DOCUMENT RESUME HE 032 804 ED 440 587 Macy, Beth AUTHOR From Rusty Wire Fences to Wrought-Iron Gates. How the Poor TITLE Succeed in Getting to--and through--College. Policy Perspectives. College Board, Washington, DC. Washington Office. INSTITUTION 2000-01-00 PUB DATE NOTE 47p. AVAILABLE FROM College Board Publications, Box 886, New York, NY 10101-0996 ($12). Tel: 800-323-7155 (Toll Free); Web site: http://www.collegeboard.org. Descriptive (141) PUB TYPE Reports EDRS PRICE MF01/PCO2 Plus Postage. *Access to Education; Case Studies; *College Attendance; DESCRIPTORS Family Influence; Higher Education; Individual Development; Low Income Groups; Mentors; Narration; Peer Influence; Poverty; Self Esteem; *Student Characteristics; Student Financial Aid; Student Motivation *First Generation Studeits; C:ai IDENTIFIERS ABSTRACT This booklet presents the stories of several students who were the first generation in their families to go to college, in order to dramatize the door-opening, life-changing power of Pell Grants and related student assistance. These stories synthesize interviews with more than 20 low- and moderate-income students who could not have attended postsecondary school without significant financial aid. Interviewees were asked about the social history of their educational experiences; about the barriers they faced in getting to college; about the social, emotional, and financial barriers to attaining a postsecondary degree; and about how they overcame these barriers. Their stories center on six key thcmes: early awareness of higher education and the availability of financial aid; the to break from family patterns; the importance of peers; the critical role of mentors and college outreach; the desire for personal growth and enhanced self-esteem; and the importance of early college success and goal setting. After presenting a brief historical overview of the democratization of higher education, the booklet lets the narratives speak to the six themes. (Contains 14 references.) (SM) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. POLICY PERSP,ECTIVES from Rusty Wire Fences to Wrought-Iron Gates How the Poor Succeed in and Through Getting to College Beth Macy U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND Office of Educational Research and Improvement DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION BEEN GRANTED BY CENTER (ERIC) This document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization TC011ege -E. originating it. GLAD Z7_4114 Minor changes have been made to Board improve reproduction quality.' TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES Points of view or opinions stated in this INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) document do not necessarily represent 1 ` official OERI position or policy. L- PCIDEACY PEASPEC Euziry \MonE TIERICU 1=0 RgnouGHT4Inom GAMS How the Poor Succeed in Getting to and Through College Beth Macy The College Board Washington, D.C. January 2000 The College Board 3 The Washington Office of the College Board conducts policy analysis that sup- ports the Board's mission of educational equity and excellence for all students. Our aim is to spark constructive debate and produce accessible, reliable infor- mation and analysis for state and federal policymakers, College Board con- stituents, educators, the media, and the public. We do this by collecting reference data on key issues, conducting and publishing research, commission- ing papers, sponsoring conferences, and presenting legislative testimony. Copyright © 2000 College Entrance Examination Board. All rights reserved. College Board, Advanced Placement Program, AP, SAT, and the acorn logo are registered trademarks of the College Entrance Examination Board. Copies of this report may be ordered for $12.00 each plus $4.00 shipping and handling from College Board Publications, Box 886, New York, NY 10101-0886, (800) 323-7155, or online at www.collegeboard.org. A free, downloadable pdf version is also available online. The College .6- Board ] 0 Perspectives PRUACE In 1997 the College Board held a conference at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Pell Grant program. It was a poli- cy seminar, with plenty of statistics and analytical papers on the past and future of federal initiatives to broaden access to postsecondary education. But the inspiration, the highlight of the conference, was provided by several current and former Pell Grant recipients who were the first generation in their families to go to college. Their stories dramatized the door-opening, life-changing power of Pell Grants and related student assistance. Beth Macy is an award-winning writer who has devoted much of the past year to documenting such stories. She has been working on her own as a freelance and with the Student Aid Alliance, a group of writer and independent scholar higher education associations (including the College Board) formed to build support for need-based aid in the nation's capital. I first came upon Beth Macy's work a year ago in The Chronicle of Higher Education. In a piece titled "The Scarlet P: Why Pell Grant Holders Aren't Slackers," she challenged the elitist attitudes of some academics toward Pell and from person- Grant recipients. Macy writes from the head and the heart al experience. Herself a first-generation college graduate, she has also taught writing to a range of students, from developmental or "remedial" students at Virginia Western Community College to graduate students at Hollins University. She argued in the Chronicle that most of her Pell students were more focused and driven than economically advantaged students, with a lot more riding on the success of their papers than a letter grade or the refinement of their writing skills. Last spring College Board Review editor Paul Barry invited Macy to write a piece on the enduring importance of need-based aid, which appeared in the August 1999 issue. In this Policy Perspective, we have asked her to shine a light on what makes the difference when first-generation students succeed in college. Financial aid is a critical ingredient, but what are the other keys to success? She draws on an Policy Analysis 1 From Rusty Wire Fences to Wrought-Iron Gates expanding folder of case stories to highlight the importance of family, peers, early awareness and goal setting, mentors, and college outreach programs. The result is both moving and insightful. As Macy says, in the end it's people's dreams, not data, that count. We are releasing this report in January at ConnectED 2000, a national confer- ence on precollegiate intervention and outreach sponsored by the College Board along with The Education Resources Institute, the James Irvine Foundation, the U.S. Department of Education, Council for Opportunity in Education, and a host of other partner organizations. Ultimately, Beth Macy hopes to write a book on the history of the democratiza- tion of American higher education, focusing on the human as well as the polit- ical and historical dimensions of expanding opportunity through education. If to become a of her you would contact her part like project, at [email protected], or log on to the Student Aid Alliance Web site. Many of the case studies she has developed, including those analyzed for this report, can be found in full at www.studentaidalliance.org. Martin Kramer, Tom Mortenson, Jana Nidiffer, and Tom Wolanin reviewed the manuscript for this report and provided helpful comments and suggestions. Scott Swail advised on content, design, and graphics. Ginny Perrin oversaw the editing and production. Alicia Dorsey assisted on logistics and distribution. This publication is the second in our Policy Perspectives series from the Washington Office of the College Board. The first, "The Virtual University and Educational Opportunity: Issues of Equity and Access for the Next Generation," was published last spring. The third in the series, "Prepaying and Saving for College: Opportunities and Issues," is scheduled for release in March 2000. Information about these and other policy studies from the Washington Office can be found at the College Board's Web site (www.collegeboard.org). Lawrence E. Gladieux Executive Director for Policy Analysis The College Board 6 The College Board 2 Perspectives Theresa Robertson was 4 years old the first time her mother noticed she was gifted. They were driving around their hometown of Roanoke, Virginia, when Theresa read out loud a billboard that said "Southern Refrigeration Corporation." Both Theresa and her little sister could read before they went to kindergarten. They attended a predominantly black elementary school across from a housing project near their home. "We were always the first to hand in our papers, until eventually the teachers would give us extra work and special projects," Theresa, now 22, recalls. "Once we got to school and people said to our parents, 'Your kids are smart,' they started thinking, 'If we keep working to foster a good attitude toward edu- cation, maybe some day they could go to col- or at least not have to work at lege _ McDonald's.' "My mom always said, `If you can do well in college, you can get out,' She was speaking metaphorically, of course, but to me it meant get out of Norwich," the white, working-class neighborhood where the family has lived for decades and where her mother, a hospital T receptionist, was raised. Her father is also a Roanoke native, an eighth-grade dropout who drives an oil truck. Theresa Robertson No kid from Norwich had ever gone to college before Theresa Robertson came along. Even members of Theresa's own extended family remarked, loudly and frequently: "Cain't no Robertson go to no college." Fortunately, Theresa's teachersand her parentsbelieved otherwise. Her ninth-grade guidance counselor took one look at her grades, assumed she was college material, and signed her up for honors courses. He gave her the sched- ule for college entrance exams, and mentioned that scholarships and grants were available to promising needy students. Policy Analysis 3 7 From Rusty Wire Fences to Wrought-Iron Gates Theresa finished high school as the class salutatorian with a GPA of 4.18 and an SAT® score of 1400.. In her college-application essay, she promised she could over- come the poverty she had grown up in, but she would not forget it. She wrote about her homeless friends who hang out at the neighborhood's Triple-A Discount Corner and the riverbank. She wrote about a friend called "Don the Hatchet Murderer"explaining that he didn't kill anyone with a hatchet; he just shot them. Theresa's essay, coupled with her academic record, so impressed admission coun- selors that she got into every college she applied to: Virginia Tech, Emory University, the University of Virginia, Duke and, finally, Harvard. A kid from Norwich at Harvard, at a cost of. $32,000 a year? Even Theresa doubted that. Harvard's financial aid package was good, relatively speaking loans, scholarships, and grants paid most of the first year's costsbut the Robertsons couldn't come up with the remaining $3,000. When Theresa called Harvard to decline the offer, the financial aid officer "found" some more money; an anonymous donor who'd read of Theresa's talents in her local newspaper paid the rest. On June 9, 1999the day before Theresa received her diploma from Harvard University, the day before she was given a dorm-hall award honoring her for "exemplifying what a Harvard student should be"Theresa's parents gave her two gifts. One was a cross; the other, a ring bearing this inscription: "Against All Odds." A kid from Norwich had not only clawed her way into the Ivy League, she aced her way out of it. But as is typical of most low-income, first-generation college students, the jour- ney from rusty wire fences to wrought-iron gates was a long onefilled with potholes, unseen changes in course, and plenty of near misses. What if the "fairy godmother," as the family calls the anonymous donor, hadn't come through? What if the private and federal aid hadn't been available to the degree that it was? The College Board 4 Perspectives What if Theresa's teachers hadn't nurtured her talents, and her guidance coun- selor hadn't filled her in on financial aid and scholarships? What if her mom hadn't taught her the alphabet at age 2, hadn't checked her homework every day, hadn't encouraged her to "get out," hadn't told her to phone Harvard rather than simply send them a note? Theresa was a confident and poised, albeit poor, young woman when she land- ed at Harvard in 1995and even she sometimes felt like an outcast, surround- ed by classmates who spoke of summers abroad in Australia and trips to Italy to buy "real Prada." "I lived with people who A kid from Norwich at Harvard, at a cost of had never been in a Wal- mart," she says. $32,000 a year? Even Theresa doubted that. "The Gap, to them, was like the economic diversity at Harvard," conceding that Kmart." She calls herself sometimes she felt lonely and intimidated. "Sometimes I'd call people from home just to talk to somebody real," she recalls. What if Theresa hadn't been able to adapt socially? What if, like so many other poor kids who rarely venture out of the neighborhood they're raised in, she became scared and called it quits? What if Theresa had been a more typical studentthat is, what if she had been bright, but not necessarily "genius material"? Would a moderately smart, but poor, person be academically nurtured to the point of enrolling at a state or community college? Do poor people even know college financial aid exists, and if they don't know, why would they be motivated to pursue a college track? 1:1 While much of the debate surrounding the federal role in postsecondary educa- tion has focused on trends in student funding, financial aid fraud, and the ben- efits of grants versus loans, most of the information has come from policy experts and politicians and other people who have honorably dedicated their professional lives to initiating, monitoring, and weighing in on need-based aid. Policy Analysis 5 9 From Rusty Wire Fences to Wrought-Iron Gates But what about the people affected most by these statistics? A window needs to be opened on the issues surrounding higher-education access for poor people and not by examining numbers and policy trends alone. I am a first-generation college graduate and a journalist, and I teach essay writ- ing and literary journalism to graduate students at Hollins University. Over the past several months, I have interviewed more than 20 low- and moderate- income college students and graduates. Most are first-generation students, peo- ple who could not have attended postsecondary schools at all without significant financial aid. I asked each interviewee for a social history of their educational experience; to talk about the barriers they faced getting to college; to describe the social, emo- tional and financial hurdles of attaining a postsecondary degree; and to explain how they jumped those hurdles. I also wanted to know: How, specifically, has college changed your life? Their stories are as varied and complex as the positions they now occupy, which range from religious leader, social worker, and educator to accountant, medical professional, and military pilot. I have identified six threads, or keys to success, that I will weave around the individuals' stories. They are: Early awareness of higher education and financial aid; The ability to break from family patterns; The importance of peers; The critical role of mentors and college outreach; The desire for personal growth and enhanced self-esteem; And the importance of early college success and goal setting. A few of my interviewees are still in collegein undergraduate or graduate, pub- lic or private schoolsalthough most have already established their careers. Nearly all say postsecondary education has significantly transformed their lives. Not all of their stories are as dramatic as Theresa Robertson's move from a shotgun house in Norwich to the Harvard dormitory once occupied by John F. Kennedy. 1 0 The College Board 6