|
|
|
The views expressed on this page are
solely
those of the author and do not
necessarily represent the views of County
News Online
|
|
Dreamstime
The Hechinger Report
‘Right now is not my time’: How Covid dimmed college prospects for students who need help most
Never mind getting admitted; many students, even if they manage to
apply, have trouble completing the forms they need to pay for it
By Laura Pappano
March 4, 2021
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — A few weeks ago, ahead of a nor’easter that
unleashed biting winds and snow across New England, Alyssa Washington,
a high school senior who wants to be a nurse, made her big college
decision: Not to go next fall.
There was no single reason. Rather, mounting obstacles led Washington,
a senior at Metropolitan Business Academy, a public school in New
Haven, to hit pause. She had not finished the Common App, a shared
application form used by more than 900 colleges and universities; had
struggled to write her application essay; had lost her password for
Naviance, which collects transcripts, recommendation letters and other
forms needed to apply; and — like many students in low-income districts
this year — had not filled out the FAFSA, the federal financial aid
application form.
It didn’t help that a favorite aunt got Covid. (She recovered.) Or that
class was remote, amplifying the isolation and monotony that have
defined this school year. Washington, who would be the first in her
family to go to college, had always planned to attend. But applying
suddenly felt overwhelming.
As incomplete application tasks piled up, she said, “I thought, ‘Is
this really something I want to do?’ I came to the conclusion that
right now is not my time.”
Applying to college has always been harder for first-generation and
low-income students than for peers with greater access to support at
every step of the process. This year, data shows, that gulf has widened.
“What we are really worried about, simply put, is: ‘Will we miss out on
an entire generation of students going to college?’ ” said Angel Pérez,
CEO of the National Association for College Admission Counseling. “If
the pandemic has highlighted anything” about admissions, he said, it is
“how the system perpetuates inequality” and how complex applying has
become.
Common App data through Feb. 15 showed applications up 11 percent
overall from a year ago — yet down 1.6 percent among first-generation
students and flat among low-income students. Overall FAFSA completion,
a harbinger of college-going intent, was 9.2 percent behind the prior
year on Feb. 19. However, in high schools serving lower-income
students, it lagged 12.1 percent, and in schools with a high percentage
of students of color, the decline was 14.6 percent.
The FAFSA drop represents “a gobsmacking number,” said Bill DeBaun,
director of data and evaluation for the National College Attainment
Network. It makes it less likely that low-income students will be able
to attend, as many colleges and universities commit financial aid money
to others ahead of those who apply later.
Counselors and college access groups are still working with low-income
and first-generation students. But it is happening mostly online.
Without in-person contact, DeBaun said, “many students are not getting
the help they need right now.”
High school has been remote since last March in New Haven, a low-income
district in a wealthy state with an elite university, Yale, in the
city’s center. Diana Hernandez-DeGroat, who supports counselors across
the district, said counselors try to reach students “via any platform,
any way of communicating with them.”
Counselors in two New Haven public high schools described a landscape
of stress. Students have had friends and family fall ill and die.
Parents have lost jobs; students are taking on more work, even
overnight shifts, to help out. They are also doing more child
care, including helping younger children with online school, even
during their own meetings and classes. After one counselor at Wilbur
Cross High School, the city’s largest, saw a student juggle class for
two siblings while discussing her college plans over Zoom, he rewrote
her letter of recommendation to acknowledge it.
Students, said one counselor, “are exhausted.” Typhanie Jackson,
director of student services for the district, said counselors call
students “three, four, five times” without reaching anyone. When they
do connect, often college application tasks “are not the first thing on
their mind,” she said. “Some people are barely surviving.”
A student who agreed to be interviewed for this story, but missed
scheduled times because he got the chance to work more hours “felt
ashamed,” he said in a text. “Things have come up and gotten out of
hand, got a lot of things going on, DACA application, school work,
applying for college and looking for scholarships, studying for
[driver’s] permit test, working … etc.”
Counselors speak longingly, as Heidi Pitkin of Metropolitan Business
Academy did, of the days “when if somebody doesn’t turn in something to
me, I walk into the class or sit down in the cafeteria with them.” She
said, “You chase them.”
That now happens electronically — kind of. Some students say counselors
don’t get back to them, or reply too late to be helpful. It’s a
perfect storm of disconnection that has counselors feeling harried,
responding to texts and emails at odd hours, but also has left students
feeling deserted.
“Our students are very relational,” and connect best in person, said
Patricia Melton, executive director of New Haven Promise, which
provides money and support to help New Haven Public School and charter
students earn a college degree.
As college assistance shifted from in-person meetings to email
instructions and documents studded with links, students were “just
overwhelmed,” Melton said. “Adults are thinking we can send them emails
galore and they will go through them.”
Rosé Aliyah Smokes, a senior at Metropolitan Business Academy, felt so
lost in October that she turned to YouTube videos. “I went on my
bed and had my notepad, turned on the TV and searched, ‘How to apply to
college,’ ” she recalled. She was surprised to learn about application
deadlines. “I really did not know that,” she said. “I thought we just
applied and that was that.”
Smokes applied to several colleges, getting in to Clark Atlanta
University, her “dream school.” But she is stymied by the FAFSA.
Because she is 18, she said, her parents don’t want to provide
information, so she missed the college’s aid deadline. Now, she hopes
to transfer there in the future.
She needs financial aid to afford University of New Haven, a private
school where she now hopes to go; in late February, she was
anxious. “Time is ticking and I am still here by myself, trying to
figure it out,” she texted.
Students said they have relied more on themselves and one another.
Destiny Thomas, a senior at James Hillhouse High School in New Haven,
is a strong candidate, earning As and Bs, competing on the volleyball
and math teams and participating in theater club.
But when it came to applying to college, she said, “Nobody knew where
to start.” Thomas said her emails to a counselor “went weeks on
end with no response,” though she was finally able to schedule a
Zoom call. Texts to one teacher seeking feedback on her essay went
unanswered, she said. By the time three others she reached out to
responded, the early deadline had passed and “I had submitted it.”
After Thomas had applied (to the University of New Haven, Clark Atlanta
and Harvard, among others), she steered several friends through the
Common App over FaceTime. One, Jaheim Sewell, paid it forward: He
helped three friends who otherwise “100 percent would not have applied”
to any college, he said. (Sewell was admitted to several, but in
mid-February, he had not submitted a FAFSA; nor had about 73 percent of
his class.)
In the November Zoom chat, Thomas said, her counselor told her, “You
are on the right track.” But “it was not what I was expecting,” she
said. “I am really indecisive, and it would have helped if there was
guidance on weighing out your options.”
Being on your own and “in front of the computer all day you fall into a
state where you are lost, unmotivated or confused,” said Thomas. It’s
one reason “kids don’t want to participate in anything anymore,” she
said. “They just want to get their diploma and graduate.”
Those vital support conversations have gotten lost in many schools
across the country, said Mandy Savitz-Romer, a senior lecturer in human
development and education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
“The mechanics of applying to college, students can figure that out,”
she said, but “if I believe I am not college material, if I feel
hopeless, if I don’t feel there is a path forward for me, then I will
not apply,” she said. “It is the harder conversations that are missing
now.”
One reason, according to a survey of 984 school counselors by
Savitz-Romer, Heather Rowan-Kenyon at Boston College and others, is
what you might expect: Counselors are tasked with more duties.
They are now tracking down students who miss class (“they called
themselves ‘the attendance police,’ ” said Savitz-Romer), and helping
families get technology, broadband, even food. “They told us that
there just wasn’t time for counseling,” she said.
In many public schools, counselors were already juggling scheduling and
testing, plus mental health aid, social services and learning needs —
along with guiding the college process. By contrast, well-resourced
schools have counselors focused only on college.
For example, Achievement First Amistad High School, a charter school
about half a mile from Hillhouse High, has four college counselors for
151 seniors — plus social workers and school counselors. Students also
take a class that readies them for college. This year, the school added
midday Zoom blocks for students and counselors to meet. (Hillhouse has
five counselors for 1,161 students, including the 223 seniors.)
Rather than picking colleges based on “buzz” or internet searches,
students are guided to schools that make sense. “There are two data
points we have honed in on,” said Kathryn Goldberg, associate director
of college and career counseling. They are percentage of financial need
met and the graduation rate for students of color.
“It could be a different outcome going to a school with a 65 percent
graduation rate versus a 25 percent rate” for students of color, she
said. And, she pointed out, how useful is getting into a college that
meets just 30 percent of demonstrated financial need? (By early March,
73.4 percent of Amistad seniors had completed the FAFSA, according to
the state tracker.)
Such nuanced guidance is harder to achieve in schools with large
caseloads, Goldberg said. That makes nonprofit partners a
valuable source of help. This year across the country, they report more
students delaying college plans.
This is raising alarms. Research shows that not going to college right after high school decreases chances of earning a degree.
What worries Steve Desir, a doctoral candidate at the University of
Southern California who studies the transition from high school to
college for Black, Latinx and low-income students, is what happens next.
“The handoff from high school to college is a space that nobody owns,”
he said. “It is not clear who is responsible for guiding students
during that period. The student is really on their own.”
He does not blame schools or counselors. “They are doing a great deal,”
he said. “What we are seeing is a system that was separate and unequal,
and you add a pandemic and you have a system that is more separate and
more unequal.”
At Metropolitan Business Academy, Leslie Blatteau, who teaches a peer
leadership class, noticed low FAFSA completion rates in late January —
just 43 percent of the senior class had applied — and prodded students
to organize a peer support session. During a Zoom class, students
eagerly volunteered for tasks like making a slide deck and designing an
electronic invite.
But given the year’s many challenges, they debated what to cover.
Should they just press peers on the FAFSA? One student suggested, “Kids
would more like to figure out what they want to do, instead of joining
a session of something they hear about but might not want to do.”
Washington, the aspiring nurse who decided not to apply to college this
year, is a member of this class. She urged offering support so students
“feel less alone.”
After class, she spoke about her decision. Next year, she will work (“a
clothing store, or Target or Walmart”) to earn money for college. “I
don’t think my mind will ever get off wanting to be a nurse,” she said.
But neither could she have imagined the emotional toll of Covid and
remote school.
“If somebody five years ago said your senior year you would be deciding to take a gap year,” she said, “I wouldn’t believe it.”
Read this and other stories at The Hechinger Report
|
|
|
|
