Improving the college pipeline for at-risk youth

Working with high-schoolers isn't enough. Colleges must reach out to third graders to make a difference.

from the May 24, 2007 edition

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The features of these academies (there are now four across the country) are an early start (third grade) because most experts agree that third grade is the last year to connect with students before "the light goes out"; a set curriculum of science, math, and civics, developed by National Board Certified Teachers; parental (or surrogate) involvement so that what is done in the academy is not undone at home; a community board of school and college personnel; and one-on-one college mentors.

Yet the key element of the academies is their location on a college campus. As I saw in those first days at Beloit in 1989, and as I saw again in academies established this year, the moment grade schoolers set foot on campus, college becomes part of their future. Their grades and test results improve, as, of course, do their prospects.

Ask any of these students where they go to school, and they will answer with the name of the college, not their grade school. Perhaps that is the finest validation of the academies. If the horizons of third graders can be broadened, if we can get to them before it is too late, the ramifications – for them, for our colleges, for our economy, for our nation – are great.

To be successful, efforts like these will have to surmount serious challenges. Two stand out: Major funders such as Mr. Gates have so far set different priorities; and college presidents must be convinced to invest in the effort. After all, if the "life expectancy" of a college president is less than eight years, it will take presidents with vision to invest in a program in which children will not be college-bound for 10 years – well after the presidents will have left their positions.

If we really desire to change the lives of at-risk children and broaden the pipeline to college, we must do something far different from what my former colleagues and I have long done. So, I'll continue, like Don Quixote, to tilt at the Gates windmill.

• Roger Hull, a former president of Beloit College and Union College, is the founder of Help Yourself Foundation, which helps at-risk children get on the path to college.

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