During his planning period in between teaching advanced placement Rhetoric and Composition at Fern Creek High School in Louisville, Kentucky, Beau Baker calls admissions officers at Wesleyan, Duke, and Vanderbilt Universities. This wouldn't be out of the ordinary if Baker served as a school counselor, but he doesn't. And this wouldn't be anomalous if Baker taught at a private school with admissions "pipelines" to elite colleges and universities. But he doesn't.
Baker is an English teacher at Fern Creek [where the author teaches], a large public school where roughly 70 percent of students are low-income and 56 percent identify as minority. The highest-achieving Fern Creek graduates who enroll at four-year institutions usually remain in Kentucky.
"There's nothing inherently wrong with this," Baker says of students staying in state for college, "but there are real consequences when talented, low-income students are 'under-matched'"—when they do not apply to or attend colleges and universities commensurate with their academic potential. A January 2016 report from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, True Merit: Ensuring Our Brightest Students Have Access to Our Best Colleges and Universities, states that only 23 percent of high-achieving, low-income students choose to apply to elite schools whose student bodies generally have comparable academic ability. Not choosing to go to a selective school can drastically affect a student's opportunities, the report explains.
What's the Big Deal?
Across the nation, selective colleges and universities have long struggled to recruit and enroll low-income students. According to the College Excellence Program at the Aspen Institute, 38 percent of college students at four-year institutions receive federal Pell Grants—meaning they have family incomes of less than $70,000—compared to just 22 percent of students at the top 270 colleges. In addition, a recent study from The Equality of Opportunity Project reveals that 38 selective institutions have more students enrolled from the top 1 percent of family income than from the bottom 60 percent. Many top colleges and universities may be inadvertently perpetuating social inequality rather than combatting it.
The Jack Kent Cooke report highlights the myriad benefits students receive by attending selective schools: They graduate at higher rates, earn higher incomes, and are more likely to pursue graduate degrees. In essence, the report states, where you go to school matters, especially for low-income students who benefit from the increased attention and counseling services that selective institutions often provide.
The stakes are significant, the research emphasizes: High-achieving, low-income students graduate at a rate of 56 percent at noncompetitive universities, compared to a rate of 90 percent at highly competitive schools—a percentage commensurate with their more privileged peers.
This disparity in college graduation rates was a driving force behind Baker's decision to create Fern Creek's Ivy Plus Academy, a program that provides roughly 100 students—from freshman to seniors—with information and guidance to help them gain acceptance to selective institutions. Participants are recruited to Ivy Plus based on their academic performance and leadership potential. In addition to ongoing mentorship, they receive help acquiring financial aid and scholarships, as well as transportation for campus visits. A Naval Academy graduate, Baker has long seen a connection between working with Fern Creek students and being in charge of ship crews. "When I was a naval officer, I worked with 18- and 19-year-old kids who were incredibly bright, but nobody had told them they were talented," he says. "I see the same kids at Fern Creek that I saw on ship decks in the Navy."
Parents and Financial Know-How
The largest gap these students and their families face in college selection, Baker believes, is a lack of access to information about the maze of financial realities. "We need to give students and parents the same information that more privileged, educated, and connected families have. People forget how many new 'hoops' a low-income student has to go through to make it into college," Baker says. "A lot of these families need a sounding board, someone to guide them through the process."
Many parents are intimidated by the high sticker price at private colleges and universities, Baker notes, but they may not realize that the average yearly student loan amount could be similar for Kentucky's public postsecondary options and selective national schools. For example, Forbes calculates that after financial aid and scholarships are factored in, the University of Kentucky's average yearly student loan amount is $7,363, compared to $7,119 per year at Davidson College in North Carolina. Their graduation rates, however, are quite disparate. According to College Navigator data from the National Center for Education Statistics, Davidson's average four-year graduation rate is 90 percent; the University of Kentucky's is 35 percent (among students who started in the fall of 2009).
"Once parents get the information, they are pleasantly surprised and encouraged by what they learn regarding costs, graduation rates, etc.," Baker says, "but it's usually the parents who need more convincing than the kids, often due to misconceptions about financial aid."
In order to disseminate information about filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and improve understanding of the nuts and bolts of paying for college, Baker hosts two evening informational meetings a year—one in the fall and one in the spring—for parents of Ivy Plus students. In addition, he holds gradewide meetings as well as individual meetings with students and their parents.
Recent Fern Creek graduate and Ivy Plus member Iishe Davis earned a full scholarship to Scripps College in Claremont, California. She says that it took a sit-down meeting between Baker and her grandparents for them to finally feel comfortable with her applying to more expensive schools. "Even after I got accepted [to Scripps], my grandparents needed help in understanding what the financial aid results meant," she says.
Davis's college search highlights how scholarships and financial assistance can offset exorbitant tuition costs: many expensive, selective schools provide need-based financial aid. This year, the 16 graduating seniors from Ivy Plus received $6.12 million in grants and scholarships—more than $380,000 per student. According to Baker, the maximum last year's Ivy Plus graduates had to pay to attend an elite college was $8,000 a year—and many had out-of-pocket costs of less than $2,000.
Finding the Right Match
First-generation college-going students are often unaware of the range of postsecondary opportunities available to them. Janessa Dunn, an admissions counselor at Vanderbilt University, travels across Tennessee, Kentucky, and Ohio to meet with prospective students at a wide range of schools. She says she frequently meets students with scant understanding of their education options. "It's obvious that many students don't have the social capital to understand what opportunities are out there. Even I, with parents and grandparents who graduated from college, barely considered college options outside of my home state of Alabama," Dunn says.
At Fern Creek, which Dunn has visited, Baker begins to address this knowledge gap by surveying students about the type of college environment they may be interested in (he uses a simple paper survey he created).
During their sophomore and junior years, Ivy Plus Academy students begin learning about how schools differ in geography, size, academic profile, and sought-after majors. After receiving input from students, Baker provides them with customized lists of schools that match their preferences.
"Mr. Baker helped us think differently about the purpose of college and which schools would be the best fit for our goals," Davis says. Although she initially envisioned herself attending a large state school, the process helped her realize that a smaller liberal arts college would be a better selection.
Fitting In
For many underprivileged students attending competitive colleges and universities, the immersion into a culture of privilege can be overwhelming. A recent Boston Globe article titled "What Is it Like to Be Poor at an Ivy League School?" highlights the struggles these students face in assimilating at elite institutions, as they often report feelings of alienation and sinking self-confidence. Addressing this potential culture shock is a priority for the Leadership Enterprise for a Diverse America, based in New York City. Each year, the national nonprofit helps 100 high-achieving, low-income high school juniors navigate the admissions process to elite schools—and then provides them with ongoing support once they enroll.
The program brings its cohorts to Princeton University in the summer for a seven-week experience to preview campus life: They learn how to network, how to access health centers, and the importance of meeting with academic advisers, among other skills. "There's a confidence issue with these kids. Many have never met a corporate lawyer or Wall Street trader. They don't have a parent offering them a lens into the professional world. We try to broaden their perspective," executive director Beth Breger told the Globe.
Some educators have taken it upon themselves to prepare disadvantaged students for the transition to college. Nate Bowling, Washington State's 2016 Teacher of the Year, created a "Seminar" course at Lincoln High School, where 75 percent of students are low-income and nearly 80 percent identify as minority. In the course, he leads explorations of the issues his diverse students will face as they transition to postsecondary options. "We talk a lot about what it [may mean] to be a first-generation college student on a predominately white, likely rural campus," says Bowling.
"Students are academically prepared (for college)," he adds, "but it's the cultural stuff that really can shake students and make them uncertain about applying and attending. Going to a place of massive privilege is a whole new world."
To remedy some of this cultural anxiety, Bowling and several colleagues began the tradition of an Alumni Support Tour in the fall of 2014. They now embark on an annual road trip, checking in with dozens of graduates, sharing meals and insights, and reconnecting to offer another layer of support to students who may feel a sense of cultural isolation.
A National Effort
Beyond the essential work these school-based advocates provide, two major national programs—The Coalition for Access, Affordability, and Success and the American Talent Initiative—are attempting to address under-matching between selective colleges and high-achieving, disadvantaged students.
The Coalition hosts a web platform that streamlines the college application process to 90 selective partner institutions. Students can create free accounts and apply to multiple schools simultaneously, and they can add relevant documents, awards, and other résumé-enhancing materials through a digital portfolio. Most low-income students qualify for a waiver of application fees.
Coalition executive director Annie Reznik says that since their July 2016 launch, more than 100,000 students have created accounts, 26 percent of whom are considered low-income. Reznik would like to see more freshmen and sophomores using the platform "so that we have an opportunity to affect their college process."
The American Talent Initiative, an alliance of top colleges and universities, is also attempting to level the playing field. The 30 founding-member institutions, including Princeton, Stanford, and the University of Michigan, have doubled down on their efforts to enroll and graduate students from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. A national awareness campaign and the dissemination of research-based best practices are part of the group's aim to expand access and opportunity to more than 50,000 low-income students by 2025.
"Fight for These Kids"
Back at his classroom desk, Baker emphasizes that it's a moral imperative for educators to try to match students to appropriately challenging schools. "We've got to fight for these kids," he says, poring over his list of admissions contacts from around the country, continuing to seek pathways for his students in Kentucky who, until recently, had no idea about the vast range of postsecondary possibilities available to them.
Not every school will be lucky to have a Baker or Bowling to mentor and open doors for these students. But a growing constellation of programs and stakeholders is addressing under-matching, and as a result, bringing the possibility of more equity to the college admissions process.
