Access

Boosting College Success for Hispanic Students

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Nearly one in five college students are Hispanic, but college-going rates among Latinos still lag behind the national average, data show.

A new report — Breaking Down Barriers: Understanding Hispanic High School Students’ Perceptions on the Transition to College—offers recommendations to boost attainment rates. The research, which consisted of interviews with Hispanic students and parents, was conducted by ACT’s Center for Equity in Learning in conjunction with Univision Communications.

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College Admission

Admission Officers Pen Open Letter to Students, Parents

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A group of 24 college admission professionals published an open letter this week in Inside Higher Ed.

Their audience: Students and parents.

Their message: A pledge to provide each student “with the opportunity to realize the very best in themselves, in others, and in the world they will help shape” amid a college admission process that can seem overwhelming.

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STEM

Survey: Girls Thrive in STEM, Even Without Tech-Savvy Parents

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Editor’s note:  This post was originally published on Admitted in December 2018. It’s being republished as part of NACAC’s Best of the Blog series.

Parents don’t need to be tech-savvy to raise girls who are interested in STEM.

A 2018 poll found that parents’ proficiency with technology has only marginal effects on girls’ excitement about the subject.

“This survey shows that, contrary to popular belief, girls are interested in tech, and that they will seek out instruction regardless of their parents’ affinity with technology,” according to Tracey Welson-Rossman, founder and CEO of TechGirlz — a nonprofit organization that worked with Drexel University (PA) to conduct the survey. “It should reassure parents they can set their daughters on the path to a rewarding, empowering career in tech with support and encouragement, even if they do not understand the subject matter themselves.”

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Access, College Admission, NACAC News

#NACACreads: Colleges Must Change to Better Serve Low-Income Students

In his book, The Privileged Poor, author Tony Jack shares a surprising statistic.

At highly selective colleges, one half of black students and one third of lower income Latino students are the alumni of boarding, day, and preparatory high schools.

Offering admission to such students is “easy” and “a safer bet” for universities, Jack noted Tuesday during a #NACACreads Twitter chat. After all, students who attend college prep high schools generally arrive on campus already having developed the skills and social capital needed to navigate the “hidden curriculum” of higher education.

But Jack challenged chat participants to diversify their recruitment strategies and invest in on-campus efforts that ensure all students have the knowledge and support needed to make the most of their college years.

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Access, NACAC News

#NACACreads: Join Our Twitter Chat with Author Tony Jack

How can institutions of higher education better serve the increasingly diverse students they admit?

Join us tomorrow at 9 p.m. ET for a #NACACreads Twitter chat with scholar and author Anthony Abraham Jack.

We’ll discuss his book, The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges Are Failing Disadvantaged Students, and talk about how to move the needle from access to inclusion.

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Cost of College

College Used to Cost How Much?!

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What does it take to fund a college education?

Unless you work in the admission field — or have a college student in your household — it’s easy to lose track.

Inflation also complicates matters, making it difficult to see how the cost of tuition, fees, room, and board have changed over time.

To make comparisons easier, The College Board crunched the numbers using 2018 dollars. A new list published by CNBC uses that data to chart college costs for each academic year between 1971-72 and 2018-19.

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College Completion, Financial Aid

Rethinking Financial Aid for Student-Parents

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Could changing the federal financial aid structure help more student-parents earn a degree?

A recent op-ed published by the Center for American Progress argues that awarding larger Pell Grants could help more parents persist to graduation.

“These funds would not be enough to cover anywhere close to the full cost of child care—nor would they address underlying structural issues related to the lack of available spots in high-quality child care options—but they would at least recognize that parents face larger costs than nonparents, including for things that go beyond child care, such as food or clothing,” Ben Miller, vice president for postsecondary education at American Progress, notes in his column.

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Regular updates on NACAC and the world of college admission counseling. For more information about NACAC, visit nacacnet.org.