In the News: The Paradox of College - The Rising Cost of Going (and Not Going!) to College

"In the fight to put low-income kids on the college track, one of the simplest weapons is also one of the most controversial. It's cash. If a student gets a good grade, he gets some money. If he doesn't get a good grade, he gets no money. Same goes for teachers. If their students succeed, they get richer. If they don't, then they don't."

Read more about the successes of cash incentives for low-income students in The Atlantic. Then come back and tell us what you think about the idea. Have you ever tried a program like this with your students? Was it successful? Do you think it could be?

Program Spotlight: Police Activities League of Greater Portland

The Oregon College Access Challenge Grant provides schools, districts, colleges, universities, and community-based non-profit organizations opportunities to serve youth in their college-going dreams. Today's blog post features a currently-funded community based organization.

The Police Activities League (PAL) is a national organization that benefits youth through healthy recreation and safe extracurricular activities.

PAL of the Greater Portland Area includes two youth centers, one in east Portland and one in Beaverton. The Portland PAL Youth Center is located in the Rockwood area of Gresham at the eastern boundary with Portland in a former elementary school. In Beaverton, the city provides space for PAL in the Beaverton Resource Center. Both programs house thriving afterschool programs which draw in young people from several surrounding school districts. 

The Portland and Beaverton PAL Youth Centers each serve 100-150 children with their summer activities; multiple sports camps run in cooperation with local universities and Portland Parks and Recreation. Both PAL youth center offers students USDA meals each weekday during the school year and in summer. During the school year, from 2:30-7pm, the buildings are buzzing with activity: tutoring and homework club, skill-focused groups, recreation and crafts. In the summer, PAL youth centers are open all day and provides numerous field trips, camps and sports, including boxing and late night basketball.

Program Spotlight: OIT Rural Outreach for College Access

The Oregon College Access Challenge Grant provides schools, districts, colleges, universities, and community-based non-profit organizations opportunities to serve youth in their college-going dreams. Today's blog post features a currently-funded university partner.

Oregon Institute of Technology's Rural Outreach for College Access (ROCA) has been an interesting and challenging project. Our intent was to support rural, first generation and low income students in their aspirations to attend college by providing college access and success workshops on high school campuses; providing selected students with scholarships for ACP classes and mentoring from an OIT student leader, and an opportunity for the students, their parents, and teacher to participate in a program on the OIT Klamath Falls campus. A core group of four persons from two departments have been planning this project since its inception.

To date only one school has taken advantage of the three presentations our group has offered-teacher, parent, and student. The parent session was not well attended but was very lively. The parents were happy with the information they received and we were able to really assist the group with their questions in a relaxed atmosphere. The rest of the schools scheduled are a mix of teacher only or student only sessions. Most schools stated their parents were not good about showing up for activities. Most schools did not seem interested in pursuing this target group further.

Completed presentations have served approximately 212 students, teachers, and parents. Many of these students took the information packets that were available at the sessions. These packets contained a handout of the presentation, an annotated internet list of websites related to college access, and a list of scholarship websites compiled by the TRiO program on our campus.

Packet materials from each session have been posted on our Youth Programs webpage so anyone may access them (www.oit.edu/precollege ROCA tab). My thought is that schools could link to this location so the information is still accessible to those we had planned to reach.

A member of our Library staff created a tutorial for our project on conducting research using our digital library resources. This presentation is available online for students taking dual credit (ACP) courses with us. Students may need their OIT Student Id Number (sid) to access the presentation.

Sharing CACG Successes with Oregon's Elected Officials

CACG Directors from across the country met in Washington, D.C., last week to talk with one another (and members of the U.S. Department of Education) about the incredible work being done across the nation. Stephanie and I took the opportunity to meet with Oregon's congressional delegation to keep them up-to-date on the things you all are doing right here at home.

We provided them with a one page sheet showing some basic statistics, and then we offered them information about the various projects around the state. We also talked to them about the issue of Maintenance of Effort and where we think Oregon stands with respect to continued funding for this grant, as well as what that might mean for Oregon's youth.

For those who need proof of our visits, here's photographic evidence:

Adrienne, Senator Jeff Merkley, and Stephanie
Will you be in DC anytime soon? You can have coffee with Jeff on most Thursday mornings!

In the News: What America Owes in Student Loans

From National Public Radio's "Planet Money" blog:

The amount of student debt being taken on every year has been rising rapidly for years now.

Source: College Board
Credit: Lam Thuy Vo / NPR

You probably know these things already. People keep reporting it, with the implication that student debt is out of control, that there is some kind of crisis building.

But it turns out that the rise in total student debt is not primarily the result of each student borrowing more money. It's the result of more students going to college.

Read more (and see more fancy graphs) at Planet Money.

In the News: OSU Planning Four-Year University in Bend

" If there's adequate community support, OSU-Cascades could expand to a four-year university in Bend within three years and grow to 3,000 to 5,000 students by 2025, Oregon State University President Ed Ray told a Bend audience" on April 19, 2012.

Read more and watch a news video of the announcement on KTVZ.com.

Program Spotlight: OSU Precollege Programs

The Oregon College Access Challenge Grant provides schools, districts, colleges, universities, and community-based non-profit organizations opportunities to serve youth in their college-going dreams. Today's blog post features a currently-funded university partner.

8th graders from the Roseway Heights AVID/MESA club visit the Formula SAE Workshop
at Oregon State University through the Campus Field Trip program.

Oregon State University's Precollege Programs is using CACG funds to expand the capacity of six key outreach programs that form a continuous pipeline between elementary school and college. These programs represent a broad range of topics, formats and student opportunities, including after-school clubs (SMILE and AWSEM), day camps (STEM Academy and Outside the Box), summer residential camps (SESEY) and school field trips (Campus Field Trips).

 

Several challenges must be overcome to attain Oregon’s long-term “40-40-20” education goals, including dramatically increasing college access for first-generation, low income, rural and minority students. The Campus Field Trips (CFT) program offers what is frequently the first experience that young students have on a college campus, especially those from underrepresented, minority and rural populations.  The customized trips help to enhance school curriculum and learning, engage students with undergraduate near-peer mentors, and overall, encourage students towards higher education of all kinds.  Groups spend 2-4 hours at OSU touring campus, eating lunch in a dining hall, visiting a cultural center and/or an athletic facility, and participating in an activity presented by a faculty member, staff, or student.  These presentations are designed to connect with school curriculum or provide college readiness skills as well as expose students to potential majors or careers.

We have used CACG funds to expand the capacity of CFT by hiring several student tour guides.  This has enabled us to reach out to student-serving partners such as TRiO, AVID, MESA and GEAR UP to ensure we are serving our target students.  The response has been overwhelming: 15 middle school groups visited in Winter 2012 compared to 5 in Winter 2011 (a 300% increase) and at least 43 groups will visit in Spring 2012 compared to 29 groups in Spring 2011 (nearly a 50% increase).  We are thrilled that CACG funds have enabled us to provide a pivotal college access experience to so many more students.