Better Colleges Failing to Lure Talented Poor

It's like your having a completely different discussion than the rest of us.

 

Does Georgia still have that deal where every kid who gets a certain GPA in high school gets college paid for at a state school?

I remember hearing about it, but I didn't know any of the specifics.

 

You could end up with another Suzy Snowflake -- someone who looks good on paper, but isn't really interested in being there.

Shit. I think I was YankeeFan Snowflake back in 1987.

 

Well, I might quibble with you in this regard: You say Suzie "won" the seat, but then suggest that the admissions process is not predictive of success. I think that's probably not true in the main, but it is true on the margin. By that I mean that when we're getting down to those hazy "yeah, but" decisions -- and at a school such as the one I was at, there might have been tons of those -- it's really just a flip of the coin. Either way, though, we're left with the stone cold fact that Suzie's blown her chance.

I don't think you realize how many chances the Suzies of that world got. Having taken my degrees at more research-oriented state institutions where, as Mizzou pointed out, "they don't give a shit," I was astounded at the amount of resources devoted to getting/keeping Suzie on track. I mean 7-figure budgets (and this wasn't all that big a school). Am I saying kick Suzie to the curb if she blows it her first semester? No, not at all. But when Suzie's still fucking up after a year or so? Yeah, let's let someone else have a chance.

 

The admissions process blew it with Suzie. Who's to say it won't blow it with her replacement? The signal-to-noise ratio is awfully low in admissions decisions. That's what he's getting at, and it's a good point.

 

As YF said.

Your admissions process identified Suzie Snowflake as a likely success. Why would it be any better at predicting the success of her replacement?

Kids flop in college for all sorts of completely unpredictable and idiosyncratic reasons.

 

Lots of states do that. In South Carolina, every student with a given academic profile -- and it's a pretty damn low hurdle -- gets $X,000 per year. Keep a B average and you get to keep that money throughout college.

 

quant's original post mentioned "legacies." Based on what I hear from a friend in the administration of a private university, 90% of their Suzies are kids for whom there are no repercussions. They can't be kicked out of school; if they or their parents choose for them to leave, life will continue to be easy.

 

That program sounds good to me as well. At the same time, I'm uncomfortable with hand-picking the top students out of poor areas and then basically saying 'good luck with your shitty education' to the rest. What about the kids who were just on the other side of the line? What if their not getting chosen to be taken out of their school makes them feel like it's not worth it to really put in the effort? Without improving the schools, we're just continuing the cycle of poverty for the majority of students that come from these schools.

There's no single panacea for the problems with low-performing schools. It's fine to identify the top possible students early, but we should also be doing more to get better information into the hands of kids that are in these poor schools.

I'm working on a program where we're developing an eLearning curriculum for students that starts in 9th grade and gives them information about all their post-secondary options, and how they can pay for them. The two leads on it are an eLearning expert and a former counselor/principal who worked mostly in poor areas. The beta tests have been very successful and it should be in some school districts next fall. If it's successful in high schools, we have plans to eventually expand it to K-12. We work with the parents as well to try and give them more information.

My main concern with it is that schools will use it as another reason to get rid of counselors when it really should be a supplement to them. Also, once again, it's just one of the many ways this problem could be attacked. This information we're getting into the students' hands won't help much if they're getting a terrible education and they're not at all prepared for college. We need to get more teachers and counselors into these schools, not fewer.

 

If the students are stronger and the work is more rigorous, the graduation rate should not be this high. If you place these elite students in less rigorous work, then you would expect the graduation rate to stay this high.

http://collegecompletion.chronicle.com/college-stats/

Indiana University, a school I doubt many of you think is shitty, has a graduation rate on 71%. Are the students at this school a full standard deviation lower than students at Harvard? I'm going to say no.