Podcasts about wisconsin hope lab

Dr. Sara Goldrick-Rab has long championed community colleges and their students. The self-proclaimed “scholar-activist” has well known among higher education leaders for stubbornly refusing to let unmet basic student needs go unaddressed any longer, and for being the engine behind research into homelessness, hunger, mental illness and other issues that can affect academic progress and completion. In this podcast, Jacob Bray, David Conner and Indya Rogers from ACCT talk to Goldrick-Rab about what inspired her to become a figurehead for this groundbreaking movement in higher education, what can be done to help students in the short and long terms, and what’s next for #RealCollege. Goldrick-Rab is Professor of Higher Education Policy and Sociology at Temple University and founder of the Hope Center for College, Community and Justice in Philadelphia, as well as founder of the Wisconsin HOPE Lab. She has authored and co-authored several research papers in collaboration with ACCT, and she was named a 2018 Carnegie Fellow in recognition of her pioneering work. For more information, visit saragoldrickrab.com. Related resources from ACCT: Hungry and Homeless in College: Results from a National Study of Basic Needs Insecurity in Higher Education Too Distressed to Learn? Mental Health Among Community College Students Hungry to Learn: Addressing Food and Housing Insecurity Among Undergraduates    Subscribe on iPhone/iPad via iTunes https://apple.co/2w68ejq Subscribe on Android via Google Play http://bit.ly/2HJRKyL Tell us what you'd like to hear on In the Know  

Sara Goldrick-Rab leads a discussion on the challenges of food and housing insecurity facing community college students and efforts to address those challenges. Presidents from three Texas community colleges discuss approaches from three different perspectives—a large urban district, a moderate-sized college in a borderland, and a rural college in the Panhandle. Panelists include: Sara Goldrick-Rab, Professor of Higher Education and Sociology at Temple University and Founder of the Wisconsin HOPE Lab; Amarillo College President Russell Lowery Hart; Dallas Community College District Chancellor Joe May; and El Paso Community College President William Serrata. Subscribe on iPhone/iPad via iTunes https://apple.co/2w68ejq Subscribe on Android via Google Play http://bit.ly/2HJRKyL Tell us what you'd like to hear on In the Know!

Dr. Sara Goldrick - Rab, Professor at Temple University & Founder of the Wisconsin HOPE Lab, and recently announced, next-generation Hope Center for College, Community and Justice, follows-up with Mark Milliron to talk about the #RealCollege movement that Sara, and the team at the Hope Center, are championing to bring more voices to the forefront. They explore the energy and urgency behind this initiative and invite the listeners and their institutions to join the cause.

Dr. Sara Goldrick - Rab, Professor at Temple University & Founder of the Wisconsin HOPE Lab, joins Mark Milliron during a Summit 2018 Keynote presentation. In this conversation, they discuss the challenges students experience with food and housing insecurities. Sara also provides suggestions on how institutions can support these students so they can learn well and finish strong.

Today’s episode in our series Researching College Options looks at a big option--an option that we have talked about in quite a few USACollegeChat episodes and in our first book, How To Find the Right College: A Workbook for Parents of High School Students. Most recently, we took a careful look at this option about five months ago in Episode 113. However, I have to admit that I am considering it again, based on a new opinion piece by LaGuardia Community College President Gail O. Mellow in late August in The New York Times. The option is community college. As we said in Episode 113, the community college is a marvelous institution in theory, but a somewhat more disappointing institution in reality--or, at least, that has usually been our position. If you are the parent of a high school senior, we know that some of you--perhaps many of you--are thinking about sending your kid to a community college next fall. Maybe that’s for financial reasons, maybe for academic reasons, maybe for maturity reasons, maybe for location reasons, maybe for some other reasons. Whatever your reasons, President Mellow has made us think again; so, let’s take another look. 1. The Pros of Community Colleges: A Review Let’s quickly review some of the pros and cons about community colleges, also referred to as two-year colleges. Here’s an abbreviated list of pros we offered back in Episode 113 (these reasons are conveniently taken from our first book,How To Find the Right College: A Workbook for Parents of High School Students): Two-year colleges offer associate’s degrees, which can be enough for some careers, including high-paying technical careers. Later, if the student wants to do so, the credits earned for an associate’s degree can be transferred to four-year colleges and applied toward credits needed for a four-year bachelor’s degree.   (In fact, some two-year colleges in some states are now authorized to offer bachelor’s degrees over four years, especially in technical fields where workers in the labor force are in short supply.) Two-year colleges offer students who have struggled in high school a chance to improve their academic record and gain the fundamental skills and study habits they will need to succeed in more advanced college study. After doing well at a two-year college, these students can likely get into a better four-year college than they could have gotten into right out of high school. Two-year colleges offer their students core liberal arts courses (which can often be transferred to four-year colleges later) and/or technical training in many different fields at a very low price. That’s critically important if paying for college is a major concern for your family. That last point about very low cost is perhaps the main reason that kids head to a community college right out of high school. The fact that community college is so much cheaper than any four-year option--and the fact that kids can live at home and save even more money--is sometimes irresistible. We know that students can get financial aid of all kinds from four-year colleges, which could make their time there essentially free, but none of those deals is a sure thing. Paying the very low tuition at a community college, especially with whatever financial aid is available, is a sure thing. 2. The Cons of Community Colleges: A Review  So, what’s the downside of going to a community college? As we have said before at USACollegeChat, the choice of a community college for students coming right out of high school is quite different from that same choice when it is being made by adults returning to college or starting college for the first time. My own nonprofit organization has done market studies for quite a few community colleges interested in increasing their adult enrollment (that is, students over the age of 25) and in serving those adult students better. And, to be fair, community colleges are a great institution for getting adults into college study or back into college study. But, we are focused today on your kid, who is going to college right out of high school, and some of the statistics about community college completion rates and transfer-to-four-year-college rates are just plain scary. You have to deal with this statistic: Not even half of community college students complete any college degree in six years--not even a two-year associate’s degree. Admittedly, that statistic includes all kinds of students who attend community colleges--from bright kids right out of high school who just needed to save money to returning adults who have been out of school for a decade to kids who struggled in high school and couldn’t get into a more selective college. Nonetheless, we have quoted evidence in previous USACollegeChat episodes that shows that students are more likely to graduate if they go to a more selective college, for many reasons. That is clearly a reason against having your kid choose a community college for next year. In addition to a seriously low completion rate, the transfer rate of students from community colleges to four-year colleges to earn bachelor’s degrees is also shockingly low, as we reported way back in Episode 64, based on an article in The Hechinger Report. Here is a statistic, which was taken from a report from Teachers College, Columbia University: . . . 80 percent of entering community college students say they intend to earn a bachelor’s degree, but only about a quarter actually make the transfer and 17 percent eventually get the degree. (quoted from the article) Parents, we said in Episode 113 that we thought you should think hard about whether your kid is different from the typical community college student--smarter, harder working, more motivated, more goal oriented. Just being younger might not help enough. The statistics are telling you that he or she is likely not to graduate with even an associate’s degree and is likely not to transfer to that great four-year college you say you are saving up your money for. 3. President Mellow’s Point of View And now we come to President Mellow’s point of view. I have to admit that some of my attitude toward community colleges comes from my belief that kids who can get into a satisfactory four-year college and who can figure out how to pay for it (including through loans and other unpleasant devices) should go directly to that four-year college. I worry that kids who could go to a four-year college, but don’t, will get sidetracked into community college and never get out. But perhaps I have not given sufficient thought to kids who cannot go to a four-year college, especially for financial reasons. Let’s look at some excerpts from President Mellow’s recent opinion piece: You might think the typical college student lives in a state of bliss, spending each day moving among classes, parties and extracurricular activities. But the reality is that an increasingly small population of undergraduates enjoys that kind of life. Of the country’s nearly 18 million undergraduates, more than 40 percent go to community college, and of those, only 62 percent can afford to go to college full time. By contrast, a mere 0.4 percent of students in the United States attend one of the Ivies. The typical student is not the one burnishing a fancy résumé with numerous unpaid internships. It’s just the opposite: Over half of all undergraduates live at home to make their degrees more affordable, and a shocking 40 percent of students work at least 30 hours a week. About 25 percent work full time and go to school full time. (quoted from the article) Of course, some of these students who work full time and go to school full time are adult students over the age of 25--but, not all of them. For example, a lot of students who graduate from urban high schools, like the one we co-founded in Brooklyn, head off to college with both the intention and the necessity of working while they are enrolled. Marie and I worried that our students wouldn’t be able to do both successfully. We worried that they were going to have a hard enough time in college without spending 10 or 15 or 20 hours a week--or more--at a job. But, given their family circumstances, many of them had no choice, just as President Mellow writes. She continues:  As open-access institutions, community colleges educate the majority of our country’s low-income, first-generation students. But public funding for community colleges is significantly less than for four-year colleges, sometimes because of explicit state policies. This means the amount that community colleges can spend on each student--to pay for faculty, support services, tutoring and facilities--is far less as well. Tuition for low-income students can be covered by federal financial aid programs, but these students often have significant other costs--including housing, transportation, food and child care--that regularly pose obstacles to their education. A recent Urban Institute study found that from 2011 to 2015, one in five students attending a two-year college lived in a food-insecure household. A study from the Wisconsin Hope Lab found that in 2016, 14 percent of community college students had been homeless at some point. At LaGuardia Community College in New York, where I am president, 77 percent of students live in households making less than $25,000 per year. With financial pressures like these, studying full time is not an option. It is not uncommon for a student to take between three and six years to graduate from a two-year associate degree program. (quoted from the article) And we can see why. Those statistics are sobering, and they do put community colleges’ lousy completion rates into perspective. Of course, you would still want your kid to come out of a community college on time so that he or she could move forward and transfer to a four-year college or enter the workforce and get a decent job. This is especially true if you, as a parent, can manage to pay the cost of attending a community college and keep distractions for your kid--like working a significant number of hours a week--down to a minimum. Not surprisingly, President Mellow argues for a better financial deal for community colleges and their students, both in government funding and, interestingly, in philanthropy. She writes: Community colleges need increased funding, and students need access to more flexible federal and state financial aid, enhanced paid internships and college work-study programs. Improved access to public supports, like food stamps and reduced public transportation fares, would also make a world of difference. It’s not just that policy must change. Last year, more than $41 billion was given in charity to higher education, but about a quarter of that went to just 20 institutions. Community colleges, with almost half of all undergraduate students, received just a small fraction of this philanthropy. It is imperative that individuals, corporations and foundations spread their wealth and diversify where they donate their dollars. (quoted from the article) I have to tell you that I was so embarrassed that my two alma maters might be on that list of 20 institutions that I didn’t even look at it--because obviously that is just the very definition of unfair advantage and privilege. 4. What’s Herb Alpert Got To Do with It? Some months ago, I wrote a piece for my own blog, ParentChat with Regina, about the importance of music in a child’s education. But the really arresting part of the piece was about Herb Alpert, trumpeter extraordinaire and co-founder of A&M Records. (If you are too young to remember Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass, go listen to Alpert’s signature style on YouTube. Start with “Tijuana Taxi” and “This Guy’s In Love With You”--and stay for all the rest.)  As it turns out, Alpert has done what President Mellow wishes more people would do. His foundation--co-founded with his wife, singer Lani Hall--has made a $10.1 million gift to Los Angeles City College (LACC), a two-year public community college. The money will create an endowment, which will be used to raise the number of music majors enrolled from 175 to 250 and to provide ALL of them with FREE tuition. As reported by Carolina A. Miranda in the Los Angeles Times, Alpert said this about his gift:  LACC is a gem of an institution. . . . [My] biggest motivation was helping kids who don’t have the financial energy to go to a major college. At LACC, they’ve nurtured thousands of dedicated students every year. My brother went there. My ex-partner [record producer] Lou Adler went there. I’ve visited the school. It’s alive. It’s kickin’. (quoted from the article) Alpert noted that he was especially interested in supporting a public institution where students of all socioeconomic backgrounds could get a college education. It’s as if he were simply channeling President Mellow. 5. So, What About Community Colleges? So, where does all that leave us--or rather, you? Well, we are probably going to continue to worry when seniors choose a community college as their first step into higher education. We are going to continue to worry that some of them are going to have difficulty graduating from a community college in anything close to two years and/or transferring to a four-year college ever.  But we are also going to admit that financial constraints can cause families to choose a path that might not be as perfect as we would like for their own kids. If that is your situation, talk with your kid and think hard about the community college option. Think about how to keep working hours to a minimum so that study hours can be at a maximum. Talk about how important it is to stay on track and make progress toward graduation every semester. Help make the statistics better. Find our books on Amazon! How To Find the Right College: A Workbook for Parents of High School Students (available as a Kindle ebook and in paperback) How To Explore Your College Options: A Workbook for High School Students (available in paperback) Ask your questions or share your feedback by... Leaving a comment on the show notes for this episode at http://usacollegechat.org/episode135 Calling us at (516) 900-6922 to record a question on our USACollegeChat voicemail if you want us to answer your question live on our podcast Connect with us through... Subscribing to our podcast on Google Play Music, iTunes, Stitcher, or TuneIn Liking us on Facebook or following us on Twitter Reviewing parent materials we have available at www.policystudies.org Inquiring about our consulting services if you need individualized help Reading Regina's blog, Parent Chat with Regina  

New research from the National Student Campaign against Hunger and Homelessness found that 22 percent of college students experience food insecurity, and among them, one in six also face housing insecurity. Listen to this discussion about the nuanced financial barriers to higher education. Dr. Sara Goldrick-Rab is a professor of higher education policy and sociology at Temple University, and founder of the Wisconsin HOPE Lab, the nation’s only translational research laboratory seeking ways to make college more affordable. Dr. Goldrick-Rab shares how her research is helping identify solutions to address college affordability and student retention. Mai Yer Yang is a student at the University of Minnesota and a College Possible program participant. Mai Yer shares her experiences with financial barriers on her college journey, and what she hopes will change. Dr. Timothy Renick is Vice President for Enrollment and Student Success, and Vice Provost at Georgia State University. Under his leadership the university has set records for the percent of underrepresented and Pell-eligible students enrolled, and has increased graduation rates by 11 percent. Dr. Renick shares how Georgia State’s innovative approaches are helping more students make it to graduation day. Kumar Balasubrahmanyan is a program manager at College Possible where he oversees programming serving more than 2,000 students. Kumar served as a College Possible coach for two years before joining the leadership team.

On this episode, I am joined by Sara Goldrick-Rab, the author of Paying the Price, and the coauthor of Reinventing Financial Aid: Charting a New Course to College Affordability. She has written on education issues for the New York Times, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and other publications. Goldrick-Rab is currently a Professor of Higher Education Policy and Sociology at Temple University in Philadelphia, and is a former professor of higher education policy and sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  She is the founding director of the Wisconsin HOPE Lab, the nation’s first laboratory aimed at improving equitable outcomes in postsecondary education. The Chronicle of Higher Education recently named her Twitter account (@saragoldrickrab) the most indispensable one to follow. Segment 1: Study Logistics of Paying the Price [00:00-10:47] In this first segment, Sara describes the research discussed in her book Paying the Price. Segment 2: Media Attention for Paying the Price [10:48-20:52] In segment two, Sara discusses some of the media attention she received in response to Paying the Price. Segment 3: The Costs of Media Attention [20:53-36:09] In segment three, Sarah shares some of the benefits and challenges of working with a range of media outlets. Bonus Clip #1 [00:00-04:17]: Creating Your Own Luck with Research To share feedback about this podcast episode, ask questions that could be featured in a future episode, or to share research-related resources, contact the “Research in Action” podcast: Twitter: @RIA_podcast or #RIA_podcast Email: riapodcast@oregonstate.edu Voicemail: 541-737-1111 If you listen to the podcast via iTunes, please consider leaving us a review.