Students describe importance of financial aid to educational and career goals

The June 30 Higher Education Coordinating Board meeting featured a panel discussion with three high-performing students from very low-income backgrounds, who spoke on how important financial aid was to their success.

Prior to hearing the students’ stories, Board members heard a report from Rachelle Sharpe, director of student financial assistance, on the status of financial aid programs in Washington following passage of the 2011-13 budget.

Sharpe told the Board the Legislature has provided additional funding for the State Need Grant (SNG) program in an attempt to hold students at the lowest income levels harmless from tuition increases, which are ranging from 11 to 20 percent across the public institutions.

Even with the added funding, however, the SNG program still will not be able to serve more than 27,000 students who are enrolled and qualify for the program, she said.  Just a few years ago, the SNG program was able to serve all but a few thousand of those who qualified.

In addition, the state extended a reduction in State Work Study program funding, first implemented in 2010, throughout the 2011-13 biennium – cutting the program’s appropriation $30 million. This reduction will result in 5,000 students not obtaining SWS jobs per year for the biennium.

Student Stories

Brier, 23, will complete a bachelor’s degree in journalism at WSU next spring with honors. She is the oldest of three children whose parents did not attend college, and had relatively little preparation or encouragement in this direction during high school. After working full time for two years while earning her associate degree, Brier took a hiatus from school in 2006 to regroup.

“I always knew I needed to complete my bachelor’s degree to be successful,” she told board members.  But she couldn’t quite get over the hump to a four-year program, in part out of fear she would not be able to perform well enough to succeed if she had to work full time. Brier’s aid award dispelled these fears.

“When I opened the award letter I not only had enough money for tuition, I also could cover books, groceries, some gas, and other living expenses.” Brier reported her two sisters have also enrolled in college, following her example.

Angela, 37, grew up on the streets of Chicago in a rough neighborhood. Involved in gangs at an early age, she said earning a college degree simply was not a part of her future world view. But a gang leader, recognizing her intelligence and ability, encouraged her to go back to school.

“I would not be at Seattle University if not for financial aid. At 33 I got work study, which enabled me to begin my degree program. I have been so lucky to receive this support. I see the pain on students’ faces who have been told their aid was cut or eliminated,” Angela said.

She will receive her bachelor’s degree in sociology in spring 2012, and hopes to put her education and experience to use working with youth in gangs.

Alejandro, 22, grew up in a series of foster homes, never far from violence and uncertainty. He had received little instruction on how to be an adult when he was left to his own devices at 18, and faced the long-term possibility of a life on the streets.

“I had no parents or any kind of personal income to help me; no one to show me how to live,” he said. Despite this, he was intensely interested in bettering himself. Financial aid and work study provided just enough support to enable him to enroll at Seattle Central Community College.  

“Financial aid changed everything. I was able to concentrate on my education, to sleep in a bed, not on the ground.” Alejandro is now a junior majoring in social work at the University of Washington and continues to have huge goals for his personal life.

Several Board members asked the students about how their peers were reacting to funding cuts and much higher tuition rates. The students indicated significant concern had been expressed about the cuts, especially about cuts to financial aid programs. They also noted that some rallies to protest the cuts had been held.

One student said funding cuts should be discussed more publicly in the future so their full impact can be made known to the state’s citizens.  But another cautioned that protesting the cuts too vigorously might lead needy students to the conclusion that no financial aid is available.

“We don’t want to discourage students…there are still State Need Grant dollars and there are student financial aid programs outside these. And there is aid available from the institutions and from Pell Grants,” Brier said.  

On the other hand, she continued, students need to advocate in a more public way for more funding for higher education, including financial aid funding.

Committee begins work on higher education master plan update

Washington’s higher education landscape is much changed since the state’s Strategic Master Plan for Higher Education was adopted by the Legislature in 2008.

The plan’s ambitious goal of boosting degree production to meet the needs of an expanding, education-driven economy soon collided with the realities of state budget reductions caused by a severe recession and its aftermath.

Meanwhile, increased access to higher education, especially among the state’s traditionally non-college-going populations, has been hampered by escalating tuition costs and by the Legislature’s need to reduce, suspend or fund student financial aid programs at levels below those needed to serve all eligible students.   

Now the HECB is working on an update to the Strategic Master Plan that will suggest next steps for achieving the plan’s goals—given the state’s current economic environment.

The HECB will consider adopting the plan update at a meeting in November. By Dec. 1, the update will be forwarded to the Legislature for consideration during the 2012 regular session.

Meanwhile, a Master Plan Advisory Committee is reviewing progress since 2008 on three main Strategic Master Plan goals: increasing educational attainment, promoting economic development and innovation, and monitoring and funding higher education for results. The committee will then propose next steps for continuing progress on the goals.

“In today’s economic climate, it is not possible to do everything,” HECB Chair Ethelda Burke said to the committee at an initial meeting earlier this month.  “We’d like this group to consider whether there are some paramount strategies on which we should focus to show demonstrable gains in educational attainment in the state.”

The advisory committee consists of a broad representation of education interests, including public and private four-year colleges and universities, community and technical colleges, career colleges, the K-12 system, business, the Legislature, and the Governor’s office.   

Burke reminded the committee that the current 10-year Strategic Master Plan, which the law requires be updated every four years, was the state’s first attempt to develop a long-range higher education plan for Washington.

“The plan was visionary and designed to serve societal, economic, personal, and governmental needs and benefit our entire state,” Burke said.

The HECB received a staff report on the Strategic Master Plan update effort at its June meeting.  For more information on the update effort, read the Board report and view the presentation.

At-risk students to benefit from Gates Foundation grant to Evergreen

A $3 million grant to the Evergreen State College from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will be used to support student retention, expand scholarship fundraising capabilities, and create an endowed scholarship fund for low-income students at risk of failing to complete their degrees.

The multi-year grant will:

• Establish an endowed scholarship fund that will increase support for low-income students that are at risk of dropping out of college ($1.5 million);
• Support creative approaches to curricular development and academic and career advising that will facilitate student retention and success ($250,000); and
• Provide funding to increase Evergreen’s capacity to attract new benefactors supporting scholarships and other needs on campus as the college gears up to celebrate 40 years of teaching and learning in 2011-12 ($1.25 million.)

Evergreen has a long tradition of serving a diverse population of students, including many that are the first in their families to attend college and many in financial distress or with few economic resources.

The grant will endow a scholarship fund that will support students in perpetuity as well as provide incentives to other donors to support students in need by matching their gifts dollar for dollar. 

“The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Evergreen share a commitment to college access and success, a commitment that is ever more critical for students and society,” said Evergreen President Les Purce in announcing the grant. 

In addition to the non-profit Gates foundation, some private companies in Washington also are expanding efforts to help students achieve higher education goals during financially challenging times.

Boeing and Microsoft each recently contributed $25 million to the new Opportunity Scholarship program created by the Legislature this year. Under that program, the state matches private contributions to provide scholarships for low- and middle-income students enrolled in high employer demand studies in Washington.

HECB members express concern over recent changes in state higher education funding

Given recent funding decisions by the Legislature, Higher Education Coordinating Board members have expressed deep concern about the future of the state’s public higher education system.

The cost of public higher education is being transferred to students and families at a rate much greater than at any time in history, board members said in a prepared statement read at the outset of their regular board meeting on June 30, 2011.  Students and families, who just a few years ago paid for 40 percent of the cost, now must pay on average 60 percent or more at the baccalaureate institutions.

A central issue is whether the state can realistically expect to significantly increase bachelor and advanced degree production as called for in recent legislation without additional state investment in public higher education.

Three successive years of deep budget cuts have left the state’s baccalaureate institutions little margin for improvement, especially because the institutions are among the most efficient in the country, board members emphasized.

With large tuition increases being used to backfill cuts in state support, the most likely result will be stable or, in some cases, declining enrollment, which will be insufficient to raise degree production levels.

The stakes are high in the effort to raise educational attainment. Washington has one of the nation’s lowest bachelor and advanced degree participation rates among its younger citizens. The state is overly dependent on importing individuals with bachelor’s and advanced degrees – especially in high-wage fields such as engineering and technology.

Other countries and states are making rapid progress raising educational levels while Washington is standing still, a reality that must change, board members emphasized.

The board decried a widely promulgated argument that the recession has forever changed the political/economic landscape of the country, and that public investment in education – so much a bedrock for our nation’s progress – has now become the responsibility of the ‘individuals’ who benefit, not the society as a whole.

What is needed, board members asserted, is sustained and increasing statewide re-investment in higher education coupled with innovative system reform and strengthened by increased accountability for results.  This will require statewide vision, leadership and commitment, especially on the part of legislators and stakeholders.

Continued double-digit tuition increases over time are certain to dampen the college-attending aspirations of citizens whose incomes are now at the margins of financial aid eligibility – auguring reduced participation if nothing is done to create change, board members insisted.

Today, students are seeking higher education in record numbers. In eight years, when prices have more than doubled, will they still be? Board members cautioned that the potential debt load associated with college may become so great that many will simply opt out, depriving themselves of a better life and our society of their potential.

Board members indicated public higher education continues to be the most cost-effective and proven way to educate large numbers of citizens to higher levels.  But the rapidly evolving switch to tuition-supported funding will make developing and implementing an effective long-range plan to raise educational attainment much more difficult, they added.

The impact of recent policy decisions, if unchecked, will be felt for generations to come, board members concluded.

Seattle mayor pleased with results of College Bound signup effort

Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn, who has been a highly visible supporter of the College Bound Scholarship program in recent weeks, announced that a record number of 8^th grade students in Seattle signed up for the scholarship program during the program’s recently concluded spring signup push.

Overall, 452 more Seattle students submitted applications this year than last school year (1,522 versus 1,070), an increase of 42 percent, according to preliminary signup figures provided to the mayor’s office by the HECB, which administers the program.

The College Bound Scholarship program pays tuition and book expenses not covered by other student financial aid programs for low-income students who sign up in the 7^th or 8^th grade, stay out of legal trouble, and enroll in a higher education institution after high school graduation.

The first class of eligible College Bound Scholarship students will graduate from high school next spring.

UW study looks at high school grads 10 years later

In 2000, the University of Washington’s Department of Sociology conducted a study of 1,157 seniors at five Tacoma high schools to learn more about their dreams and goals as they entered the new millennium.

More than a decade later, the UW researchers are reconnecting with these students to see whether their goals and dreams have been realized, and to determine how their lives have changed.  About half of the original students have been contacted, and researchers hope to complete their work by August.

The News Tribune’s education writer, Debbie Cafazzo, recently gave readers a glimpse of how some of the students’ lives have progressed in an article titled "Checking In: How Tacoma's Class of 2000 Grew Up."   It includes findings from the initial survey and interviews with some of the original respondents.

A similar survey was conducted with Tacoma’s 2002 seniors and a third survey in 2005 covered seniors in the Clover Park and Mukilteo school districts and in three Tacoma private schools.

The Beyond High School Project  asked students to provide information about their family backgrounds, health, home environments, and participation in school and non-school activities, among other questions. The students came from divergent demographic and socio-economic backgrounds.

Time to reverse downward trend in state support for higher ed, Eastern board member argues

In an op-ed piece in today’s Seattle Times, Neil McReynolds, vice chair of the Governing Board for Eastern Washington University, argues the state must reverse the recent downward trend in state support for higher education, which will result in tuition increases of 11 to 20 percent next year. Further cuts will limit Eastern’s ability to maintain facilities and make it increasingly difficult for families to absorb rising tuition costs. That raises concerns about the long-term impact on the state economy, McReynolds says.  

HECB helps colleges prepare for incoming College Bound Scholarship students

The first wave of College Bound Scholarship students will graduate from high school next spring and start arriving on college campuses in the fall of 2012.  Helping college staffs prepare for their arrival is a priority for the HECB, which administers the College Bound program.

The HECB recently hosted a one-day workshop in Olympia to give postsecondary institutions information they’ll need to welcome College Bound Scholarship recipients.  The approximately 80 attendees included admissions, advising, student support services, outreach and enrollment staff from these institutions and also organizations that provide support services to College Bound, such as OSPI and the College Success Foundation.

The College Bound Scholarship program was established by the Legislature in 2007 to help low-income students pay college expenses not covered by other student financial aid programs.  To receive the scholarship, students must sign up in middle school, remain income-eligible, maintain good grades, stay out of trouble with the law and be accepted to a higher education institution.

“When we think about College Bound—it’s really such a spot-on program because it addresses one of the central goals of our state’s Strategic Master Plan: raise educational attainment among under-represented students, especially those from our state’s most economically disadvantaged families,” said Jan Ignash, HECB Deputy Director of Policy, Planning & Research. 

Washington’s College Bound Scholarship program is patterned after Indiana’s 21^st Century Scholars program, which began in 1990. The workshop’s keynote speaker, Dr. Scott Evenbeck, formerly from Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis, shared lessons learned in that program.

Dr. Evenbeck said students whose families do not have a college-going history often are helped by campus welcoming efforts such as mentoring programs, student organizations, websites and study centers. Such programs support successful transition to higher education by helping students answer three often-asked questions: are there people here like me; are there people who will like me; are there people I will like.

A report on the Indiana program is available here.

Rachelle Sharpe, HECB Director of Student Financial Assistance, said the HECB stands ready to assist college administrators through a robust data-matching methodology that can provide College Bound student information such as GPA, exit codes and race/ethnicity. She also reported on the 2011 Legislature’s passage of SB 5304, which tasks the state Caseload Forecast Council with projecting future College Bound enrollments for budget purposes.

Information from other workshop sessions included:

 Laying the Groundwork: Included information on how college staff can create their own action plans and worksheets to:

·         Identify College Bound students on campus and which campus stakeholders can assist them.

·         Welcome and integrate College Bound students on campus.

·         Identify other campus resources and stakeholders.

·         Identify other resources that may already be available to serve first generation/low-income students.

·         Evaluate such efforts.

 Building a Mentoring Program:  Understanding Narrative and Audience:  This session focused on telling students' stories to build and enhance opportunities for peer-to-peer and college student-to-youth mentoring. 

Featured programs included:

·         The Retention Project managed by the Washington Campus Compact which is an AmeriCorps program. AmeriCorps members recruit and train college student mentors to provide a consistent, individualized and supportive relationship to assist in student success.

·         Giselle Cunanan from The LEADS program at Gonzaga University shared how that program assists incoming multicultural and first generation students to successfully transition to college. 

·         Dean Hagin and Katie Heizenrader discussed the Peer to Peer mentoring program at Whatcom Community College, which serves Adult Basic Education Students, GED, English as a Second Language and IBEST Professional Technical Programs. The AmeriCorps member works to recruit mentors who have successfully completed these programs and places them with incoming students to focus on both academic and out-of-class issues.

 Successful Strategies for College Bound Outreach:  Beth Ahlstrom, Higher Education Coordinating Board and Michele Alejano, College Success Foundation, discussed the history of the program’s outreach, application sign-up processes and program growth.

On the Road to College – What College Bound Students Need to Know About Their Scholarship:  Vicki Merkel, HECB Associate Director of Student Financial Assistance, previewed the presentation developed for 2012 graduating high school seniors and their families on how the scholarship works.