Report Shows Barriers to College Enrollment
Dec. 2011
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The survey included interviews with more than 700 students and 100 parents of students who had already filed applications to college and confirmed that they intended to enroll in the fall.
One of the key findings was that lower-income students especially value personal support from school counselors, teachers, college alumni and college representatives in deciding where to apply.
“These students want to meet more students like themselves and have someone from the college reach out to them personally. It doesn’t necessarily have to be people who look like them or have the same skin color, but people who have shared a similar experience,” said Chat Leonard of the Metro Academic and Classical High School in St. Louis.
Another significant finding was that at the conclusion of the survey (the end of senior year) almost all of the students who had received acceptances (93 percent) still planned to attend college in the fall. There was no evidence of the process causing a drop off in the number of students who aspired to enroll. However, other research has shown that a significant number of these students do not actually enroll in the fall, resulting in only 75 percent going on to college.
“We are very interested in exploring more deeply the reasons for this change of plans,” said Brad Quin, executive director of higher education advocacy at the College Board. “If the process of applying and securing admission is neither complex nor a barrier to access for these students, something else is, and knowing what it is could lead to the development of effective interventions to facilitate enrollment.”
This study further explored the question of whether the college application process is unnecessarily complex, especially for lower-income, first-generation students. Find the full report here.
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