• Education

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  • Learn More about the Earned Income Tax Credit
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  • The Child Tax Credit: Extra Credit for Many Working Families!
  • Still Another Tax Benefit for Families! The Child and Dependent Care Credit
  • Education Tax Credits for Families: The Hope Credit
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• Strengthening Communities

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Factors that influence students' access to and success in post-secondary education

The Piton Foundation is interested in improving low-income students' access to post-secondary education and, even more importantly, their success in college. Nationally, 75% of African-American and Latino high school graduates enter some form of post-secondary education (1). However, in Colorado, only 20% of African-American and Latino students who are first-time, full-time, degree-seeking students obtain associates degress within three years of enrolling in Colorado's community colleges (2,3).

Access to Post-Secondary Education

A number of barriers can prevent low-income students from enrolling in post-secondary education. These include:

• Lack of knowledge and information on post-secondary education opportunities
• Lack of money to pay for education or understanding of how to apply for financial aid
• Lack of family and/or peer support
• Lack of feeling that they belong in college

A number of groups across Colorado and the country focus on reducing these barriers. The Piton Foundation is exploring and bulding relationships with several of these groups to see how the foundation can help them further improve post-secondary access by lowering these barriers. For example:

• In partnership with Emily Griffith Opportunity School and a committee of the Joint Apprenticeship Training Council, Piton is exploring ways to increase support of students who want careers in the trades. Many of these trades require their apprentices to acquire 42 credit hours of post-secondary education.
• Piton supports the Higher Education Access Alliance's goal of increasing higher education opportunities for all Colorado students, regardless of economic or immigration status. Piton is supporting an analysis of this issue being commissioned by the alliance.
• Piton is exploring ways to support efforts to simplify the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). The Institute for Access and Success, based in California, is working closely with the IRS and Department of Education to facilitate a process that enables the IRS to electronically dowload tax data directly into the FAFSA.

Success in Post-Secondary Education

Students fail to succeed in post-secondary education for a number of reasons (4). These include:

• Academic preparedness -- many students drop out because they were not sufficiently prepared in high school to meet the academic standards of college.
• Involvement -- some students leave because they feel marginal, unconnected or isolated, which leads to a lack of feeling of membership in the institution.
• Learning -- students who learn and find value in their learning are students who stay; those who don't, often leave.
• Adjustment difficulties/fit -- for some students, the adjustment to more rigorous academic work and a competitive social environment is too difficult. Others simply feel they do not "fit" or "belong" socially or academically.
• Finances -- some students leave because the ongoing tuition burden is too stressful on them and their families.

There are fewer organizations, particularly in Colorado, that dedicate time and resources to impact these factors. As a result, Piton will seek to change that by: 1) raising people's awareness that success issues exist and advocating that more be done to address them; and, 2) rewarding post-secondary institutions and supporting the expansion of practices that generate better than average success rates for low-income students.

Piton's efforts to raise awareness of the issues will include:

• sponsoring research that shows how Colorado students are faring in post-secondary education and sharing it with stakeholders
• researching and publicizing new models of secondary/post-secondary education that result in higher success rates
• educating policymakers and students on the issues.

Piton will work to expand successful practices by:

• identifying and rewarding institutions and programs/practices that increase students' potential to graduate with a certificate or degree in hand
• supporting the expansion and institutionalization of high quality programs/practices. Two areas of interest that Piton is currently investigating are concurrent enrollment and learning communities (Read more about learning communities.)

Related links

For a list of links to national and Colorado organizations that conduct research and advocacy related to higher education, provide higher education resources for students, as well as links to the major higher education systems in Colorado, click here.

Contact us if you know of an interesting group working on post-secondary access or success issues in Colorado.

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¹NELS 88/2000 dataset
²Colorado Community College Systems Office
³ Piton is very interested in supporting the Colorado Community College System's efforts to build out a student data warehouse that enables the foundation to help community colleges improve outcomes for low-income students of color, as well as for all students.
⁴ All of these success factors are identified and explained by college success expert Vincent Tinto in "Rethinking the First Year of College" in the work titled Promoting Student Success in College.