After 6 years of enrolling, 70% don't make it out of Community College

An article about community college and being what the famous student activist and current SPACE Director JP Bareng Schumacher calls, "transfer-stuck"

San Gabriel Valley Tribune

Six years after they started college, more than 70 percent of community college students are failing to earn an associate's degree, get a certificate, or transfer to a four-year school, according to a study released Tuesday.

It also found that black and Latino students fare even worse than the general population, with only 22 percent of Latino students and 26 percent of black students reaching their academic goals within six years.

I felt mighty uncomfortable adhering so strictly to the "Pilipino" in Pilipino Transfer Student Partnership while outreaching. I don't think were all balling or anything, but I think the word tended to obstruct any initial access. I used to say we were "based" on Pilipino groups, and would emphasize in the next sentence how we outreached to whoever.

"Sometimes I feel like school is making me more stupid because I'm wasting time learning obsolete information I'll never use," said Sam Wouters, 22, of Azusa, who is in his fourth year at Citrus College.

That's what my Anthro degree feels like at times with so much of the UCLA focus on theory and reading. I wish I learned SPSS, GIS, some kind of computer application something to get me in the door of fitting the research demands.

So I'm in Grad School Now

And looking at the Decisionmaking-tracking thing, wow, I am a total fucking idiot.

I was totally aiming to go to the Rutgers program because any topic I'm interested in they have there, but I was in a relationship that I thought was the greatest fucking thing in the world, and ended up not applying.

Now that relationship is done, I'm at Cal State Long Beach's Anthro program, which isn't bad and is local, but...oh well, I think it's an opportunity. I'm still connected to UCLA and can use their libraries.

I think I needed an M.A. program to get my feet wet for this whole academia and research thing. One grad student with an MA already told me that you shouldn't even go to grad school if you don't get funded 3/4s of the way. Thank god Long Beach is dirt-fucking cheap. Plus, I got grants to pay for this year!

As to the actual content of this program, the Department head said something to the effect of "you come in, you do your thesis, you're done." Accordingly this experience as a springboard onto something.

Keywords to my topic at this juncture: cops, cognition, decisionmaking, episodic memories, public engagement, justifications, argumentation, the metaphor of ownership.

So I'm interested in two topics: either message boards and police and community relations. I got interested in message boards because I post on basketball ones all the time, and police and community relations.

What kind of job am I going to get? I still don't know. Adjunct professor, researcher? Professional blogger?

I'm just hoping that the Census calls me again sometime within the next 2 years and asks me to interview people full time.

Scholarship Researching Woes

So when my cheerios got pissed on and remembering what the non-traditional student mom was posting about, I decided that I was going to look up ways to fund another round of edumacation without taking more loans.

I stumbled upon the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation's scholarship for undergraduate transfer students. This would be incredibly good stuff to know for Bayanihan students.

Then I look at the Sallie Mae website, and it has scholarships for black and Latino students exclusively but none for the middling Model Minorities who are yellow and brown, including another Community College Scholarship Fund. I think it's really important that black and Latino students have those sources of support, but what are the networks that help other students?

Right Down Our Alley: The UCR California Community College Collaborative

UCR Via SoCal Minds

UCR's Community College collaborative holding a forum about the Critical Issues facing Community Colleges on June 10th. See here for details.

I didn't know about UCR's Community College Collaborative before 8:00 AM this morning, and now I know and what they do sounds like its right down our alley, except supported by older people with suits and all kinds of brag sheets. They've got some interesting current projects including an investigation of under-represented graduate students and promising practices for transferring.

We should keep a CBS eyeball on them.

In context of promoting the event, they brought up an interesting stat about community colleges:

Dropout rate of the California community college is 75%. ! ? Had never seen a stat like that before.

Perhaps a bit over-inflated to me, but still, given the fact that only 25% of people actually do transfer, and the reality that I almost expect some Filipino, black, or Latino dude that I might meet randomly by the unity that is basketball to be dabbling in some job they hate, it's probably not that far off.

But on the other hand, maybe it's not so grave as these academicians want you to think. There are probably lots of reasons why people drop out and sometimes maybe it's for the better? What good is all this education and degree-achieving if you can haul in some money more quickly and sustainably via other means?

Eerily Similar?

I see Ivan Penetrante and I see Mike Brown, but I've never seen them in the same room at the same time. Could they be...ONE AND THE SAME?!

Ivan Penetrante says he's always busy in San Diego doing community work...



Mike Brown says he's always busy coaching professional basketball...



In addition to their strikingly similar physical appearances, both share the same noticeably vague responses when probed about their whereabouts on various occasions.

Something is eerily similar about these two...there seem to be more than a few "coincidences" linking them

Both of them have the virtually the same physical characteristics as evidenced in the photos above, but the Ivan Penetrante identity bears a much lighter skin pigmentation and stands a conspicuous 5 foot 4. They wear glasses styled from Versace, though the Mike Brown character tends to diversify his selection which is coherent with his identity as a multi-million dollar professional basketball coach while Ivan Penetrante, a self-styled community organizer, holds steadfastly to his brand of Versace glasses. Both claim to have attended Mesa Community College in San Diego, with Ivan Penetrante attending almost exactly 15 years before Mike Brown. The most striking similarity however resides in the both over-explanatory San Diegan dialect, also witnessed in Tony Gwynn.

Both of their identities could not seem more divergent, but this is exactly what Mike Brown/Ivan Penetrante wants you to think. There is a mountain of evidence with a multitude of underlying threads that proves that Ivan Penetrante and Mike Brown are...ONE AND THE SAME!

Let's review the facts shall we:

-Mike Brown, previously an unknown scout in the NBA, assumed the position as NBA Head Coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers on June 2, 2005

-Nine days later, a previously unknown student at UCLA, surfaced at the UCLA PTSP Debut on June 11, 2005 to the surprise of many PTSP members. His name was Ivan Penetrante, introduced as one of the PTSP Bayanihan Project's Peer Advisors. Why was he unknown until then?

-In a chance meeting on Janss steps on the afternoon of June 27th, PTSP Bayanihan Project Director Brian J. Delas Armas encounters his new mysterious Peer Advisor Ivan Penetrante. Ivan Penetrante seems evasive in answering questions strenuously attempting to avoid eye contact with said project director.

-After 2 months, extensive talks, and teeth-pulling Ivan Penetrante finally became Assistant Director of the first full-year of the PTSP Bayanihan in August 2005. Could it be that his coaching job as Mike Brown was holding him back?

-On June 2, 2007, Mike Brown, coach of the Cavaliers leads his team to the NBA Finals

-Having mysteriously "graduated" a quarter before everyone else, Ivan Penetrante resurfaces for the 2006-2007 PTSP debut on June 3, 2007 in decidedly "happier" spirits than usual, even managing to wear a shirt and tie, which he normally does not do. Or does he? Perhaps he was just too drained from travelling to Los Angeles to change from his suit?





Mere coincidences?

I think not.

We have not heard from the likes of Ivan Penetrante nor Mike Brown, but were hoping one of these characters will make an appearance at the 2009 PTSP Debut.

Imported Filipino Teachers

If we were on Family Feud and we talk about jobs people from the Philippines migrate to the US for, we usually talk about nurses and engineers.

Now the survey says teachers as well.

From Teresa Watanabe's article in the LA Times via the Angry Asian Man:

More than 100 school districts, including at least 20 in California, are recruiting from the Philippines, said Los Angeles immigration attorney Carl Shusterman.

The Los Angeles Unified School District has hired 250 to 300 teachers from the Philippines -- the largest contingent among more than 600 foreign exchange teachers overall, a district official said.

...Filipino teachers are lured by far better pay in the United States. Most teachers in the Philippines earn $300 to $400 a month, less than one-tenth what they can pull down in Los Angeles.

It's great that Filipinos can make their money here and get their own form of self- education here, but dang, I can't help but feel a combination of frustration at myself first and foremost for not preparing myself that adequately after graduation, and still somewhat betrayed that as a Filipino-American with an American education and a B.A., it feels like there's still a bunch of hoops I have to jump through just to get a job as a teacher. I could still teach at LAUSD if I really wanted to, but it feels like it might get in the way of other stuff that I might want to do.

Meanwhile, they're importing people in droves who have to get used to all this kind of cultural stuff inside and outside of the classroom. Sounds like the Peace Corps in reverse.

Anyhow, there's a documentary called The Learning. It's about the experiences of these teachers imported from the Philippines teaching in...Baltimore. Baltimore! Bodymore!

Should be especially resonant, especially for you fans of The Wire.

Issues with Remediality and Falling Behind

The crossroad between complete failure and success,
It’s so necessary you pay attention in class
Never tell you the conditions in which to apply to math
Only 65% of your peers freshman year are still here
And half that total will move on
But three out of four will drop out in two years
Add it up and it equals some shit has gone wrong - Geologic, Blue Scholars

After having once been an honors math student, I finished high school kind of behind in my math skill building, placing in Precalculus. "Behind" is a term of relativity And my high school was/is the type where 99% of the graduates went to a 4-year university.

Part of the reason I avoided math, throughout high school, I didn't want to be stuck in the "remediality" of precalculus at UC-Santa Cruz. Of course I knew it wasn't remedial and taught all that I would need to know for the next level, but it felt like punishment for not getting it right the first time.

Punishment is exactly what the remedial classes sound like in this NY Times Article, which draws a link between remedial classes and community college drop-out rates.

More than a million college freshmen across the nation must take remedial courses each year, and many drop out before getting a degree. Poorly run public schools are a part of the problem, but so is a disconnect between high schools and colleges.

BTW, the high school drop out rate in LA reached 34.9%!

Based on my own experience and these stats, my hunch says that there is an explicit and implicit pressure on "failure" and "being behind." Like I said earlier, it seems like a punishment for not doing something earlier. As mentioned in the article, it's a double kick to the shins that you don't even "earn" credits for "remedial" classes. Nobody wants to really hear that they're behind, yet again. And if they are, why bother if you're not really sure you're going to get a pay off from what seems like a "swimming against the tide"?

Under that pressure, students are saying "fuck it" and not going through with anything.

As I have been reading in articles about the consumerist-mindset that has pervaded and perverted the student mindset:

As Rinehart (1993) argues, "Students cannot be considered the primary customer of education for the purpose of educational quality, for this simple reason: students have no conception of what they must learn; they are, after all, students" (p. 59).

Arrows vs. Nets

The learner always begins by finding fault, but the scholar sees the positive merit in everything.

If you could pick one tool to use to survive in the jungle, which would use choose as your tool of survival? The bow and arrow or the net?

Anyone remember when Forrest Gump began that shrimping business, what did he use?

During my freshman year of high school, my English teacher took a paper I wrote as a class-wide example of how NOT to write. He made 30 copies of the first page of a paper we wrote on the Pearl for all other students to read, and proceeded to verbally crap all over it to the amusement of the class and my head-in-hand, foot-in-mouth chagrin. One of his quips that sent the class over the edge in laughter was his imitation of my paper's writing pattern. Apparently, it had been in the same pattern as the automobile driving of an enebriated individual: all over the place, unwieldy, and messy.

That was over 10 years ago, and you could say the same about the last 3 years of my career trajectory. All over the place. At home a lot. Half-the time employed, half the time, not. Been in government, non-government, non-profit, corporate, temporary, permanent, contract, part-time.

Careers I've thought about: water engineering, teaching history at a middle school high school, tutoring, fucking it all and going anarcho-primitivist, the Peace Corps, Real Estate Appraising, basic computer programming, technical writing, urban planning, GIS mapping. The part of my mind focused on the future is an internalization of the externality that is ITT Tech.

In my drive to graduate school, I've been looking at Anthropology programs and similar. Browsing research areas and interests, I also look for these students and professors having gaps in education. Looking at these pages, I've been trying to spot the same unwieldyness, and messiness in their education.

To my chagrin, I don't usually find any, which sometimes gives me a case of the Fuckin' A's.

From an outsiders' perspective, the regularity in these professors' career trajectories has been straightforward and tunnel-visioned, as if they were automatons created in a factory, specifically made for the purpose of doing what it is they do, accomplishing stuff only remote, snobby academic circles care about, and intimidating me.

They are arrows getting at their targets, and hitting it right "on point."

But arrows are only good for the kill.

All over place, unwieldy nets can help you make killings.

Community College Transfer Students Make Less Than 4-Year University Students

...According to Natalia Kolesnikova, an economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, calculated the data based on the 2003 National Survey of College Graduates, a joint project of the U.S. Census Bureau and the National Science Foundation.



USA Today Report via the awesome Community College Dean blog.

[sarcasm]
So, basically the lesson is, just go to a 4-year university straight out of college! Duh! Why can't everyone else just do that? I mean, come on!
[/sarcasm]

Ahmad: Rapper/Transfer

Ahmad, the guy who hip-hopped this:



Transferred to Stanford from Long Beach City College just last year.

First reported here in the LA Times.

I first heard his song when someone in my godsis' 6th grade class said they were going to present it during class as the song they could most relate to. Didn't think too much about it, but I love the actual original version.

That song is still in my rotation, especially now that I've found out my academic interests revolve around all kinds of reminiscing. The most resonant line in the song: "Wishing all I had to now was finish homework." A wrinkly, throw-away lyric, anyone find the "iron"?

The dude's 33 now which is still damn young, but the fact that he's done it at that age and still plans to get a Ph.D is a bit inspiring.

A Sneak Peak at the Past & Future of PTSP

This blog has been long due as I wanted to write it immediately after I returned from Hawaii at the end of April. But alas, the life of a graduate student always makes it seem like there's always never enough time....

I attended the Annual Conference of the Association for Asian American Studies (AAAS) in Honolulu last month. As part of the many "to-do's" for scholars-in-training, I presented a paper on Pinay Nursing Students. Being that that was my first ever solo presentation at an academic conference, I was quite anxious and nervous about not knowing who will show up and throw unanswerable questions at me. It didn't help that Konrad Ng, the brother-in-law of Barack Obama, was presenting next door as well. Long story short, my twelve minutes in the hot seat went well. And the reason why I wrote this blog is really because I want to share about the folks I met in AAAS and how attending the conference was simply inspiring and empowering.

As you all probably know, PTSP was founded in 1997 by Dawn Mabalon and Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales, both of whom are now faculty at San Francisco State University. I met both these women at the conference and learned about the incredible work they are doing for the community as academicians.

Allyson founded PEP (Pin@y Educational Partnerships), "a teaching pipeline and a space for the development of critical Filipina/o American curriculum and research." Simply put, it's a group of SF State undergraduates and grad students who go out to low-income high schools, middle schools, and elementary schools, to share critical cultural curriculum that focuses on Filipino/a studies. It's a pipeline because once the K-12 students have been taught by their SF State "teachers", they go on to teach the younger ones (i.e., middle school teaching elementary school, etc.). Allyson started this in 2001 as a service-learning project and PEP has now expanded to six sites.

Interestingly enough, Dawn was one of the four presenters in my panel at the conference. Yes, I was truly honored to be sitting next to our PTSP founder. She is a historian by trade, whose work significantly contributed to the restoration of "Little Manila" in Stockton. Her presentation covered the "Lost Filipinos in Angel Island". When I told her I was part of PTSP in the early 2000s, her eyes lit up and was really delighted to know that the legacy has lived on. For alumni folks like Dawn (and now myself too), when someone knows when we were active participants in our college student org, we become very aware that our age can no longer be kept a secret. Let me tell ya, the woman is hilarious.

And before I forget, I also wanted to share my surprise when I attended the one-hour Filipino Caucus. I had no idea that there were that many Filipino scholars representing in various universities across the country. While I fully recognize that our institutions are still predominantly run by WASPs, I was quite excited about meeting at least 25 Filipino tenure-track faculty members gathered in one room at the caucus meeting. For a Pinay like me who rarely encounters fellow Filipino graduate students in the social sciences, that experience was incredibly empowering. They weren't stuck-up faculty members like the ones we usually encounter on campus. In fact, they're fairly down-to-earth, not to mention, loud, individuals who are just happy to serve as mentors to junior scholars. It was inspiring to hear and see them speak briefly about which institution they're from, what their field of expertise is, and how they've just recently been granted tenure. It's almost like an implicit message directed to a graduate student like me, telling me that I, too, can be in those shoes in the near future.

With that I'd like to end this blog posting. For anybody who is interested in sharing their latest and greatest academic work (i.e., research paper, poster, scholarly paper), AAAS is a great avenue to do so. Their proposal submission deadline is usually some time in the fall, so if you have a stellar paper you've written in any of your courses, check out the website for the submission guidelines. It's a good way to get your feet wet with one of the "must-do" things for graduate school and academe. AAAS conferences are also small enough where you don't feel too lost, but large enough where you have several fascinating research presentations to choose from. And they're usually in fun places like Waikiki. :o) The 2010 conference will be in Austin, TX.

College Isn't For Everybody, But Junior College Is

My last post spoke about knowing your population. Though this does not respresent all community college students, it does touch on many relevant topics. I know a lot of folks who are in this same boat. Brian previously posted a clip of this emcee in a battle. Dude is off the hook.

Dumbfoundead- I Love Junior College



Dumbfoundead's version is a remix of Asher Roth's "I Love College."

Asher Roth - I Love College
Uploaded by UniversalMusicGroup

I don't know about y'all, but dumbfoundead's version is a lil more relevant to me. I know we all party in college, but really, like that??! Is this a good way to portray higher education? My friends and myself included didn't have the luxury to party like Asher Roth. Do you think it has anything to do with the color of our skin, our social status? What privelage do Mr. Roth and his bros have that allow them to party like this??

Social Investigaion: The Importance of Knowing Your Audience

I heard through the grapevine (aka facebook status updates) that El Camino will be the new outreach site for PTSP next year. This is great news and I am happy that the organization's work is progressing. Congratulations to all those who made it happen!!

With that said, I want to stress the importance of knowing the population you serve. Though we our exposed to great diversity at UCLA, the community college takes diversity to a whole 'nother level. Remember, the majority of CC students do not have the mentality of a typical university student or university bound student. Many of them were students who did not do so well in high school. Many are not sure of what they want to do. Then you have elder students who are returning to school and may not take so well to younger students trying to help them out. These students have a different mentality and may not be very receptive to certain practices or ideas.

Knowing the needs of the population you are serving is crucial. You can't just go some place, set up shop, and expect things to go smoothly. Remember that the methodologies we are trying to share with others are very unfamiliar to them. There is an idealism that comes with being student leaders/activist which sometimes causes one to assume that everyone will take heed to the knowledge you are trying to share. Sometimes we take for granted the fact that the people we are serving have not been exposed to the knowledge we have. Know the people you are trying to reach, do your best to put your self in their shoes, relate to them and know their situations before trying to share your knowledge with them.

"Non-Traditional" Student Mother says more...

As I watch candidate speeches for the new USC Social Work Student Org, I can’t help but feel a little bias as to how a man running for president will address issues that address the needs of parents or women. To my surprise, Nelson Calderon, a candidate running for Social Work Student President, was posed with the question, how would you resolve conflict as student president? Like most candidates, he spoke about mediation, communication, coming to a common ground where both parties are satisfied, compromise and so forth (which are a quality of any good leader). What stood out to me, was the fact that as former undergraduate sociology president at his former university, he took the initiative to address the needs of student parents who complained that they needed childcare in order to go to school. Thus, Nelson Calderon helped to implement a Head Start Program, which is a program funded by the government for low-income parents to take care of their children while parents go to school. That’s a beautiful thing folks.

From what I’ve researched, I understand that a head start program does exist at USC, but I believe it’s still part of the childcare system at USC that had outstanding prices even when subsidized, since I called one time to figure out where the head start program was at USC and was directed right back to where I started.

Graduate students are older and currently life cycling through life. Meaning some are married, balancing a family, or like my colleague, is at the hospital having her first son. The reason I want to emphasize help for the parents is because parents face the additional challenge of taking care of another life, while balancing a career, a family, and school. It’s an additional challenge. They can’t do this if no sufficient support is offered and when people don’t feel supported, there is less motivation there. Let’s face it, graduate school is hard. I’ve heard the “I can’t imagine how you do it” words from other students, but maybe people just have to--to realize and ultimately feel the reality of the situation.

Just in the past two months, I’ve had to call students affairs and talk to the vice president in order to see if subsidies could be available, for example, for part-time students. It took them about a week to finally respond and what they said is, “No,” There are certain guidelines to what is considered a part-time student. For example, they’d have to be a research or teaching assistant... As I was talking to the vice president, who was actually wonderfully polite, I asked her, first of all, there is a reason that part-time students choose part-time, it’s because they are juggling a professional career, graduate school and family. I don’t know about you, but that sure does sound full-time to me. I said, so you expect them to be a teaching assistant or research assistant on top of everything else they do. Unfortunately, “it is what it is.” They expected part-time students to pay $800 for two days per week. How reasonable is that, seriously?

And it’s just the challenges that you face, I found myself writing in my field placement “reasons” to prove why I need a stipend for my internship. I wrote things like “I have a child and I have to pay for his food, clothing, and shelter.” I mean, duh, should I really be writing this right now. I feel that parents should also have priority in regards to reserving open slots for stipend opportunities for field placement at our school since it is basically stipends appear to be awarded to anyone based on need. I couldn’t help but think what were the other justifications of students wanting the stipend? Possibly a sick family member and so forth, which are just as equally important.

It’s really hard to find student’s who are parents here. A classmate of mine who is pregnant actually expressed to me that her field instructor had told her when she got pregnant, “Why would you do something like that?” In addition, she feels that childcare is not even an option for her because of the costs. She is worried about next year as to how it will turn out. She is extremely smart, but I’m sad that she cannot even look at our own school for support when she is basically dedicating or sacrificing herself for the school, which in turn does nothing for her to help her situation. Instead, she feels “it’s her own problem” and even gets comments like that from an instructor? I found myself giving her referrals or baby sitter numbers in the area she lives only hoping they would given her an affordable rate. I felt the questions, her self doubts, and her feeling torn between school and her baby. Sacrificing time with her baby was the chance she was willing to take to go back to school and what was the school going to give her, inconsiderate comments and no childcare? I never really believed in the theory or had the mentality that when you have a child, your life is over. But it appears that institutions are really supporting this. I hate it because I’m at odds with my the institution that I thought I would be proud of.

There’s no better time to advocate for parents than now. It’s now a matter of finding them first in the social work school, then in the larger school. I did enough talking, it’s just time to shut up and do it.

Dom commented below on my earlier blog explaining the importance of personal experience. It's a powerful thing since you are integrating your personal experience to the realities of life. Everyone has personal experiences that makes them see through a totally different lens. It's one thing to complain, talk, read, or write about it, it's about having the guts to take action and actually do something about it. My GABNet sisters, who have really taught me this, have been so persisent with ACTION no matter how far the solution maybe, it's always working towards hope...So remeber that there is.

Goodnite. On a good note, I just came back from LA LIVE and had great spicy jambalaya creme brulee (I don't know how to spell that). It was heck good. Yummy.

--Aileen Malig

Paying In Full As The Ticket to College?

A friend sent me this article from the New York Times and I wanted to share it....

PAYING IN FULL AS THE TICKET TO COLLEGE
Source: New York Times By: Kate Zernike, March 30, 2009

Facing fallen endowments and needier students, many colleges are looking more favorably on wealthier applicants as they make their admissions decisions this year.
Institutions that have pledged to admit students regardless of need are finding ways to increase the number of those who pay the full cost in ways that allow the colleges to maintain the claim of being need-blind — taking more students from the transfer or waiting lists, for instance, or admitting more foreign students who pay full tuition. Private colleges that acknowledge taking financial status into account say they are even more aware of that factor this year.
“If you are a student of means or ability, or both, there has never been a better year,” said Robert A. Sevier, an enrollment consultant to colleges.

The trend does not mean colleges are cutting their financial aid budgets. In fact, most have increased those budgets this year, protecting that money even as they cut administrative salaries or require faculty members to take furloughs. But with more students applying for aid, and with those who need aid often needing more, institutions say they have to be mindful of how many scholarship students they can afford.

Colleges say they are not backing away from their desire to serve less affluent students; if anything, they say, taking more students who can afford to pay full price or close to it allows them to better afford those who cannot. But they say the inevitable result is that needier students will be shifted down to the less expensive and less prestigious institutions.
“There’s going to be a cascading of talented lower-income kids down the social hierarchy of American higher education, and some cascading up of affluent kids,” said Morton Owen Schapiro, the president of Williams College and an economist who studies higher education.
And colleges acknowledge that giving more seats to higher-paying students often means trading off their goals to be more socioeconomically diverse.

Some admissions officers and college advisers say richer parents are taking note of the climate, calculating that if they do not apply for aid, their children stand a better chance of getting in.
“They think their kids will have more options,” said Diane Geller, a college counselor in private practice in Los Angeles and president of the Independent Educational Consultants Association, a nonprofit group that represents private academic counselors. “And anecdotally, it would seem that that’s the case.”
“I do think the colleges want to give aid where they can,” Ms. Geller added. “But we all know the economic realities.”

Only the wealthiest institutions traditionally have been need-blind, admitting students without regard to what they can pay. But the definition has often been fuzzy, and this year, it may be more so. Bowdoin College announced plans to expand by 50 students over the next five years, which Scott Meiklejohn, the interim dean of admissions, said would allow it to accept more transfer and waiting-list students, whose applications are not considered on a need-blind basis.

Brandeis University, which is need-blind except for international, wait-listed and transfer students, accepted 10 percent more international students than usual this year, and Gil Villanueva, the dean of admissions, said he expected that the university would take more wait-listed and transfer students, as well.

Middlebury, which is need-blind and pledges to meet students’ full financial needs, will require students on financial aid to contribute more of their work earnings. It has cut its financial aid budget for international students. It is not need-blind for those on the waiting list or for transfers, but the college has not yet determined how many of those students it will take.

“We consider being need-blind and meeting full demonstrated need one of our basic operating principles,” said Patrick J. Norton, the college’s treasurer. “That is one of the last things that we would consider going away from.”

Those colleges that are need-aware typically admit part of the class without regard to ability to pay, but begin to consider it when the financial aid budget runs thin.
This year, many of these colleges say they are more inclined to accept students who do not apply for aid, or whom they judge to be less needy based on other factors, like ZIP code or parents’ background.

“We’re only human,” said Steven Syverson, the dean of admissions and financial aid at Lawrence University in Wisconsin. “They shine a little brighter.”
The advantage is not across the board; it goes to the students at the margins, the ones who would probably be “maybes” when the admissions committee considered applications. Those students are less likely to get in if they are financially needy and more likely to get in if they can afford to pay.
“This is not the majority of the class, or even the preponderance,” said Rob Reddy, the director of financial aid at Oberlin College. “But it’s a factor.”

Even though there is more financial aid this year, more students are vying for it, so resources do not stretch as far. “It’s not unusual to see families earning $200,000 applying for aid, especially if they have a couple of kids going to college,” said Rodney M. Oto, director of student financial services at Carleton College.

And some campuses are shifting more financial aid to merit aid, money that goes to highly qualified but not necessarily needy students; if tuition is $50,000 and the college offers an award of $7,000, it still gets $43,000, where a needier student might net the college nothing.
Some say it is time to reconsider the cachet that accompanies a boast of being need-blind.
“You can’t say someone should be need-blind unless they have the resources to fund it,” said Dr. Schapiro, at Williams. “It sounds immoral to replace really talented low-income kids with less talented richer kids, but unless you’re a Williams or an Amherst, the alternative is the quality of the education declines for everyone.”

At Carleton, which is need-aware, Mr. Oto said, “I do think we’d all be better off if we were honest with kids that you may not get in because you need assistance, or you need too much assistance.”
Mr. Oto’s fear — shared by many other admissions officers — is that being honest will scare off students who might, in fact, qualify for financial aid.

On the other end, Mr. Oto said: “I suspect it may be a strategy for some folks. We do get the sense that people are getting advice that if you can pay, then you should shoot for the highly selective school.”
Many admissions counselors ascribe the increase in early decision applicants this year to wealthier students’ seeking an advantage. Early decision requires students to attend if they are accepted, so those students give up the ability to negotiate financial aid, and tend to be wealthier.
“Those families in a position to afford the cost of attendance capitalized on that,” said Mr. Villanueva, at Brandeis.

Many colleges, in turn, accepted more students early decision, as a way of securing students in December. Some families have come back and tried to renegotiate aid after an offer of admission, but colleges caution that there is no guarantee: they have accommodated some requests, but told other students that their offers are firm, and in some cases, released students from early decision agreements rather than give a larger scholarship.
If endowments do not rebound, some colleges say that it will be harder to maintain commitments to the needier in coming years.

Tufts says it is reading applications on a need-blind basis this year, but may not be able to continue doing so. William D. Adams, the president of Colby College, told students in a letter that the college would continue its new policy of replacing loans with grants this year, but that he could not guarantee that future budgets would be able to afford to do so. Grinnell College in Iowa also intends to meet a promise this year that no student graduates with more than $2,000 a year in loans, but officials say it may be hard to sustain that.

“These are things you’ll have to pry from our hands,” said Seth Allen, Grinnell’s dean of admission and financial aid. “At the same time, you have to be realistic.”
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: April 1, 2009 An article on Tuesday about colleges looking more favorably on wealthy applicants referred incorrectly to a pledge by Grinnell College to limit the amount of loans that students must pay back after graduation. The college promises that no student will graduate with more than $2,000 a year in loans — not a total of $2,000 in loans.

Education Is Preparing You For

Dom was visiting Me and Ivan at LA and San Diego this past weekend. Ostensibly it was for graduate school interviewing, but really it was to watch the entire epic series called the Wire.

The Wire is about many things. Drug trade, life on the street corners, politics, media and how its all interrelated. The clip below is from the 4th season and refers to troubled students in public school.

The bald guy doing all the explaining, Bunny Colvin, is talking about how especially troublesome students in a research program fared in some fancy restaurant. The woman interrogating him is trying to gauge how effective that research program is in getting them prepared for a standardized test.

His two big points are:

1) that the testing is really stupid and very very cursory band-aid/excuse for funding, and

2) the education system particularly in West Baltimore is not really relevant to them in their world. Their environment overwhelmingly dominates their life views and education is pretty much an afterthought.

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Food for thought:

1) Any parallels, metaphors we can make from LAUSD to the university and college system?

2) How does this apply to the community college?

3) Also interesting for me is the woman's idea that the research program was "socializing" the students rather than "educating" them. Ain't that the same effing thing?

Is Higher Education Just for the Rich?

This was the topic question in Zocalo's event yesterday.

If by higher education, you mean "4-year college" then pretty much, yes. It's been like that for centuries.

If by higher education, you mean "associates or trade tech" then, not necessarily.

It's relatively cheap here in California.

In a world in which the popular discourse from newspapers to educational institutions are championing and maintaining that they provide equal opportunity, we want the answer to the question to be no. We want higher education in its different properties to be for non-rich people too!

A few months ago the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education found that high-income students on average find more financial aid their expenses than low-income students. What does that say about low-income students?

I think it says that they often don't know where to find the resources. I personally was intimidated whenever I had to take care of administrative work. I'll bet that they don't have too many friends or relatives who have done the college thing themselves. They don't have networks of people who've worked it and done the same.

Kevin Garnett Is Going to UCLA

Hmm...I'd consider trading Josh Shipp for him. Anything more is a rip-off.

March Is a Brotherhood

I am not a fan of college basketball at all, but, March Madness is around the corner and I suddenly become an expert. Where do we finish this year?

El Camino College and Santa Monica College

We recently visited El Camino College to get students' input on the conditions, the life at the community college.

Two community colleges, both successful in the fostering of transferring to 4-year universities. Graduate about the same percentage of people.

Santa Monica has the best transfer rates to 4-year universities. They retain freshman at a clip of 65%.

El Camino has the best transfer rate to UCLA and certain other schools. They have a freshman retention rate of over 74%.

What are the things these schools in Los Angeles have that facilitate a transfer to the 4-year university?

One of the things that facilitate university transfer was just having a lot of couneslors. Santa Monica College has 60 full-time counselors and 40 more part-time counselors, as mentioned before in this blog via the LA Times. However, when I asked how many counselors El Camino currently, students said that El Camino had around 6-8 Full Time Counselors.

So what are some of the things El Camino provides? An article in their student newspaper touches on the building of not only transfer agreements between colleges, but also the building of on-campus support networks:

The success to the increase of transfer rates can also be [attributed] to organizations that were built to help students transfer.

Organizations include: the Honors Transfer Program, Mathematics Engineering Science Acheivement(MESA) and Project Success.

This brings up the questions that might be seem obvious on an individual level, but:

1) What networks do community college transfer centers tap into to secure enrollments at 4-year universities? This might be a question for academics and administrations to explore more.

2) If all the resources are there for people to get, why do others constantly miss them? For example, the Measuring Up 2008 report found that on average, students from more affluent, RICHER families are likely to get bigger grants than low-income students.

Is that not bass ackwards or what?

Theoretically, the resources are always there as they might be at any other institution of education, but I suspect that it's because everyone tends to stick with what they know, and what they know often does encompass the tacit, social knowledge needed to navigate the higher education system.

3) To what extent do transfer-facilitation resources exist at other community colleges? Are there the same resources everywhere? Why do students who want to transfer feel the need to be at a certain community college like an El Camino or a Santa Monica? Why not a Los Angeles City College, or a Los Angeles Harbor College?

Hackneyed Schmackneyed: 'Holistic Empowerment' and PTSP Bayanihan

(Sorry, Brian for the delay in posting and thanks, Andrew for the invite)

Hello, all. My name's JP Bareng Schumacher. Here's the obligatory (leadership) resume ala Theresa and Dom:
-Education: El Camino College, AA Psych (c/o Fall 2002); UCLA, BA Psych (c/o 2005)
-Samahang: SPEAR Staff Assistant (Spring 03); SPEAR Peer Counselor (03-04); SPEAR Peer Counseling Coordinator (04-05)
-PTSP: Academics Coordinator (03-05), PTSP Bayanihan Co-Founder and Peer Advising Dev't Coordinator; Co-Alumni Advisor (05-06)

I'm currently working full time for Samahang Pilipino / UCLA Community Programs Office (CPO) as the Director for the SPACE (Samahang Pilipino Advancing Community Empowerment) Project. From SPEAR to SPACE- who knew?

As the much anticipated focus group at El Camino College nears, I can't help but feel genuinely excited. This event is the result of a determined Bayanihan Coordinator and El Co Site Coordinator (Mr. Andrew Hambre and Mr. Marc Barlis respectively), dedicated PTSP general members, and an exciting collaboration between a PTSP and Samahang Pilipino. Outside of the focus group, the scope and scale of the PTSP / SP collaboration is simply amazing. 4 years ago, such teamwork would have blown my mind (and the mind of my lovely partner in crime, Ms. Theresa Toledo). Come to think of it, it blows my mind now considering just how difficult it was to get PTSP Bayanihan off the ground as a student.

SPEAR and the CPO changed my life- as dramatic a pronouncement as this is, it's absolute truth. In relevance to PTSP, SPEAR training equipped me with the confidence and skills to invest (although, quite painstakingly) the PTSP Executive Board and my Pilipino transfer friends in taking up the cause of Pilipino transfer access to the University. We knew that there was a dearth of data about these access issues, but we also knew anecdotally that our folks were falling through the cracks at the community college. Like Brian said in a prior entry, in those early days (Winter 04), because of the lack of info, 'student driven knowledge creation' was what we worked with and, at the time, epitomized an organization coming into its own to address Pilipino transfer access issues.

As most of you know, PTSP used to be SPTSP- as in SAMAHANG Pilipino Transfer Student Partnership. For my fellow Boardies (shout out to EB 04-05, hahaha) an important document we utilized to shift PTSP back into a progressive direction was the original SPTSP Brochure drafted in 1997. Back then, SPTSP promoted the three R's (Retention, Recruitment, and Research) and according to the brochure, held amazing workshops that promoted academic and holistic empowerment.

Now, Dom is right on when he says that the term 'empowerment' and 'holistic' have become taboo because it's slightly hackneyed now. And let me tell you, some folks (full time staff AND students) that I work with choose not to use this word anymore for that precise reason. But more importantly, Dom is dead on when he talks about just how essential holistic empowerment is regardless if the word is taboo. It's a core outcome for PTSP and Samahang Pilipino, striving to facilitate this amongst its members via general meetings and various other programming and amongst UCLA / CC students via SPEAR, SPACE, and PTSP Bayanihan services and programs.

Holistic empowerment as a means to community empowerment is exactly why PTSP Bayanihan was created. Through working toward your own holistic empowerment, you approach your education very differently. Your education doesn't just live in the classroom- it's in the streets, it's volunteering at a nonprofit, it's what you get out of sharing what you learn with your friends, family, and peers. Further, you realize your education doesn't just belong to you anymore- it's for the betterment of your family AND complete strangers who comprise the nebulous term of 'community'.

When Theresa and I were at El Camino, there was no Pilipino organization to facilitate our Pilipino consciousness, nor was there a Pilipino mentor to engage us in critical thought, Pilipino peer counselors to help us plan out our academic and personal goals, or Pilipino(-American) studies classes. Having transferred and gotten involved in SPEAR and PTSP, we thought it was unacceptable that at the community college, Pilipino 'holistic development' was hinged upon either intrinsic motivation to seek out that self-knowledge at the CC or transferring to a University, possibly deferring critical discussion about identity and education for 2+ years. PTSP Bayanihan was created to do something about that. We modeled PTSP Bayanihan after SPACE and anchored training to what we learned in the CPO through SPEAR and SPACE.

[RANDOM SIDENOTE: I have to applaud the first year staff of PTSP Bayanihan- mostly for undertaking the enormous effort of running a project, the rest for dealing with a recently-graduated, idealistic bugaboo of an Alum Advisor- me. <-- That was for Brian =)]

4 years later, I can't help but feel y'all (PTSP and SP) are right where you need to be. With the current fiscal crisis, classes being cut left and right, student resources diminishing, and the bevy of other access issues, Pilipinos effectively transferring to a 4-year institution is under threat. This focus group will get to the heart of El Camino student needs and will begin anew what Theresa, myself, and so many others have been waiting for- critical dialogue as a means to, say it with me,

"holistic empowerment".

Unapologetically verbose,

[JP]

PS. Current PTSPers, if you're down for tea and chatting it up with this old fogy about anything from PTSP to post grad life, come visit the SPACE cubicle in Suite 106, Student Activities Center. We'll set up a time to talk.