I'm a big fan of the Center for Student Opportunity, a nonprofit organization with a mission to promote college access and opportunity among first-generation and historically underserved student populations. They've produced a very fine guidebook of colleges that focuses on information particularly appropriate to these students, including what support is offered, scholarships and so on. It also has essays and tips from experts in the front. I saw the first edition last year at NACAC and bought ten copies on the spot to give to the charter school counselors I've been working with over the past two years.
CSO has also created a strong website called College Center that lets students search for college access programs, ask experts questions about the college process and search for colleges offering advising, mentoring, transition programs, and so on. I expect them to continue adding to the list as they go on.
Colleges can find out how to partner with CSO to reach underserved students by clicking here. With a contribution to CSO (based on Carnegie Classification), institutions can not only reach individual students but also community organizations. Everybody wins.
CSO's most recent addition is a blog section where ten students from minority, low-income, and first-generation backgrounds are sharing their stories or high school and college. The initial entries have the energy of a new project, projecting optimism and immediacy. Although there are only a few from each student so far, I hope they continue to record their thoughts and experiences for the benefit of their peers about to go through the process themselves.
Their situations reflect the concerns that many first-generation students have, such as having to be an example for their younger siblings and communities. They are also poignant in their forthrightness--one student blogger talks about how she discovered she was pregnant while she was applying to colleges. This forthrightness can help students who think that personal circumstances make it impossible to think about continuing their educations. (They blog as part of their having become Opportunity Scholars--see below.)
If you are a counselor or community volunteer who works with first-generation, low-income, and otherwise underserved students, the Center for Student Opportunity can be a great help. Not only does the website have excellent resources, there is also a page where you can download free guides for helping high school students, parents/families, and others. Students also have the opportunity to be nominated as Opportunity Scholars; if selected, they receive college counseling support from a network of volunteer counselors as well as a chance for a $1,000.00 renewable scholarship in college.
If you are a college and want to expand your outreach to underrepresented students, be sure to look at CSO's Colleges Partnership Program.
There's plenty more to explore on the site, and I expect it just to get better and better as more and more individuals and institutions connect to it. It is a welcome and necessary resource for the students we serve.
Showing posts with label underserved students. Show all posts
Showing posts with label underserved students. Show all posts
Friday, October 30, 2009
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Never Assume
A remarkable story appeared in the Chicago Tribune last Sunday. It's about a remarkable young man named Derrius Quarles and his determination to get somewhere and be somebody. A foster child whose father was stabbed to death when Derrius was four and whose mother struggled with drugs, he had the strength of character to overcome the vagaries of his life and end up winning scholarships to excellent colleges all over the country, including Morehouse, where he now attends.
Derrius's outlook can be summed up here: "You can't go around thinking you are inferior just because you didn't have parents," he says. "For me, it's about knowing where you are from and accepting it, but more important, knowing where you are going."
At 17, he was living on his own, keeping himself together and focusing on the future. He budgeted his money and when he did the grocery shopping he avoided junk food in favor of fruits and vegetables. He never took his eyes off his goal.
Derrius was fortunate to have someone see his potential. As often happens and as studies have shown, sometimes just one person can have an immense effect on a young person. For Derrius, that person was his summer biology teacher, Nivedita Nutakki, who told him he shouldn't waste his talent. Arriving as a freshman with a 2.5 GPA at Kenwood Academy, Derrius was taking three AP classes and earning a 3.6 by his junior year.
In the middle of this amazing story is a passage that made me angry: "Even his oversize ambition couldn't get Quarles past one roadblock. He dreamed of attending Harvard, until one college adviser told him his 28 ACT score was simply not high enough. He abandoned his plans."
Regardless of whether Harvard or Morehouse (or any other institution) would be the best for him, no college adviser should have told him not to bother applying to Harvard or anywhere else. It is not for that person to say. I always tell students that it is their right and privilege to apply wherever they want so long as they understand clearly what the odds are. In this case, it's a shame that someone assumed Derrius wouldn't get into Harvard on the basis of that score. And it's almost criminal that Derrius was convinced to abandon his plans as a result. Any college adviser who thinks he or she can or should make that determination suffers from a bad case of hubris.
The truth is, we cannot know what the future holds for our advisees. We don't know what colleges and universities will decide, even though we can come up with some pretty accurate guesses if we've had enough experience. We don't know how or when a student will suddenly "take off" and make us proud. But all you have to do is read Derrius's story to know that no matter where he went he'd make good, and that as a result the test scores say very little about him (and even so, they are miles above the average scores of someone from his background).
Again, I'm not saying Derrius should have gone to Harvard or anywhere else or that he's deprived as a result--clearly not. But no one should have told him it wasn't possible. Anything is possible, as this young man has already shown. While we may think we know a lot, the future always confounds us and we should always be humble in its presence.
Edit, Oct. 23: I was so taken with the story that I forgot I had met Derrius through Scholarship Chicago, a program that provides help and mentorship throughout the college process and in college as well as financial assistance during college. When I met him he had already received several admission offers from colleges and was racking up scholarships. I would never have guessed at the hurdles he was going through he was so poised, confident, and focused.
Derrius's outlook can be summed up here: "You can't go around thinking you are inferior just because you didn't have parents," he says. "For me, it's about knowing where you are from and accepting it, but more important, knowing where you are going."
At 17, he was living on his own, keeping himself together and focusing on the future. He budgeted his money and when he did the grocery shopping he avoided junk food in favor of fruits and vegetables. He never took his eyes off his goal.
Derrius was fortunate to have someone see his potential. As often happens and as studies have shown, sometimes just one person can have an immense effect on a young person. For Derrius, that person was his summer biology teacher, Nivedita Nutakki, who told him he shouldn't waste his talent. Arriving as a freshman with a 2.5 GPA at Kenwood Academy, Derrius was taking three AP classes and earning a 3.6 by his junior year.
In the middle of this amazing story is a passage that made me angry: "Even his oversize ambition couldn't get Quarles past one roadblock. He dreamed of attending Harvard, until one college adviser told him his 28 ACT score was simply not high enough. He abandoned his plans."
Regardless of whether Harvard or Morehouse (or any other institution) would be the best for him, no college adviser should have told him not to bother applying to Harvard or anywhere else. It is not for that person to say. I always tell students that it is their right and privilege to apply wherever they want so long as they understand clearly what the odds are. In this case, it's a shame that someone assumed Derrius wouldn't get into Harvard on the basis of that score. And it's almost criminal that Derrius was convinced to abandon his plans as a result. Any college adviser who thinks he or she can or should make that determination suffers from a bad case of hubris.
The truth is, we cannot know what the future holds for our advisees. We don't know what colleges and universities will decide, even though we can come up with some pretty accurate guesses if we've had enough experience. We don't know how or when a student will suddenly "take off" and make us proud. But all you have to do is read Derrius's story to know that no matter where he went he'd make good, and that as a result the test scores say very little about him (and even so, they are miles above the average scores of someone from his background).
Again, I'm not saying Derrius should have gone to Harvard or anywhere else or that he's deprived as a result--clearly not. But no one should have told him it wasn't possible. Anything is possible, as this young man has already shown. While we may think we know a lot, the future always confounds us and we should always be humble in its presence.
Edit, Oct. 23: I was so taken with the story that I forgot I had met Derrius through Scholarship Chicago, a program that provides help and mentorship throughout the college process and in college as well as financial assistance during college. When I met him he had already received several admission offers from colleges and was racking up scholarships. I would never have guessed at the hurdles he was going through he was so poised, confident, and focused.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Back to the Future
Those of us who applied to college thirty or so years ago seem mostly to have tossed out a few applications, taken the SAT or ACT once, and then gotten on with the rest of our high school lives. We waited and hoped for the best. Some of us were lucky enough to have a counselor who casually mentioned a college or two we'd never heard of and encouraged us to apply, which we did. That was certainly my experience. Mr. Boulhouwer, counselor at West Morris Regional H.S. in Chester NJ is responsible for my applying to and eventually attending Amherst College in Amherst MA. He suggested I try a "liberal arts" college. After explaining to me what that was, he tossed out Amherst and I said I'd give it a shot. The rest, as they say, is history. (To this day I'm convinced that I didn't even know Amherst was all-male until I got there; I probably would have been a Williams alum if he'd said "Williams" instead.)
I've joked with any number of adults of about my age who have similar stories about how they got to their alma maters: the chance remark, the off-hand suggestion by a math teacher, or the casual observation by a respected neighbor or relative. There was no strategizing, no long-term planning, no multiple testing, no weighing the pros and cons of every school. At some level, we knew we'd be fine anywhere we went and we trusted that the schools would make good decisions (although not necessarily the ones we wanted). Once the applications were done we went about our business. And in fact we did turn out pretty well, most of us.
Having made the transition from working with the uber-strategic to the underserved, I've discovered many similarities between the latter and my generation of college-goers. Low-income and first generation students interested in going to college tend to be hard workers fully involved in their schools and communities, out of choice and necessity. They're not strategizers, they're young people who hope their talents and experiences will be enough to get them admitted to college; that is to say, they haven't been good students and participants in order to get into college, they're going to get into college because they're good students and participants. They're not multi-testers trying to break 2200, they're test takers because they have to be, and let it go at that. Most of them can't afford, literally or figuratively, to spend hours and hours parsing essay questions; they've got real things to do.
In these ways and others, I'm finding that the low-income and first-generation students I work with are very much like we were many years ago when it comes to college admission. Without romanticizing too much, I'd say that they have an authenticity that colleges and universities say they want, an openness to and desire for new experiences that can make them exceptional students in any classroom. Yes, many of them are rough around the edges and many have gone through things we wouldn't wish on anyone, but they have a resilience and even an optimism that make them wonderful to work with. They believe that college is going to help them live better lives and learn important things; they are honored to be chosen and pleased to have the opportunities to advance; they are grateful to be able to fulfill their hopes and dreams and those of their families. They don't see college acceptance as a right or a mark of innate privilege; they see it as the result of hard work and determination. And they're willing to bring these qualities to campus.
For these students, applying to college is an adjunct to their lives, not their purpose in life, as it seems to be for so many of their overprivileged peers. And in that way, they avoid the largely self-created stress we hear way too much about. Their lives are their own and if a college accepts them, that's great; if not, they'll try again. It makes me hopeful for the future.
I've joked with any number of adults of about my age who have similar stories about how they got to their alma maters: the chance remark, the off-hand suggestion by a math teacher, or the casual observation by a respected neighbor or relative. There was no strategizing, no long-term planning, no multiple testing, no weighing the pros and cons of every school. At some level, we knew we'd be fine anywhere we went and we trusted that the schools would make good decisions (although not necessarily the ones we wanted). Once the applications were done we went about our business. And in fact we did turn out pretty well, most of us.
Having made the transition from working with the uber-strategic to the underserved, I've discovered many similarities between the latter and my generation of college-goers. Low-income and first generation students interested in going to college tend to be hard workers fully involved in their schools and communities, out of choice and necessity. They're not strategizers, they're young people who hope their talents and experiences will be enough to get them admitted to college; that is to say, they haven't been good students and participants in order to get into college, they're going to get into college because they're good students and participants. They're not multi-testers trying to break 2200, they're test takers because they have to be, and let it go at that. Most of them can't afford, literally or figuratively, to spend hours and hours parsing essay questions; they've got real things to do.
In these ways and others, I'm finding that the low-income and first-generation students I work with are very much like we were many years ago when it comes to college admission. Without romanticizing too much, I'd say that they have an authenticity that colleges and universities say they want, an openness to and desire for new experiences that can make them exceptional students in any classroom. Yes, many of them are rough around the edges and many have gone through things we wouldn't wish on anyone, but they have a resilience and even an optimism that make them wonderful to work with. They believe that college is going to help them live better lives and learn important things; they are honored to be chosen and pleased to have the opportunities to advance; they are grateful to be able to fulfill their hopes and dreams and those of their families. They don't see college acceptance as a right or a mark of innate privilege; they see it as the result of hard work and determination. And they're willing to bring these qualities to campus.
For these students, applying to college is an adjunct to their lives, not their purpose in life, as it seems to be for so many of their overprivileged peers. And in that way, they avoid the largely self-created stress we hear way too much about. Their lives are their own and if a college accepts them, that's great; if not, they'll try again. It makes me hopeful for the future.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Fizzy Aspirations & Constipated Dreams
I've just returned from an informal session with some students participating in a mentoring program sponsored and run by 100 Black Men of Chicago. They work with African American high school boys on topics from academics to health; I was asked to do a college presentation and work individually with some of their seniors. And I have to say how inspired I am after that session.
About ten students were there (including one girl, the sister of one of the boys), with six seniors and the rest from other classes. The seniors by and large had actually done most of their applications and some had even heard back from the colleges they had applied to! I was pleasantly surprised to learn that they'd really done their homework. The biggest issue I ended up illuminating for them was college costs: Most said they'd been told by their teachers that going out of state for college would cost them more than staying in state. I quickly put that myth to rest and did an impromptu college financial aid presentation, which visibly relieved not only the students but also the mentors.
The range of aspiration varied but I could tell that with enough lead time any one of the boys there could probably do well enough in high school to attend a decent college. The most prepared had actually visited Pepperdine, and knew a great deal about the process. But all the seniors except one had at least put in an application. And they seemed not to be very stressed about it.
The other concept I wish I'd had more time to talk about is "fit." The sister who was there said she'd gotten several full ride scholarship offers as well as some partial scholarships. I said that was great but that she should be sure to go to a school that met her needs, not just one that was free. I think she took that to heart because I saw her writing information down and going through the "compare colleges" pages of the College Board site that I'd steered her to.
One reason I'm so inspired by this Saturday morning meeting is that it was good to see kids and their mentors focused on college and trying to make a difference in their lives. I was impressed by the men in the room and felt that they were putting a lot of themselves out there for the good of the next generation. I confess that I don't see middle class and prosperous African American adult males in groups very often, so I was humbled and full of admiration at the same time. I realized how provincial I am despite my best intentions, but I was greeted and thanked warmly, given plenty of time to do my presentation and share in the men's desire to do something right with and for these boys.
Another reason for my excitement is the wonderful contrast between working with this group and working with the families of my former employer. The freshness and eagerness of the African American boys I saw today stood in such contrast to the constipated dreams of the parents I once worked with. These were parents for whom having to go to Tufts instead of Brown was a major tragedy; for whom not getting into a "name" school was simply "unacceptable" and a failure (of mine, not their child's); for whom any little twig of advantage had to be grabbed to give someone already supremely privileged another "edge" into Valhalla.
It's such a relief to be out of that niggardly, grasping, contentious, and status-anxious world. It feels so immensely better to be devoting my time and talents to students and parents who can really use my help and who actually appreciate it, who believe that hard work really does matter, not just who you know or how you construct yourself according to some nasty "How to Get Into College Book." I think that the kids I work with now are more authentic and actually more desirable in many ways, despite academic lacunae, and that with the right support an inspiration early enough they could do just as well as the overbred scions of the crafty elite. Let's not forget that George Bush drank and C'd his way through Yale; I'd put up any of the kids I've met in the last year against him and feel confident they could do better at running a country, never mind four years in college.
I haven't looked back at my former school with anything much more than pity since I left (not voluntarily but willingly). The endless agonizing over iotas of meaning in instructions and points on tests, the ceaseless strategizing that finally erodes any traces of interesting character traits, the fierce determination to "win" at any cost, and the sad Bataan death march that is high school for these students, even one that purports to give them so much (that's another story), left me feeling sorry for them and pity for their parents. But in the end there was no real help for them--they all wanted what they wanted and refused to accept less than that, despite the fact that they received more than they deserved in the first place. I'm glad to be with kids and adults who see the world head on and are willing to take it as it comes, rather than always trying to find a way around it; I'm glad to see the spark in a young African American boy's face when you tell him he can indeed go to college. I live for that now and feel like it's what I should have been doing before.
It takes time to learn these things--but better late than never.
About ten students were there (including one girl, the sister of one of the boys), with six seniors and the rest from other classes. The seniors by and large had actually done most of their applications and some had even heard back from the colleges they had applied to! I was pleasantly surprised to learn that they'd really done their homework. The biggest issue I ended up illuminating for them was college costs: Most said they'd been told by their teachers that going out of state for college would cost them more than staying in state. I quickly put that myth to rest and did an impromptu college financial aid presentation, which visibly relieved not only the students but also the mentors.
The range of aspiration varied but I could tell that with enough lead time any one of the boys there could probably do well enough in high school to attend a decent college. The most prepared had actually visited Pepperdine, and knew a great deal about the process. But all the seniors except one had at least put in an application. And they seemed not to be very stressed about it.
The other concept I wish I'd had more time to talk about is "fit." The sister who was there said she'd gotten several full ride scholarship offers as well as some partial scholarships. I said that was great but that she should be sure to go to a school that met her needs, not just one that was free. I think she took that to heart because I saw her writing information down and going through the "compare colleges" pages of the College Board site that I'd steered her to.
One reason I'm so inspired by this Saturday morning meeting is that it was good to see kids and their mentors focused on college and trying to make a difference in their lives. I was impressed by the men in the room and felt that they were putting a lot of themselves out there for the good of the next generation. I confess that I don't see middle class and prosperous African American adult males in groups very often, so I was humbled and full of admiration at the same time. I realized how provincial I am despite my best intentions, but I was greeted and thanked warmly, given plenty of time to do my presentation and share in the men's desire to do something right with and for these boys.
Another reason for my excitement is the wonderful contrast between working with this group and working with the families of my former employer. The freshness and eagerness of the African American boys I saw today stood in such contrast to the constipated dreams of the parents I once worked with. These were parents for whom having to go to Tufts instead of Brown was a major tragedy; for whom not getting into a "name" school was simply "unacceptable" and a failure (of mine, not their child's); for whom any little twig of advantage had to be grabbed to give someone already supremely privileged another "edge" into Valhalla.
It's such a relief to be out of that niggardly, grasping, contentious, and status-anxious world. It feels so immensely better to be devoting my time and talents to students and parents who can really use my help and who actually appreciate it, who believe that hard work really does matter, not just who you know or how you construct yourself according to some nasty "How to Get Into College Book." I think that the kids I work with now are more authentic and actually more desirable in many ways, despite academic lacunae, and that with the right support an inspiration early enough they could do just as well as the overbred scions of the crafty elite. Let's not forget that George Bush drank and C'd his way through Yale; I'd put up any of the kids I've met in the last year against him and feel confident they could do better at running a country, never mind four years in college.
I haven't looked back at my former school with anything much more than pity since I left (not voluntarily but willingly). The endless agonizing over iotas of meaning in instructions and points on tests, the ceaseless strategizing that finally erodes any traces of interesting character traits, the fierce determination to "win" at any cost, and the sad Bataan death march that is high school for these students, even one that purports to give them so much (that's another story), left me feeling sorry for them and pity for their parents. But in the end there was no real help for them--they all wanted what they wanted and refused to accept less than that, despite the fact that they received more than they deserved in the first place. I'm glad to be with kids and adults who see the world head on and are willing to take it as it comes, rather than always trying to find a way around it; I'm glad to see the spark in a young African American boy's face when you tell him he can indeed go to college. I live for that now and feel like it's what I should have been doing before.
It takes time to learn these things--but better late than never.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Eternal College Marketing and the Consumer/Student
Last week I attended the IACAC conference in Itasca IL. It was congenial as usual but one of the presentations touched on a topic I've been concerned about and writing about for a while. The session's title says it all: "From Here to Eternity: The Endless Application and Decision Process." But it doesn't really cover the issue to the depth I think it should or could have. The college process has become harmfully extended, and that's the real problem: As colleges and universities strive ever more mightily to keep their beds full, they are damaging the very resource most valuable to them and to society at large: prospective students.
Most people involved in the college process know that it seems to be getting longer and longer, starting earlier, becoming more complex, and inspiring more anxiety. On the other end, after colleges' decisions are made, students and families obsess over which college or university to choose (assuming they have a choice), trying to make a flawless decision the same way a coffee-crazed fashionista might obsess over the construction of a half-caf double shot soy milk latte with non-fat whip. The IACAC session was clear in describing the process but left me stranded when it came to reasons for it, what can be done about it, or even why it's an issue. The session looked at the college/student/high school/counselor relationship in a vacuum, concerend only with the admission and decision-making processes themselves, and didn't offer any possible cures besides adhering to NACAC guidelines and being nice to each other.
In an ever-widening search for more and more applicants, colleges have adopted marketing tools and strategies (often with the help of outside firms, one of which I am ashamed to say I once worked for) from the world of commerce. In small doses, things like glossy viewbooks, posters, helpful or imploring letters to juniors and seniors are harmless and can provide information to students just starting to learn about colleges. But as the session presenters noted, the process has stretched from perhaps a 17-month jog to a 34-month or more sprint through the psyches and aspirations of teens and their families.
In his book "Consumed" Benjamin Barber talks about how companies create "first order wants" that are not necessarily what we should want. They plant in us the feeling that we need to have a certain soda or appliance regardless of whether it harms the environment or if we really need it. ("Second order wants" are those that are really necessary or that serve a social/societal need.) Marketing is designed to rev up our first order wants because we have become a society dependent on consuming, not producing. (If you doubt that, recall that President Bush told everyone to go shopping when he finally addressed the nation after 9/11.) So we learn to "need" goods and services not because we actually need them but because we want them and we are told we want them.
College marketing works along these lines now. Glossy images, lifestyle-oriented photos, cheerful students under trees, and so on, are less about offering an education to the student than presenting a magical realm of happiness and success to the consumer. (I wrote about this a long time ago.) Inculcating that desire earlier and earlier in teens and their families creates the "need" for college as a consumer good ("first order") rather than as an eventual public good ("second order). It gears the consumer of college (I almost said "education" but more in a moment) to think that college = my personal happiness (and ideally for the college, THIS college = my personal happiness). So the relationship comes to be defined as college/consumer not college/student.
One might say that colleges have plenty to say about education in their viewbooks and brochures, and one would be right. However, it takes a great deal of parsing to draw that information out from the cheerful descriptions of comfortable residence halls, helpful professors and the massive extracurricular opportunities available on campus. None of this is in itself problematic, but it overwhelms the process of education central to any college or university like kudzu on a Georgia highway. Sure there are courses at this college, but look at the beautiful campus! The rainbow of students! The "starchitect"-designed gym!
Growing up in a consumer society, teens and their parents can hardly be blamed for looking at a college education as a consumer good like toothpaste or patio furniture. But in the process, education has been ever more surely demoted to being an option on the SUV, the second DVD player in the back seat. As college marketing intensifies to reach teens and their parents earlier and earlier, it actually pushes the work of high school to the background, replacing it with the need to "get on the college track" early in order to get into college.
But this isn't about being more educated; it's about seeming more educated so a student can be a more attractive college prospect. Students and their parents fight for AP classes not for the challenge but for the transcript enhancement. As college heighten the sense of "need" they actually hollow out the educations they claim are the central part of any applicant's record. It's no secret that many who are counseling high school students these days talk about showing students how to "package" themselves for colleges. The marketing of the college to the student/consumer and the marketing of the student/consumer to the college becomes like the snake eating its tail without a clear endpoint or purpose except to get the student/consumer to the advertiser's college and to get the college to choose the "brand" of student that appeals to it.
"Packaging" emphasizes form over substance, appearance over reality. The glorious landscapes of the campus quad or the glittering accomplishments of a 16-year old who plays violin for an old folks home (at the suggestion of her independent counselor) are triumphs of packaging. The result is an expectation of glitz over tougher realities, fun over the harder work of learning. The few colleges that refuse to bow to marketing or the lure of the "zipless" class, like St. John's, where students read the original works of great thinkers and everything is required, can be counted on one hand. The rest hide the realities of real education--it's hard--behind smooth talk about professors willing to give out their home phone numbers and be on hand, it seems, 24/7.
Extended college marketing devalues substantial educational and extracurricular achievement because those things, to be genuine, need to be learned painstakingly and often through trial and error. By creating the "need" for an early start in the college process, this marketing is essentially making hothouse plants of our students, forcing them to bloom before they're ready and as a result making them more like hothouse tomatoes--better able to travel over long distances and last on the shelf, but not something you really want to eat. Marketing in this way forces students to arrive somewhere before they're ready to travel, and in the process teaches them that you only need to look like a student in order to be thought of as one. I have to think that this phenomenon is somehow connected to the complaints professors have about how often their students are unprepared for college.
Most people involved in the college process know that it seems to be getting longer and longer, starting earlier, becoming more complex, and inspiring more anxiety. On the other end, after colleges' decisions are made, students and families obsess over which college or university to choose (assuming they have a choice), trying to make a flawless decision the same way a coffee-crazed fashionista might obsess over the construction of a half-caf double shot soy milk latte with non-fat whip. The IACAC session was clear in describing the process but left me stranded when it came to reasons for it, what can be done about it, or even why it's an issue. The session looked at the college/student/high school/counselor relationship in a vacuum, concerend only with the admission and decision-making processes themselves, and didn't offer any possible cures besides adhering to NACAC guidelines and being nice to each other.
In an ever-widening search for more and more applicants, colleges have adopted marketing tools and strategies (often with the help of outside firms, one of which I am ashamed to say I once worked for) from the world of commerce. In small doses, things like glossy viewbooks, posters, helpful or imploring letters to juniors and seniors are harmless and can provide information to students just starting to learn about colleges. But as the session presenters noted, the process has stretched from perhaps a 17-month jog to a 34-month or more sprint through the psyches and aspirations of teens and their families.
In his book "Consumed" Benjamin Barber talks about how companies create "first order wants" that are not necessarily what we should want. They plant in us the feeling that we need to have a certain soda or appliance regardless of whether it harms the environment or if we really need it. ("Second order wants" are those that are really necessary or that serve a social/societal need.) Marketing is designed to rev up our first order wants because we have become a society dependent on consuming, not producing. (If you doubt that, recall that President Bush told everyone to go shopping when he finally addressed the nation after 9/11.) So we learn to "need" goods and services not because we actually need them but because we want them and we are told we want them.
College marketing works along these lines now. Glossy images, lifestyle-oriented photos, cheerful students under trees, and so on, are less about offering an education to the student than presenting a magical realm of happiness and success to the consumer. (I wrote about this a long time ago.) Inculcating that desire earlier and earlier in teens and their families creates the "need" for college as a consumer good ("first order") rather than as an eventual public good ("second order). It gears the consumer of college (I almost said "education" but more in a moment) to think that college = my personal happiness (and ideally for the college, THIS college = my personal happiness). So the relationship comes to be defined as college/consumer not college/student.
One might say that colleges have plenty to say about education in their viewbooks and brochures, and one would be right. However, it takes a great deal of parsing to draw that information out from the cheerful descriptions of comfortable residence halls, helpful professors and the massive extracurricular opportunities available on campus. None of this is in itself problematic, but it overwhelms the process of education central to any college or university like kudzu on a Georgia highway. Sure there are courses at this college, but look at the beautiful campus! The rainbow of students! The "starchitect"-designed gym!
Growing up in a consumer society, teens and their parents can hardly be blamed for looking at a college education as a consumer good like toothpaste or patio furniture. But in the process, education has been ever more surely demoted to being an option on the SUV, the second DVD player in the back seat. As college marketing intensifies to reach teens and their parents earlier and earlier, it actually pushes the work of high school to the background, replacing it with the need to "get on the college track" early in order to get into college.
But this isn't about being more educated; it's about seeming more educated so a student can be a more attractive college prospect. Students and their parents fight for AP classes not for the challenge but for the transcript enhancement. As college heighten the sense of "need" they actually hollow out the educations they claim are the central part of any applicant's record. It's no secret that many who are counseling high school students these days talk about showing students how to "package" themselves for colleges. The marketing of the college to the student/consumer and the marketing of the student/consumer to the college becomes like the snake eating its tail without a clear endpoint or purpose except to get the student/consumer to the advertiser's college and to get the college to choose the "brand" of student that appeals to it.
"Packaging" emphasizes form over substance, appearance over reality. The glorious landscapes of the campus quad or the glittering accomplishments of a 16-year old who plays violin for an old folks home (at the suggestion of her independent counselor) are triumphs of packaging. The result is an expectation of glitz over tougher realities, fun over the harder work of learning. The few colleges that refuse to bow to marketing or the lure of the "zipless" class, like St. John's, where students read the original works of great thinkers and everything is required, can be counted on one hand. The rest hide the realities of real education--it's hard--behind smooth talk about professors willing to give out their home phone numbers and be on hand, it seems, 24/7.
Extended college marketing devalues substantial educational and extracurricular achievement because those things, to be genuine, need to be learned painstakingly and often through trial and error. By creating the "need" for an early start in the college process, this marketing is essentially making hothouse plants of our students, forcing them to bloom before they're ready and as a result making them more like hothouse tomatoes--better able to travel over long distances and last on the shelf, but not something you really want to eat. Marketing in this way forces students to arrive somewhere before they're ready to travel, and in the process teaches them that you only need to look like a student in order to be thought of as one. I have to think that this phenomenon is somehow connected to the complaints professors have about how often their students are unprepared for college.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Is Free Tuition Really Free?
I know you shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth (and surely there's a 21st century version of that around somewhere...), and I support colleges' and universities' using more of their endowments to ease the financial burden on families with low incomes. In fact, I work with first-generation and underserved students, so anything that eases their way to college I support. But I wonder about the implications of a "free" college education: By not asking a student or family to make any financial commitment to a college education, how will that change the dynamic between them and the college or university? And how will it affect the way a student values that education?
I've worked with the Daniel Murphy Foundation here in Chicago for a number of years. They help talented 8th graders from needy families attend private schools here and elsewhere by providing a scholarship and by getting the host schools to kick in most of the resrt of the tuition. But no matter how financially needy the family is, they are asked to contribute something to their child's education. This seems proper to me because it asks the family to back up its generalized support of its son or daughter with hard cold cash, a measure of its commitment. It's a commonplace that we value most what we pay for, and I think that applies here, too.
One might say that disadvantaged families are already in enough of an economic bind but I'm not talking about asking for anything that the family can't handle. The DMSF pegs its request of the family to income and families are able to pay it. It's not about the money; it's about the commitment. Since most of the colleges and universities eliminating loans and so on are in the elite crowd, perhaps their status automatically generates commitment from the families, but I think if someone comes up to you and hands you a diamond for free, you're going to wonder about whether it's stolen or a cubic zirconium. Without a price tag it's hard to gauge the value of the item. And I don't think it's unfair to ask students to shoulder some kind of debt if they really want the kind of education that a college can give. Again, not anything crushing (save that for law school or med school) but enough to keep their eyes on the academic prize.
My other reservation about the rush to give away the store is that it only benefits a handful of students at a time and only at the very point of entry to college. All that money might be better used to strengthen the educational prospects of more students from disadvantaged backgrounds sooner, so there might be a greater number of first generation and underserved students in the application pool. Right now, colleges' and universities' largesse is passive, not active: It rewards those who have made it through the American educational system but hasn't actively affected it. In a sense it validates a Darwinian process of survival of the fittest instead of attacking many of the inequities of the system at their root.
The economic might of the Harvards, Yales, Amhersts, and so on might be better used to inject life and hope into needy schools starting at 9th grade or even earlier, helping them build strong foundations for their students as they prepare for college. By taking a more active role in education, by considering themselves part of a K-16 educational continuum rather than the beneficiaries of the results of "educational selection," colleges and universities might have a much greater and more significant effect on the education of America's least served but not undertalented students. So two cheers for spending more of their endowments, but a third cheer in reserve for when colleges and universities really take up the task of improving American education where it needs it the most.
I've worked with the Daniel Murphy Foundation here in Chicago for a number of years. They help talented 8th graders from needy families attend private schools here and elsewhere by providing a scholarship and by getting the host schools to kick in most of the resrt of the tuition. But no matter how financially needy the family is, they are asked to contribute something to their child's education. This seems proper to me because it asks the family to back up its generalized support of its son or daughter with hard cold cash, a measure of its commitment. It's a commonplace that we value most what we pay for, and I think that applies here, too.
One might say that disadvantaged families are already in enough of an economic bind but I'm not talking about asking for anything that the family can't handle. The DMSF pegs its request of the family to income and families are able to pay it. It's not about the money; it's about the commitment. Since most of the colleges and universities eliminating loans and so on are in the elite crowd, perhaps their status automatically generates commitment from the families, but I think if someone comes up to you and hands you a diamond for free, you're going to wonder about whether it's stolen or a cubic zirconium. Without a price tag it's hard to gauge the value of the item. And I don't think it's unfair to ask students to shoulder some kind of debt if they really want the kind of education that a college can give. Again, not anything crushing (save that for law school or med school) but enough to keep their eyes on the academic prize.
My other reservation about the rush to give away the store is that it only benefits a handful of students at a time and only at the very point of entry to college. All that money might be better used to strengthen the educational prospects of more students from disadvantaged backgrounds sooner, so there might be a greater number of first generation and underserved students in the application pool. Right now, colleges' and universities' largesse is passive, not active: It rewards those who have made it through the American educational system but hasn't actively affected it. In a sense it validates a Darwinian process of survival of the fittest instead of attacking many of the inequities of the system at their root.
The economic might of the Harvards, Yales, Amhersts, and so on might be better used to inject life and hope into needy schools starting at 9th grade or even earlier, helping them build strong foundations for their students as they prepare for college. By taking a more active role in education, by considering themselves part of a K-16 educational continuum rather than the beneficiaries of the results of "educational selection," colleges and universities might have a much greater and more significant effect on the education of America's least served but not undertalented students. So two cheers for spending more of their endowments, but a third cheer in reserve for when colleges and universities really take up the task of improving American education where it needs it the most.
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