Faced with troubling statistics about the college completion rates of its graduates, a network of college-preparatory public charter schools is helping to launch the Partnership for College Completion (PCC), an ambitious college-completion initiative that combines matched savings accounts, college-readiness and financial literacy workshops, as well as academic scholarships.
PCC, the new organization, is a collaborative partnership among the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP), the United Negro College Fund (UNCF), and the Center for Enterprise Development, a nonprofit aimed at expanding economic opportunity among underserved communities.
A recent KIPP study found that though most of its graduates eventually attend either two- or four-year colleges, few graduate. Among one cohort of eighth graders who graduated from a KIPP middle school, only 33 percent finished college within eight years. This is a considerable improvement from the estimated 8.3 percent of Black and Latino students who complete college. But it falls short of KIPP’s goal to shepherd at least 75 percent of its graduates through college.
Research has found that students drop out for myriad reasons, whether it is because of lack of financial support, isolation or personal obligations.
“One of the reasons we find that students pull out is lack of financial means. The lack of connections. This perceived level of institutional support,” says Karl Reid, senior vice president of Academic Programs and Strategic Initiatives at UNCF.
“The purpose of the college partnership is to facilitate a level of integration so that when a KIPP student walks on campus, he is already plugged into a network of support,” he says.
KIPP, working in tandem with two educational non-profits, plans to aggressively target what Reid describes as “non-academic” barriers to success.
