WASHINGTON — The rough road to a college degree can be made smoother for first-generation and low-income students if society begins to step up support in the areas of academic support, mentoring and financial aid.
That was the message delivered by higher education, business and other leaders during a panel discussion Thursday at the National Urban League Conference’s 100th Anniversary Convention.
“A lot of students drop out of college because they don’t understand the geography and the environment,” said George Khaldun, chief administrative officer at the Harlem Children’s Zone, a New York-based initiative that features charter schools and a comprehensive array of services to students.
Khaldun spoke during a panel discussion titled “The College Crisis: Keeping Students on the Graduation Path.”
To help prepare Harlem’s Children Zone students for college, Khaldun said, officials at the initiative created Journey to College, an after-school program for middle and high school students that places a heavy emphasis on college readiness through extracurricular and other activities that range from martial arts to chess. The organization also created a College Success Office that keeps in touch with graduates who’ve gone on to college.
Dr. Julianne Malveaux, president of Bennett College for Women in Greensboro, N.C., said the biggest barrier to college access and completion for low-income and first-generation college students is monetary.
She said many families have an aversion to taking out student loans and that aversion impacts their decisions on whether to finance or forgo higher education.
“There are too many students who are calling to say, ‘I can’t come back,’” Malveaux said of Bennett students who leave the school for financial reasons. She also lamented that minority-serving institutions have low endowments and thus less financial aid to offer students.
To remedy the problem, she said, she would have the federal government make Pell Grants cover the entire cost of a student’s education, no matter where the student attends school. The maximum Pell Grant for the 2010-11 academic year is $5,550.
