Education

Innovative Partnerships Are Key To The College Completion Crisis


One of the most challenging issues in my work has been how to think of innovative ways to increase college completion rates for our students.  Despite the efforts of countless people in both K-12 and higher education, we are still not closing the college completion gap fast enough. In 2018, only 37 percent of students ages 25-29 had a bachelor’s degree, and if one digs deeper by race/ethnicity and income level, the numbers dwindle to 22 percent for African Americans, 21 percent for Latinx, and 11 percent for students from low-income families.   

Through College, not Just to College  

Our first responsibility is to ensure that our 31 KIPP high schools are providing all students with an academically excellent and identity-affirming education. Simultaneously, we have focused on ensuring that our high school juniors are preparing for the college application process just as affluent students across the country are doing.  This means our students finish their junior year with a carefully crafted wish list of schools to which they’d like to apply and a strong draft of their college essay. When they come back for fall of senior year,  they work with their KIPP Through College Advisor to narrow their list of schools from 15 to 9, decide if they will apply early to any one institution, and ensure they are on track with every aspect involved in applying and competing for financial aid.   

We could have decided to focus solely on the factors over which we have control within the doors of our high schools, but through our efforts and experiences, we became convinced that we could do even better if we partnered directly with institutions of higher education. Today, KIPP has 97 partnerships with colleges of all selectivity levels across the country, and a third of our seniors each year now matriculate to a college partner. Our college counseling team works with our college partners to identify areas where we can each strengthen our support around college readiness, matriculation, and graduation – and commit to implement these strategies. 

Few education organizations are striving to support students to college completion at the scale at which we are working. With 15,000 alumni currently in college and that number expected to double by 2025, we are working to find new ways in which we can work with higher education to take proven approaches and ensure they can scale affordably. Recently, we have begun to explore what it would look like to share the costs of targeted, culturally responsive, on-campus advising with university partners, community-based organizations, school districts, and charter schools.  

Introducing a Shared College Advising Model  

Our team in KIPP Colorado launched a new kind of partnership focused on following clusters of alumni to their colleges of choice. In Colorado, we are partnering with Colorado State University (CSU) located in Fort Collins, about 90 minutes from our high school in Denver.  We encourage our students to attend CSU because we know through experience that they are committed to seeing our students persist and graduate.   

In 2018, we started a new chapter of our partnership with CSU where we co-invested in the persistence advising KIPP provides to its alumni attending the university.  CSU shares the responsibility of paying the salary of a KIPP persistence advisor who spends the majority of her time on campus. Our shared persistence advisor, Jaelyn Coates, has office space in CSU’s Community for Excellence department, full data access, and is treated like a member of the CSU team.  

“The partnership with Colorado State University and KIPP allows us to serve students in ways that are innovative, collaborative, and student-centered.” 

Taé Nosaka, Director of CSU’s Community for Excellence Scholar Programs and Key Communities

Taé Nosaka, Director of CSU’s Community for Excellence Scholar Programs and Key Communities told me: “the partnership with CSU and KIPP allows us to serve students in ways that are innovative, collaborative, and student-centered.”  She says having a KIPP Persistence Advisor on campus, “bridges the path from high school to college, which will ultimately lead students to accomplishing their goal of completing their degree.”  

Today, Jaelyn guides 89 students at CSU, 44 of whom are starting their first year of college. Jaelyn is there to troubleshoot challenges students face related to academic progress, financial aid, and finding a sense of belonging on campus. Jaelyn connects with the students before they graduate from high school and builds a bond even before they set foot on CSU’s campus.  Jaelyn is the bridge from high school to college for these students, something not many students have access to in other schools.    

For example, to reduce attrition, CSU has analyzed student data to identify key warning signs in the first four weeks of a student’s first semester that the student is at risk for dropping out. Jaelyn has access to this data and has been able to quickly intervene and support our KIPP alumni who needed help getting back on track early in the year. As a result, several KIPP alumni who were flagged are now doing better in their courses and are more likely to persist. 

“Students really like that I’m on campus. They feel reassured having someone on campus whom they can access pretty regularly.”

Jaelyn Coates, KIPP Colorado Regional Persistence Advisor

Jaelyn shared that “students really like that I’m on campus.  They feel reassured having someone on campus whom they can access pretty regularly. CSU has been so supportive of this role. The team in the Community for Excellence has really welcomed me into the mix, and I’ve appreciated building relationships with them.”  

For students, this means seamless support. Their advisor is up-to-date on their records and equipped to help them navigate the CSU system. Jaelyn also receives training and support from her regional KIPP team and the KIPP Foundation. 

“It’s very comforting to know that someone is there not only to guide you academically, but that they can also be there for emotional support.”

Karla Santillan, CSU Sophomore and KIPP Colorado alum

One of her students, Karla Santillan, a sophomore, told me, “it’s very comforting to know that someone is there not only to guide you academically, but that they can also be there for emotional support. Her support has helped me be able to work on my own personal issues and her consistent communication makes me feel that I am not just a number here at CSU, but an individual and that she cares.”   

Replicate and Expand   

We’re currently working to expand this model to other colleges and other KIPP regions in the fall of 2020. We want to focus on colleges where we have student density and where there is need. We are partnering more deeply than ever before with higher ed communities to work together to solve many of the myriad challenges impacting persistence and graduation rates. These partnerships aspire to help first-generation students navigate college more effectively and address systemic and cultural issues that make it difficult for first-generation and students of color thrive on campus.  

We know that high-quality college counseling – specifically, helping students select the college that will maximize their chances of completion – is a critical part of their education journey.  Now it’s time K-12 institutions and higher education work together more closely to help students attain that college degree.  



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