A Pipeline to Success? Evaluating the Effectiveness of the Summer Academy to Inspire Learning Isaac Kort-Meade Jean Ramirez June 2017 Under the supervision of Professor Bill Harbaugh Department of Economics University of Oregon Abstract: The Summer Academy to Inspire Learning is a college pipeline program run out of the University of Oregon. The program focuses on helping underrepresented and first generation students who may have the desire to attend college, but lack the financial or social resources to navigate the college application process. This paper builds on the research of Marshall and Scott (2012), and looks to find s significant impact of the SAIL program on college attendance where the previous paper did not. By collecting data from SAIL participants, Oregon education statistics, and an online survey, we looked to isolate the effects of SAIL on achieving its stated goals.
Our results indicated that SAIL students attended college at a higher rate than their classmates, but we were unable to find a significant impact of SAIL while controlling for outside factors. Acknowledgements: We wish to thank Professor Bill Harbaugh for his continued advice and support with this analysis and Lara Fernandez for giving us the opportunity to evaluate this incredible program. 1 Table of Contents Introduction. 5 Theory and Hypothesis.
10 Data Management and Proxies. 15 Principal Component Analysis and School Ratings .41 Appendix 1: SAIL Follow-Up Survey. 41 Appendix 2: Selected Survey Results. 44 Appendix 3: Current SAIL Application.
46 Appendix 4: Proposed SAIL Application. 50 2 Introduction Post-secondary education is a dream for many students, but can only be achieved through a specific combination of personal resources and social upbringing. For some students, especially those who are first generation, low-income, or belong to a minority group, those resources can be difficult to find at home. Mentorship programs have been employed as a method of reducing the gap between privileged and underprivileged students in higher education.
In a study of a college mentorship program, Carrell and Sacerdote (2013) found that “mentoring treatment is largely acting as a substitute for the potentially scarce resource of parental help or skill.” This lack of mentorship is especially prevalent for low-income, underrepresented, and first generation college students. High schools and colleges use a variety of methods to try to address this gap and help more underrepresented students achieve their college goals. The Summer Academy to Inspire Learning (SAIL) was founded in 2005 at the University of Oregon (UO) to help address the needs of low-income and minority students in college admission and success. It functions as “an innovated (sic) pipeline program that serves middle and high school students from underrepresented backgrounds, which include lower income and/or first generation college students, with the aim of encouraging students to enroll and succeed in college through early exposure and exploration.
SAIL targets students from Lane County high schools who may have the academic ability to attend college, but lack the financial and social support to complete college applications and feel comfortable in a university setting. Students participate in a week long summer session on the UO campus. During that time, they take a course taught by a UO professor. Topics include Economics, Product Design, World Cultures, and Chemistry, among others.
Students also have the opportunity to participate in sessions about college admissions and financial aid, and receive 3 mentoring from UO students throughout the school year to help them fill out college applications, apply for scholarships, and find the resources necessary to ease their transition into higher education. This study looks to evaluate the effectiveness of the SAIL program on achieving its stated goals of sending underrepresented students to higher education. Marshall & Scott (2012) examined the same program, and concluded that no significant difference of high school graduation rates existed for SAIL students versus their peers. We relied on a new set of data and hoped to find significant results.
4 Literature Review A plethora of previous research exists on the requirements for college admittance for low-income and minority students. Tinto (2010) identifies expectations, support, feedback, and involvement as necessary for student success in college. Stage and Hossler (1989) identify three stages of college admission: Predisposition, Search, and Choice. They found that two of the biggest indicators of student success in the predisposition phase (where students are deciding whether or not to continue education after high school) are parental expectations and education levels.
Parental expectations, however, are positively correlated with family income (Hamrick and Stage, 2004), indicating that many low income students lack the family and social backing to help them navigate the complicated college admission process. Despite general increases in college attainment for high school students, low-income students have seen smaller increases in enrollment than higher income students (Myers and Schirm, 1999). And while low-income students express desire to attend college at around the same rate as other income groups (Strayhorn, 2016), they have a lower rate of college attendance than high income students (U. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 2017).
Additionally, low-income and minority students who do end up attending college tend to do worse and drop out at a higher rate than their high-income, white classmates (Strayhorn, 2016). This research shows that there is a significant need for college going interventions for these underrepresented students, which SAIL and other similar programs seek to provide. SAIL focuses on addressing the barriers facing minority and low income students in college acceptance and success. Martinez & Kloppot (2005) identify five major predictors of college attendance and completion for these students: “academic preparation, social support, 5 access to information, parental involvement and knowledge about college, and financial aid.” They go on to explain the importance of social support: Often students of color, those from low-income families, and students whose parent(s)/caretaker(s) did not attend college do not have the knowledge, information, or social and cultural capital to understand the academic work and college application processes needed to plan and pursue postsecondary education.
This is the gap which SAIL seeks to bridge by acting as a replacement for the information and capital gap for these students. Many colleges and universities across the United States offer Summer Bridge Programs, but few offer a “Pipeline” program such as SAIL1. Summer bridge programs (SBPs) are generally defined as a “program that occurs between high school and college that seeks to transition students to the college environment through academic activities” (Sablan, 2014). Strayhorn (2016) refers to pipeline programs as “one of the oldest strategies used to increase student enrollment and eventual success in higher education,” and groups SBPs into that group.
Typically, a university will offer a program in the summer between senior year of high school and freshman year of college that will teach students study skills, refreshments on basic math or language concepts, and general preparation for the rigor of college courses. These programs generally focus only on students who are already admitted to that university. For example, Ohio’s Science and Engineering Talent Expansion Program (OSTEP) is run out of Ohio State University, and focuses on helping first generation admitted freshmen in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) programs (Tomasko et. The targeted nature of this program allows the administrators to work on specific gaps in education.
For 1 Other similar programs include TRiO at University of Southern California, and the national Upward Bound program. 6 example, this program identifies that many first generation STEM students aren’t prepared to learn concepts and don’t expect the pace and rigor of first year classes (Tomasko et. As a result, the program can focus on improving those specific skills rather than simply providing general college tools. SAIL is different from these types of programs because lasts for multiple years, and doesn’t include only students who plan on attending University of Oregon.
SAIL students typically begin the program the summer before their first year of high school, and will often continue for all four summers before graduating high school. SAIL falls outside of the definition that Sablan or Strayhorn would use, but refers to itself as a pipeline program, so we will continue to refer to it as such. Rather than only acting as bridge program, SAIL focuses its efforts mainly on preparing students for college applications, not necessarily success in college itself. SAIL’s structure may be uncommon, but many other college readiness program exist across the country.
One similar program to SAIL is Project GRAD (Graduation Really Achieves Dreams), based out of Houston, TX. This program focuses on helping low-achieving middle school students prepare for high school, and getting high school students from urban schools prepared for college (Snipes et. A major component of Project GRAD is their College Institute summer programs, which give students an opportunity to tour college campuses, learn about financial aid and college applications, and experience college classroom instruction on a variety of topics (“High School Student Programs”). The program saw statistical gains in performance on standardized tests and college attendance, and has been expanded to include thousands of students across Texas (Snipes et.
These various programs, along with many others which aim to increase college attendance for low-income and minority students, indicate that interventions for 7 underrepresented students can have a huge effect on whether or not they end up attending college. SAIL’s success is based on its ability to target specific groups who need the most help and effectively prepare students for the college application process. At least according to its stated goals and the structure of the program, SAIL has had a lasting impact on the lives of students and helped many who may not of attended college realize their dreams of higher education. Based on past literature, the Marshall & Scott (2012) analysis, and feedback from SAIL participants, we hypothesize that SAIL will have a positive effect on graduation rates and continuing education.
Marshall & Scott found a statistically insignificant variable on SAIL participation in predictors of college success. They explain this result: “it may be the case that the SAIL program does not improve any predictors of college. Rather, the intervention only promotes college entrance” (2012). This claim is supported by previous literature, but we hope to show SAIL’s significant impact on college admissions.
8 Theory and Hypothesis The SAIL program has provided benefits for over 500 students in the past 12 years. According to a variety of testimonials from the SAIL website, as well as the data obtained from our survey, it seems as though SAIL has had a significant effect on student outcomes. SAIL aims to increase college attendance for low-income and underrepresented students, so we expect to see a positive impact of being a full participant in SAIL. If we see a positive significant coefficient on a variable representing full participation in SAIL in a regression, controlling for demographic factors and school quality, this will indicate that students who commit themselves to SAIL will see increased benefits and will be more likely to attend college.
The Marshall & Scott (2012) study was impacted by the lack of data, mainly because no students had graduated from high school yet. In this study, however, we have access to over 250 student files for our focus years, so we expect to find a positive and significant value. 9 Methodology Data Sources Data for this study was obtained primarily from three sources. First, SAIL provided data collected from surveys and applications, which contained demographic information on students including high school attended, ethnicity, and parental education levels.
Second, we used data from the Oregon Department of Education (ODE) annual report cards. The ODE publishes a report card for every school in Oregon each year containing school demographics, graduation rates, test scores, and other outcome information. This data was compiled into a spreadsheet, then edited down to include only high schools and the necessary variables for our analysis.