Enough
Enough.
I read in the New York Times this week about the CEO of Nike giving Stanford University $400 million to support graduate education at that University. Apparently it follows on the heels of Harvard announcing a similar $400 million contribution to improve its engineering school. And this comes on the heels of the release of a report last month by the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation calling for increased financial aid for disadvantaged students so they could attend prestigious private universities—the argument being that only those institutions had the capacity to serve these students.
Don’t get me wrong. I have great respect for Harvard, Stanford and the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation. And based on my own story, I certainly support the idea of disadvantaged students attending prestigious colleges. When I went to Cornell, my father was unemployed and my mother was a secretary at the local high school. I was able to go to Cornell through a combination of state, federal and institutional aid. But mostly it was the encouragement of my parents, who insisted that I go to the best college that would take me.
Later, I had the opportunity to work at Bucknell University, another great institution. In its effort to increase diversity, Bucknell had partnered with three different organizations to offer scholarship opportunities for disadvantaged students, student who would not normally have appeared on the Bucknell campus. One of those groups was the Jack Kent Cooke community college scholars program, which brought successful, high need community colleges to Lewisburg, PA. These students, who were generally older, more diverse and less well off than the typical student, helped make Bucknell a more diverse institution.
So, I have sympathy for getting more disadvantaged students into prestigious institutions. But enough is enough.
The True Merit report by the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation makes an interesting read. My summation of its argument is that prestigious private colleges need financial incentives in order to do a better job of recruiting high achieving disadvantaged students.
What about those less prestigious colleges that have been helping college capable students realize the same dream of a college degree? The True Merit report suggests that “only at the most selective schools do high achieving, lower-income students graduate at rates equal to students from higher income backgrounds. Our review. . . suggests that students also receive a higher quality education at selective colleges, at least as measured by per pupil spending.” (emphasis added)
Really.
That brings me to my main topic. While I understand and certainly appreciate the interest in high achieving, disadvantaged students and their attendance at prestigious private colleges and universities, what about the larger group of college capable students. At Alvernia we have launched a program for those students, borrowing on the models used at institutions like those highlighted in the True Merit report. But Alvernia isn’t Bucknell or Cornell, or Harvard or Stanford. And the students we’re talking about don’t have 1300 on their SATs. But they are capable of succeeding in college and Alvernia is serving them well.
Two years ago, we launched our Reading Collegiate Scholars program, targeting college capable students in the city of Reading. Reading is the poorest city in Pennsylvania. It is also the only city in Pennsylvania with a majority Hispanic population. Almost forty percent of the working age adults in the city don’t have a high school diploma. And those statistics are reflected in the school district, which is also the poorest school district in the Commonwealth, with the largest percentage of English Language Learners. The district has a dropout rate well above the state average and a college attendance rate well below that average.
We have enrolled two cohorts of scholars, providing them with full tuition grants and an extensive support system to help them succeed in school. These are small numbers and still somewhat early, but so far we have been successful. After three semesters on campus, the first group of eight students has a combined 3.26 GPA. The second group of ten has a collective GPA of 3.09. And they are active on campus and within the community.
Understand who these students are. All but one is a first generation college student. All but one is Hispanic. Several come from broken homes. Two are DACA or “Dreamer” students, but they all have a dream of getting a college degree.
We believe that part of their success is due to the support system we have put in place. Each scholar has a volunteer community mentor. Each cohort has a faculty mentor to help them navigate their college career. As a cohort they support each other academically and personally. They go through a pre-college summer program that helps them adjust to college life. And they are well aware that there is a net below them to help them when they need it.
We have learned lessons that may not apply to those high achieving, disadvantaged students who attend prestigious private colleges. Our students may share some of the issues and concerns that those students confront, such affordability and weak counseling. But they often have to figure out ways to balance school, work and family. Some of our scholars work to help support their families. For example, recently, one had to adjust her academic schedule to meet the need to increase the hours she was working because her mother lost her job. Some are responsible for taking care of siblings so the parents can work. And we help them deal with these challenges.
We understand that the likelihood of success for these students is making sure that they have strong connections to the university. We would love to offer them work-study jobs on campus. We’d like them to live on campus, but because their scholarships only cover tuition, that isn’t possible for most of the Reading scholars.
As challenging as that has been for our students, it is also a challenge for us. Alvernia tuition isn’t nearly has high as Harvard or Cornell or Bucknell of Stanford. But our endowment is even further from they enjoy. Stanford enjoys an endowment of $33 billion. That endowment spins off almost $1.5 billion a year. Bucknell has an endowment north of $700 million, relatively low for prestigious university. That endowment generates almost $35 million a year. Alvernia, by contrast has an endowment of less than $10 million. Offering full tuition scholarships for the forty students who will be enrolled in our program when fully implemented will cost over $1 million a year, twice what our current endowment generates.
While I don’t want to criticize the efforts to increase the numbers of disadvantaged students attending prestigious schools, I am a little concerned about what appears to the underlying premise, that what we need in America is to change the face of privilege, rather than lifting more people into productive, middle class lives.
Another foundation, the Lumina Foundation, has written about the need to grow the number of American workers with some post-secondary education. They estimate that by 2025 nearly 60% of all of the jobs in America will require some post-secondary education. That’s the need we’re trying to serve with the Reading Collegiate Scholars program. And so far, we’re doing ok.
So while people are focusing on helping those prestigious schools enroll more disadvantaged students by growing their endowments, I’d ask that there be some attention given to the more modest efforts of Alvernia and Reading, which seem to be working albeit on a shoestring.









