Are You Ready for College Yet?

by John O. Harney

Only 7 in 10 ninth-graders in U.S. public schools graduate with their high-school class, and of those, only about half leave high school with the necessary courses and reading skills to apply to four-year colleges, according to a widely cited study by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. For minority students, the figures are worse: Only 23 percent of black students and 20 percent of Hispanic students leave high school “college-ready.”

Meanwhile, the standardized test company ACT reports that just 22 percent of the 1.2 million high-school students who took the ACT assessment in 2004 achieved scores that would deem them ready for college English, math, and science. More than half the high-school graduates who go on to college need remedial courses, and half of those who enroll in college do not complete degrees within five years.

To be sure, business imperatives and political agendas muddy the waters. ACT wants to convince people that performance on its exams correlates with college success. The Manhattan Institute wants to suggest that blacks and Hispanics are underrepresented in college not because of shrinking student aid or weakened affirmative action but, rather, because their local schools do not prepare them adequately.

Biases aside, people who don’t earn college degrees can generally expect low-paying jobs and a life of disadvantages. So “college readiness” is very much a matter of economic and social justice. Which is why the New England Board of Higher Education and others have tagged this a priority in higher education and economic development.

Questions abound. Why, in today’s knowledge economy, is there any gap between what high schools require for graduation and what four-year colleges require for admission? Why do schools continue to sort students into “college” and “non-college” tracks, when critical thinking is increasingly required for all aspects of civic and work life, whether or not a student is college-bound?

How can school districts ensure that all students are college-ready when parents of the brightest kids want scarce funds directed to enrichment? And more: What are the special problems faced by such subpopulations as students whose parents did not go to college, students with disabilities, single mothers, working adults?

How does declining public support for higher education affect students’ decisions about where to go to college, or whether to go at all? Why, despite the emergence of a massive testing industry that professes to measure merit, is a lackluster student from a rich family still more likely to be enrolled in college than a bright kid from a poor family?

A national coalition of education groups and foundations that has focused on these problems quite a while, the Pathways to College Network, sees five main strategies to ensure success: 1) encourage schools to make a rigorous college-prep curriculum the standard for all students; 2) improve college-marketing campaigns to influence the college-going behaviors of underserved students; 3) encourage early financial aid and early notification programs for underserved students; 4) persuade colleges to improve retention of underserved students; and 5) pursue research that can inform effective policies and practices.

Some other strategies need consideration, as well. Thoughtful people are talking again about national service -- not only as a way to revive civic engagement and add a check-and-balance to military misadventures, but also as a way to universalize college readiness. Is it time to require all young Americans to choose from a menu of military and public-service options?

Most important, the readiness shortfall is not only a “pipeline” problem. Colleges play a role, too. They need to: value more complex qualities in applicants than completion of the prescribed sequence of algebra and physics courses; take chances in their admissions decisions; and show as much interest in student-support activities as they do in shiny athletic centers.

John O. Harney is executive editor of Connection.