent:

You can reference back to this to see how degree attainment trends are changing. We’ve seen a steady climb but are currently sitting at 51.3% attainment. 

This varies by state and there’s an updated infographic to show you how each state is doing with degree attainment. They also break info down by educational levels and race. Currently, Hispanic students have the lowest percentage of attainment at 24.5% compared to Asian students (the highest) at 63.8%. White students are interestingly sitting at second highest which is 47.9%.

Sex on Campus: She Can Play That Game, Too:

Hook-up culture is an incredibly tricky subject as it can be both liberating and degrading in context. This article goes in depth to describe this interesting dichotomy and discusses things such as the workload of college, the death of a Mrs. Degree, and rape. However, I just want to type my feelings on this so that’s what I’m going to do.

As someone who entered college in a long-term relationship and experienced the rockiness of that, I have thoughts. My partner and I broke up twice, once in my first semester of college, and once again at the beginning of my sophomore year. We found our way back to each other both times through growth and some unhealthy levels of co-dependency (I’m looking at you, freshman year me.). And quite frankly, maintaining a relationship throughout college was a struggle. It is still a struggle in grad school and I have lived with him for 2 years. I often feel like I’m in a long distance relationship with my partner due to all of the commitments I have made because I, like many other women, heard all of this talk about putting your career first. You make decisions for yourself and a partner will fall into place when the time is right. While that worked out for me, it simply did not work out for most women. I am not saying women should change their ambition or focus because yes, get your degree, join clubs, become a leader. But relationships do require time and energy and they can in fact wait. In this, I can see the value in hook-up culture and I can see exactly why women make this choice. “It’s like taking a 4 credit hour class.”

However, I do also see how this culture can be damaging. People lose their virginity before they’re ready. The expectation of hook-ups does lead to sexual assault and rape. Perhaps if we found a way to change the perception of work and busyness, the pressure to push relationships to the wayside would not be as apparent. That requires tackling systems that enforce over-productivity, however, and while we’re getting to that collective realization, we aren’t quite there. I’m not saying it’ll stop rape and sexual assault, but it’ll help change the narrative. Also, can we stop teaching people how to not get raped and start teaching people that they shouldn’t rape? That’d be cool.

Title IX Sexual Assault Investigations:

This is interesting and I want you to reference this at different points in time to see how it changes. Oh wait, they aren’t providing updates anymore unless they want to.  Also, I’m cynical when it comes to sexual assault data so how many of these were ‘resolved’ due to insufficient evidence or in a way that didn’t bring justice? Also, F*ck Betsy DeVos.

Student Mental Health Issues on Today’s Campuses (Schwitzer and Van Brunt, 2015):

Students today are increasingly struggling with mental health issues and college counsellors are in higher demand than ever. This can be due to a predisposition or biological reasoning for mental illness. It can also be due to pre-college factors such as trauma, social life, family, etc. There are also crisis’ in college that can stimulate this issue such as the transition to college, social factors, and the stress of college.

Alcohol and substance abuse are consistently a leading mental health issues with college students.

Anxiety and depression are also a leading mental health issue.

Students also suffer from dating violence and sexual assault at increased rates.

Eating disorders are common as well, more so in women than men.

Learning disabilities and ADHD also lead to issues inside and outside of the classroom than can contribute to mental health issues.

Fifty Years of College Choice: Social, Political and Institutional Influences on the Decision-making Process (Hossler et. al., 2004):

The history of college decision making has been transformative. Prior to the 1950′s, fewer than 2 out of 10 high school graduates went to college (Hossler et. al., 2004). However, higher education quickly became a public policy agenda item and that led to many pieces of legislation (like the GI Bill) and Supreme Court rulings (Brown v. Board) that started to expand education. Women and people of color started applying and enrolling to institutions in record numbers. Due to this shift, there was also an increased complexity of choosing an institution. There were not uniform deadlines for institutions and the process was not streamlined. In response, universities had to adjust to a more uniform process. In a short amount of time (by the 1960s) we began to see more than half of high school graduates going to college. This trend has continued and still has not plateaued as of today. 

There were many factors in the increase of enrollment as well as the complexity of choosing an institution. 

In the 1940s and 50s we still saw a fairly simple model with a limited set of options due to deadlines, geographical location, and as the college going population at this time was still predominately white, Christian, men, religious affiliation and pristine. However, the college going population began increasing (as discussed above) and standardization of admissions began in these decades to help streamline the process. 

In the 1960s, we saw the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Higher Education act of 1965 that started bringing people of color to higher education in record numbers. The issue for higher education in this decade was more about the schools students were choosing. Many students were choosing to attend 2-year regional institutions so 4-year institutions expanded their marketing strategies to increase enrollment due to the competitive environment that emerged from the increase in college choice complexity. 

Then, in the 1970s and 80s, this marketing information had finally disseminated into almost every high school student’s life. The college choice process was beginning even earlier due to the increase of access to information. Society also saw a shift in understanding higher education. It was no longer about how it benefitted the individual, but how being educated benefitted society. Public policy reflected this shift in perception. However, high school graduation stats were down so institutions had to increase their marketing yet again to recruit, enroll, and retain students. 

In the 1990s, we start to see an issue that still affects the college choice today: money. The price of college went up and so did the need for financial aid. This added another layer to choosing an institution as affordability was a big deal and students/families started “shopping” for colleges. They would try to find the best deal, best scholarship opportunity, etc. This is also when early-enrollment began and students began to feel extra pressure to make a decision early. The process became significantly more emotionally taxing as they felt the need to find the best deal, best fit, and do it quickly.

The issues: Marketing strategies used by universities as well as the financial aid switch to loans over grants disadvantages first-gen and low-income students. Marketing and competitive forces that come from the increased complexity of college decision making has also made it incredibly hard for professional organizations to standardize and coordinate policy and practice which has led us to where we are with higher education today. Basically capitalism is ruining higher education.

Transition to College (Renn, 2013):

I’m not sure I agree with the notion that quality of high school coursework and student performance in those courses is the best predictor of student success in college. If a student is engaged in this material and the grades reflect true performance, then I would say absolutely. However, as someone who (despite how long ago it feels) recently graduated high school, there is a competitive nature around college admissions that has led to a lot of academic dishonesty. Students can look fantastic on paper, but that work is not truly theirs. I am by no means saying that every 4.0 student cheats, but competitive admissions has led to an increase of it for sure.

Weidman (who defined socialization) contends that socialization is an ongoing process throughout undergrad.

First Year Experience Movement - originated in the 1970s at the University of South Carolina. A group of students convinced administration to implement a first year seminar to help students transition to college.

First Year Experience now encompasses everything from the initial contact of a student as a prospective student, matriculation, and their first year on campus. This includes several interventions meant to assist the socialization and transition of students.

INTERVENTIONS:

Orientation: meant to improve likelihood of academic success, assist in social adjustments, foster connections to students/campus, and provide information about the college experience to students and family members.

Summer Bridge Programs: meant to acclimate students to college climate prior to the start of the year. Leads to higher likelihood to return to campus the next year and students who participate show higher levels of involvement in campus life.

Living - Learning Communities: meant to increase academic performance, foster stronger connections to peers/institution, and increase persistence in college. Uses programmatic intervention through hall events, study areas, and academic support.

Learning Communities - kinda like LLCs but does not require a residential component. Helps include students not living in a residence hall in the same programmatic interventions described above.

First-year seminars: meant to increase sense of community, produce a positive perception in the quality of academic advising, and increase likelihood that students will educationally beneficial experiences in their first year. These can look very different and vary based on student need, but almost always for academic credit and is used to acclimate students in some way (such as resource connections, tutoring, time management, etc.)

Transfer students have their own set of unique issues that affect their transition as they transition to a specific institution and then must acclimate to another after already beginning a process. Transfer interventions must be specifically targeted to this population to ensure success.

National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition:

Autoethnography (Chang, 2008):

People have used their lived experience in scientific research for a long time. Whether anthropologists have used memoirs in their research, documented the lived experience behind their research, or conducted research on populations/communities they are tied to, people find the most meaningful conclusions when they can relate information to their lives and synthesize it.

An Autoethnography specifically is  “Cultural analysis and interpretation with narrative details” (Chang, 2008, P. 46). In this context, this means that an autoethnography is a collection of narratives sewn together to help demonstrate analyzed and interpreted concepts found in a specific sociocultural context. This approach to research assists in guiding people toward an area of study and helps guide readers through an otherwise potentially daunting piece of academic literature.

Our autoethnographies for this course have already been given a specific pathway: persistence. However, our narratives are assisting us in constructing the foundation for our research. How do our experiences relate to theory on development and persistence? What themes are present in our persistence and what does the literature say to support how we progressed through our undergraduate experience?

Heartful Autoethnography (Ellis, 1999):

This example of an autoethnography assists in guiding students through the trials of qualitative research using an autoethnographically centered approach. Ellis is able to do so within her own narrative of guiding a previous student through the process of writing an autoethnography. Ellis makes incredibly important points about the value in personal experience and the inability to avoid bias in research. The idea of bias or personal experience becoming important is a theme I’ve seen quite often recently. In our theories course, we have also discussed how important it is for us to recognize WHO theorists were/are and what positions they are in. For example, Chickering’s 7 vectors can tell us a great amount about who Chickering was as his choice of subject, findings, and writings all reflect his own position in life. 

I also appreciate the discussion this text has about ethics and the vulnerability one must take to engage in this type of research, either as a participant or a facilitator. Our narratives are intertwined with other people’s and we must find the lines they are willing to tow as well. We also must be open for disagreement and alternative interpretations of our work. If we are telling someone else’s story, our analysis may not align with theirs and we must listen to them as well. Within our own story, we must be open to the fact that readers may take something else away from those narratives. 

College Students in the United States: Characteristics, Experiences, and Outcomes (Renn, 2013):

The United States has seen a continuous increase in higher education enrollment since the 1970s. With this increase in enrollment, the makeup of college populations has grown increasingly more diverse as well. This growth is not created equal, however, as different types of institutions are seeing different levels of increase in enrollment. Private 2 to 4 year institutions saw a 44% increase in enrollment from 2000 to 2008 whereas their public counterparts only saw a 19% increase (Renn, 2013, P. 6). Even looking at the differences between two and four year institutions, four year institutions are seeing a higher rate of growth. These trends are all expected to continue.

Students of color enrolling in higher education is also increasing. Hispanic, Native, Pacific Islander, and Black students have enrolled in institutions in record breaking numbers. (The table on Page 8 of this reading shows exponential enrollment growth from 1976-2008).

Women became the majority of college populations and have remained the “stable majority” since the 1970s (Renn, 2013, P.10)

International students saw a decline in enrollment post-9/11 but has seen the beginning of an increase. Interestingly, international students make up 1.6% of the undergraduate population but 10.5% of the graduate student population as of 2009 (Renn, 2013, P. 10).

LGBT+ populations of students is incredibly hard to track as their data is not part of a census or a legitimate set of questions to ask about student identities. (It’s quite literally illegal.) However, formal and voluntary studies do show that LGBT+ populations have also grown on campuses.

Other notable changes to the student population include an increase in differences between socioeconomic statuses of students, more adult (non-traditional) students (many of whom have veteran status as well), and an increase in students with disabilities. First-gen students are also contributing to some interesting enrollment patterns as they often begin their higher education career at 2 year institutions and then transfer to 4 year institutions to complete their degrees.

The Chronicle of Higher Education Almanac 2020-2021 (Student Section):

Enrollment numbers are consistently going up and schools are becoming more selective. However, the most selective schools have an incredibly high acceptance to enrollment rate meaning that these are student’s top choices in institutions.

Students are also transferring often, leading to private institutions having close to a 50 percent enrollment of transfer students in fall of 2018.

Students are seeing an increase in financial aid given in a year, however, the cost of tuition has gone up so students also have seen a need for higher loan amounts as well.

Less than half of Pell Grant applicants are receiving pell grants? Bruh, what?

Diversity of students is increasing but I find it interesting the chart on page 35 only shows students who hold a minority status. How does that breakdown compare to students who do not hold a minority status at different institutions? How do these identities intersect?

Traditional age students are still the highest enrolled but at for-profit-four-year institutions specifically, more than 50 percent of students enrolled were 30 years of age or older.

Teaching the Students We Have, Not the Students We Wish We Had:

“Today’s college students are the most overburdened and undersupported in American history.” READ IT AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN.

There is constant talk about how engagement in students is low. They aren’t as engaged in the classroom or co-curricular activities. Due to COVID, this is even more true than when the article is written. Too often instead of asking why, we blame a lack of self-authorship and move on because higher education is voluntary. The mindset prior has always seemed to be that if a student doesn’t want to put in the effort, they are getting whatever they pay for and put forth.