Community colleges are an important cog in the war on poverty. But that cog needs improvement. Here are some quotes from a great report from the Brookings institute entitled “Improving community college completion rates by addressing structural and motivational barriers.”
- Community colleges could play a pivotal role in providing a pathway to upward economic mobility because of their ability to reach a large population of low-income and minority students. In fall 2015, community colleges served 41 percent of all U.S. undergraduates.
- Yet, community colleges, as the institutions of higher education that serve a large share of low-income students, graduate less than 40 percent of students within six years. Thus, community colleges have substantial unrealized potential to improve the earnings and employment outcomes for those at the bottom of the income distribution.
Completion rates are just too low. The report does a good job of addressing the problems and proposing solutions, but one aspect seems to me we could all pitch in and help – student motivation and goal setting. Here is the problem as described in the report.
- The subsequent discussion focuses on a particular aspect of motivation that can have powerful, positive effects on student outcomes, including long-term interest in a subject and academic performance: students’ perceptions that their coursework is meaningful in relation to their lives. Bailey et al. (2015) note that “without a specific goal to work toward, it can be difficult for students to maintain their motivation to persist in school” (p. 57).
They describe how this lack of motivation may be a barrier for students, citing survey results in which current and former community college students indicate that having a goal helps them stay on track in college. That makes perfect sense doesn’t it? Here is what I believe are the necessary criteria for kids to adopt an educational goal that motivates them:
- Belief in themselves and a confidence to succeed.
- An idea for a career that is based on personal interests and skills.
- A “view” of the career preferably at a workplace and through people working in the career.
- An understanding of the educational steps necessary to qualify for a first job.
- The establishment of an educational goal to accomplish their job objective.
- “Buy-in” of the goal, meaning it needs to originate or be adopted by the student and not just passed down from on high.
Someone and perhaps multiple people, need to help students with these steps. Nobody accomplishes them alone.
At the age of 18 most people are in poverty. That is, they don’t have a job that earns them enough to be over the poverty threshold. Some of us work the trades and succeed. Others need to get an education to pursue a chosen career path. Either way the working world is the solution to poverty and young people need to be successful at this step to achieve a lifetime of financial independence.
Want to help a kid avoid poverty? Help them with their confidence, vision and plan. Help them establish their own path and their own goals. Without that the whole thing breaks down.