It May Only Take One Hour to Seriously Cut the College Dropout Rate

No matter how smart or capable they are, many first-generation college students come with an immediate disadvantage before they step foot on campus. Because they’re the first in their family to attend college, these students might feel culturally different, alienated, estranged from their peers whose parents attended college. It’s no wonder, then, that many of these students are more likely to drop out than their peers. However, a new report from Reuters suggests that this achievement gap can be closed with a simple, one-hour intervention session that allows these students to simply talk about their social class backgrounds.
According to the report, researchers found that the first-generation students who attended this “diversity education” panel at an unnamed private college went on to earn higher grades and were more likely to use campus resources such as tutoring. At the panel, these first-generation students discussed how their social class backgrounds made college more difficult for them. “I didn’t want people to see me struggling with the novelty of college or thinking that anything was wrong,” a panelist shared. “Putting up such a front when I was overwhelmed by a new city, new difficult classes, making new friends was beyond hard.”
MORE: Can Software Close the SAT Achievement Gap?
The students also learned there were resources at the school to help them succeed. After the panel, the attendees reported “less stress and anxiety, better adjustment to college life, more social engagement, and increased recognition of multiple perspectives,” Reuters reports. Encouragingly, the study also found that the achievement gap between the first-generation students who attended this session and their peers whose parents had college educations shrank by 63 percent. And that may be reason enough for colleges across the country to consider this path to keep all of our students in school.

What If We Could Nearly Double the Graduation Rate of Community College Students With One Simple Idea?

While 80% of community college students say their goal is to earn an associate’s degree in a two-year program, only a third go on to graduate with a certificate or degree within six years. While community colleges offer flexibility and accessibility, they often don’t have ways to give extensive support and guidance to the students who really need it. Which is one reason more community colleges may want to follow the example of the ASAP program at the community colleges of the City University of New York system. The Accelerated Study in Associate Programs initiative turns a community college education into a comprehensive, full-time commitment. The program helps pay tuition, loans books to students, places students in bi-weekly advising, provides extra tutoring, and both supports students and holds them accountable from remedial classes all the way through to their degree. Most importantly, the initiative teaches students to navigate an academic institution and how to plot a course to success, which the program is doing for itself — it’s already well on its way to its goal of a 50% graduation rate.