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In the May/June issue of Change, US Undersecretary of Education Martha J. Kanter described President Barack Obama's plan for recapturing the position of the best-educated country in the world by 2020. She spelled out the formula for meeting the President's ambitious goal: increasing postsecondary access, improving the quality of a college education, and accelerating college completion. The University of Texas at Brownsville, established just 20 years ago, has been on a mission to achieve these very objectives. Having followed that formula with the collaboration of city leaders, school districts, university partners, and savvy businessmen and women, the university is now poised to transform its region.
What are we going to do with all of these Hispanics?
That was the question on everyone's mind at a meeting I attended more than 25 years ago, when a Harvard demographer predicted the explosive growth of the Hispanic population in the United States.
True to those predictions, the 2010 census showed that the Hispanic population has grown 46 percent over the last decade. In Texas, where that group grew more than twice as fast as it did in the rest of the nation, Hispanics now make up 37 percent of the citizens. The Texas State Data Center is now predicting that the state will become majority Hispanic in this decade.
But why are people so worried about the explosive growth of this ethnicity? There are probably many reasons, but the one that primarily concerns those of us who are working in higher education is because of the educational characteristics of the Hispanic population.
According to the National Center for Education Statics, Hispanics drop out of high school at almost double the rate of African Americans and 1.5 times that of whites. More of them need remedial education than other groups. And those who do make it to college are more likely to drop out; few succeed in earning a degree. While 37 percent of whites and 19 percent of American blacks aged 25–29 have a bachelor's degree or higher, the attainment rate for Hispanics is only 12 percent. All of this makes Hispanics less productive citizens, less engaged in civic life, and less likely to contribute to our democracy than they might be with more education.
And despite a host of new initiatives aimed at these problems, little progress has been made in changing low Hispanic college-participation rates over more than three decades. They still enroll in college at lesser rates than their white peers, with whites at 72 percent and Hispanics at 64 percent.
These disappointing results are understandable, given the other characteristics of the Hispanic population. The children in the schools of Deep South Texas meet all of the federal criteria for students at risk: They are learning English as a second language, and their parents did not graduate from college (most didn't from high school). They tend to delay going to college. And Brownsville is ranked as one of the most impoverished cities of its size in the nation, with 60 percent of our students qualifying for Pell Grants or loans.
These characteristics all decrease their chances of success. In 2008, 57 percent of low-income students enrolled in college immediately after high school, while 82 percent of students from high-income families enrolled. Additionally, 82 percent of children with parents who had earned a bachelor's degree enrolled in college, while only 54 percent of children with less-educated parents enrolled. And in almost every year between 1972 and 2008, the college enrollment rates of high-school graduates from low-income families trailed the rates of those from high-income families by at least 20 percentage points.
Within a single generation we are seeing the impact. As its Hispanic population has grown, America has fallen from first to ninth among developed countries in college-graduation rates for young adults. As a nation, we cannot afford to only educate the top 10 percent, leaving 90 percent of our population behind. Every economist will tell you that it is going to take much more than the top 10 percent of the population to sustain the other 90 percent.
At the University of Texas at Brownsville, we have been feeling this sense of urgency since we were established 20 years ago. Located on the southern tip of Texas on the border, we are a preview of what the rest of the nation will look like in the very near future.
We believe that the students we serve can succeed. Brownsville is one of the five cities in the nation that sends the most students to national chess tournaments. If these students can win chess tournaments and become nationally ranked competitors, they should be able to learn how to read, do math, and succeed in school.
And many do. UT Brownsville is now ranked 20th in the nation among colleges and universities for producing bachelor's degrees awarded to Hispanics and 10th in the nation for granting bachelor's degrees in computer science to Hispanics. We are also ranked 47th in the number of master's degrees awarded to Hispanics.
In addition, our graduates are passing their state teacher certification exams at an average rate of 95 percent; in music, we hold the record for the only program that has had a 100 percent pass rate from its inception (and woe be to the student who breaks that record!). At the same time, UT Brownsville was ranked among the top ten academic institutions in the state of Texas in research and development expenditures in medical sciences (#8), aerospace technology (#5), and biotechnology (#7).
Since our university continues to increase the number of Hispanic students who enroll in and graduate from college, it might appear that we don't have a problem. But we do—a very serious one. As impressive as our growth has been and as hard as everyone has worked to build capacity for continued growth in the future, the population in our region is growing faster than we are. You could close all the bridges from the south and stop all in-migration from the north today, but the nature of our population is such that it will still grow rapidly over the next three decades.
The number of graduates we produce must continue to double and triple over the next decade for South Texas to keep pace with the rest of the state. We cannot do this by adhering to the status quo. We need to ensure our students' access to and success in college and improve the quality of their education by raising standards and working with the community.
Expansion and Access
In 1991, the University of Texas at Brownsville established a unique partnership with a community college, Texas Southmost College. Operating as a single entity, the partnership streamlined processes and removed the typical barriers for students transferring between a community college and a university. Degree programs were designed to articulate from the freshmen level to the baccalaureate, and students now have access to graduate programs close to home.
Beginning with 49 acres (we later acquired 400 more, one tract at a time), we constructed state-of-the-art science labs and classrooms and built new libraries and an arts center. We recruited expert faculty and doubled the number of degree programs offered.
This expansion was made possible by the sustained investment of the State of Texas. Begun during the 1990s, the South Texas Border Initiative relied on the leadership of Governor Ann Richards and local support from a generous community hungry for more opportunities in higher education for its children.
The second task was to increase access. Challenged by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board's 2000 Closing the Gaps plan to raise statewide college participation by 500,000 students by 2015, we increased our outreach to the community. We met with students, counselors, teachers, parents and school boards. We taught families about financial aid and the college-admissions process. We spoke about the 21st-century jobs that would require more education than a two-year degree.
In two years we increased our region's college-participation rate from 3.5 percent to 3.7 percent, surpassing the state's average, and in 2008 we matched the Texas participation rate for all students of 5.4 percent. We closed the gap in access, and today the Lower Rio Grande Valley continues to run counter-trend to other regions across the state.
Success
However, it is one thing to get students in the door; it is quite another to get them to graduation.
We began with the families of our students. We had to create a college-going culture in our community, which meant we had to help entire families develop high expectations for success and the skills and tools they needed to help their children meet those expectations. We taught mothers about financial aid while their children were still in middle school; soon we found those same mothers applying for financial aid themselves to become the first college students in their families. One semester, we discovered three generations of one family attending the university at the same time!
We raised money for scholarships, established endowments, offered dual-enrollment courses, established an early-college high school in partnership with a local school district, and began our own math and science academy for exceptional 11th and 12th graders. We applied for and received every Upward Bound program grant we could and converted any spare dollar we found into a work-while-you-learn initiative to connect students with their professors. And every year we graduated more and more students: 2,000 last year alone.
But sometimes, when so much growth is taking place, it masks the harsh reality of what isn't working so well. While 80 percent of our students were making satisfactory progress toward a degree, five years ago we turned our attention to the 20 percent who were not.
A faculty committee took on the task of determining how to best compress students' time to graduation. The group identified several disturbing characteristics of our student population:
It takes longer for them to earn a bachelor's degree than the typical 4–6 years.
The majority attend part-time.
They work too many hours outside the university.
They drop too many courses.
They frequently stop out for several semesters to help their families.
They borrow too much money.
They rarely connect with their professors or participate in activities on campus.
They fill expensive seats in freshman classes, which they drop after a few weeks—so the seats stay empty for the rest of the semester.
If students don't make progress toward a degree and are borrowing money, the picture becomes grim. They begin digging a bottomless hole of indebtedness. Students with a low grade-point average over multiple semesters have little likelihood of making an academic recovery. They finally drop out for good, taking with them their accumulated debt and no credential to show for the time they spent at the university.
So we decided to change our definition of success from access to graduation.
Raising Standards
All schools have Standards of Academic Progress (SAP) policies, since federal financial-aid eligibility guidelines include requirements for progress towards a degree. Many also have policies for academic standing that address only the GPA. On our campus, this resulted in two policies—one for financial aid and another for academic standing—which caused confusion among faculty and staff, not to mention among students. Also, the omission of a course-completion standard in the academic policy allowed students who were not completing a significant number of the hours they attempted to enroll in classes without making much progress.
Linked to this was a concern about indebtedness. While almost 60 percent of our students are eligible to receive Pell Grants, the program has failed to keep up with the actual costs of attending college. Our financially needy students have been borrowing more and more each year to make ends meet. In 2008, students borrowed 1.5 times the amount of money distributed through the Pell program. The next year, a new rule allowed students to receive a second Pell grant in the summer, and our university's Pell distribution grew from $23 million in 2008–09 to $36 million in 2009–10. Meanwhile, our students borrowed $35 million that year as well.
We looked for a solution that would guide our students toward timely graduation and away from excessive loan indebtedness. We wanted a policy that would set clear, attainable expectations and that encouraged responsible behavior.
The first step we took was to align the academic SAP policy with the policy used to establish financial-aid eligibility. We wanted to have a single, simple policy that everyone could understand.
The new global policy is that students must earn a minimum 2.0 GPA and complete 70 percent of their attempted courses every semester, both to remain in good academic standing and to be eligible to receive federal financial aid. If they do not meet SAP standards after one semester, they are placed on probation. Those on probation can still receive financial assistance for a semester, but they must meet SAP standards during that semester in order for us to remove their probationary status so that they can return to good standing.
Students who do not bring their GPAs up to a 2.0 or complete 70 percent of the hours they have attempted for the semester while on probation are suspended. While on suspension, they may not enroll in classes; they must sit out a long semester. We hope that they will use that time to resolve any issues that may have prevented them from dedicating themselves to serious studying.
Then they may enroll once again. However, when they return, it is on their own nickel. Also, they may register for only seven credit hours that first semester, they must meet with an advisor to select the appropriate classes, and they must participate in other programs designed to get them on track. Once students demonstrate the ability to meet the SAP guidelines, they are once again considered to be in good standing and therefore are eligible for financial aid.
To help students meet the revised SAP standards, we installed several safety nets. We made a university-wide commitment to improving student access to academic advising, both in the Advising Center and in the classroom. Like other campuses with limited resources, our university has a dramatically inadequate student-to-advisor ratio. But with the simplified uniform policy, all of us could become advisors on SAP. We launched a comprehensive communication campaign to inform students, faculty, and staff about the new standards and the consequences of dropping courses.
We redesigned freshman orientation (now mandatory) to include topics such as study skills, time management, and academic expectations. We added tutoring sections, expanded an already robust supplemental-instruction initiative, and created more on-campus jobs for students in which they don't merely make copies or run errands but work in labs with faculty. We designed a contract to be signed by probationary students, which included making a commitment to attend advising sessions prior to registering for the next term. To insure that this happens, we limit on-line registration to those who have been advised. And finally, we realigned all scholarships to the new SAP standards.
Four years after implementation of the new academic standards, we have cautious grounds for optimism.
On the Down Side …
At first, optimism was in limited supply. As a result of installing the new SAP policy, we experienced a substantial increase in the number of students on probation. At the end of the first term under our new SAP criteria, not unexpectedly, 2,129 students (20 percent of the population) were placed on probation. Consequently, we lost an average of 1,500 enrollments per year, or between 6 and 6.5 percent of our student body.
So SAP has had a dramatic impact on our operating budget. The first year we lost $2 million and the second another $1.2 million in a combination of state appropriations and tuition, for a cumulative loss of $3.2 million. To compensate for the lost revenue, we froze the hiring of new faculty (with the exception of crucial positions), decreased the number of sections taught, and reduced spending. We also installed SAP during a year when we would not be penalized for having lost enrollment due to the peculiarities of the state formula funding system. As we had projected, enrollment grew in 2010, and we were able to once again operate with a balanced budget.
And finally, the SAP revisions created new work for advisors, faculty, and staff members tasked with generating data for further study.
On the Up Side …
But there has been a very positive impact as well. Since the implementation of the more rigorous standards, the number of credit hours successfully completed has risen from 79.7 percent in fall 2006 to 82.8 percent in fall 2010. Students have also withdrawn from fewer classes: In fall 2006, they withdrew from 9.5 percent of their credit hours; now they're dropping only 5.7 percent. The percentage of students on probation, now at 17.9 percent, is inching downward.
But much more has happened than this slight incremental progress. Peer expectations have grown. Enrolled students woke up (faculty confirm that more students are attending class and keeping up with their assignments), and new students accepted the new SAP criteria as a matter of course. Students on probation began to say, “I got zapped by SAP.” Even the president of the student government was zapped and had to resign from his position. When asked how he felt about it, he said, “It was the right thing for the university to do. I got zapped because I neglected my studies. Now I'm back on track.”
There was a cultural shift, and not just among students. We have begun experimenting with additional initiatives, such as linking courses and expanding learning communities.
The results are beginning to come in. There are early signs that time-to-graduation will decrease and students will accumulate less debt, a clear signal has been sent to area schools about the academic expectations for graduating seniors, and there has been a positive external community response that has ranged from “Why hadn't you done this before?” to “It's about time.”
The Successful Student Model
Now that we have set a “new normal” for academic achievement semester to semester, we have undertaken the task of compressing the time to graduation.
Every year we graduate more and more students at all levels. Between 1993 and 2009, we granted certificates to half again as many students as in prior years, more than doubled the number graduating with associate's degrees, almost quadrupled the number granted bachelor's degrees, and more than tripled the number who earned master's degrees. And this year we graduated our first two doctoral students.
Imagine the impact on a community of having 2,000 new graduates from our university, especially when we know that most of them stay in the region. And imagine the impact this success has on families. A young nursing student graduating from our two-year registered nurse program doubles the family income her first year on the job. So does the young graduate hired to teach music, science, or mathematics. And the quality of our graduates improves annually, with above-average scores on state boards for nursing and Texas's teacher certification exams.
But remember—to keep up with the region's growth, we must double and triple the number of graduates.
Research has taught us that in order to decrease the risk of students dropping out of college, they should enroll directly out of high school and be “college ready,” with no need for remedial courses. Once on campus, students should take a full load, not stop out, get connected to the campus community, set a goal for graduation, and (if they have to work) work on campus no more than 20 hours per week.
But most of the students who come to us are not college ready, do not come directly out of high school, need remedial courses, attend part-time, stop out to work, don't connect with a member of the faculty or with a student organization, don't set a goal for graduation, and work more than 20 hours per week in jobs off campus.
So for years we've been experimenting with innovative strategies to transform all students into successful ones. And we've had some impressive results.
The Student Employment Initiative (SEI)
One example of these programs is our Student Employment Initiative (SEI), which was recognized by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board with a prestigious Star Award. It began in 2005 as a pilot project to provide 31 students meaningful work on campus. Students were matched with jobs related to their programs of study, with professors engaged in research, or in tutoring labs. They were limited to 20 hours of work per week and earned more than minimum wage. They had to maintain a 2.75 GPA and enroll full time.
Recognizing the success of the program, we expanded it to about 200 students. Each semester since the program began, the students have not only met the minimum requirements—they have exceeded them. Over the life of the program, the students' average GPA has been 3.24, with an average of 15.11 credit hours completed each semester. The retention rate stands at 98 percent, outpacing that of any other cohort.
Our biggest problem has been finding funding sources to hire more students. We are reaching out to local businesses to expand the program through career-related off-campus employment. The business community has responded enthusiastically to the opportunity to invest in the human capital of the region in return for a well-educated workforce.
The Work Ahead
We have gone from families and students thinking that stopping out to earn a bit of money is fine to understanding the consequences of delaying or not finishing college, from low expectations to high, from working off campus too many hours and in jobs unrelated to a field of study to working in laboratories with professors, from treating the worlds of academia and business and industry as if they were located on separate islands to creating more partnerships that propel students toward graduation.
But there is still much for us to do. Developmental education must be reinvented, freshman retention rates must be dramatically improved, successful programs must reach more students, the university's systems for registration and orientation must be streamlined, student advising must be decentralized, and classes must be scheduled for the students' convenience.
We recognize that it is going to take a collective effort. Parents are ready, school districts are ready, and universities are uniquely positioned to move those important constituents towards a transformation. And business and industry leaders are keenly aware that they have a role to play. This year Brownsville was one of four cities nationwide awarded a Gates Foundation planning grant for Partners in Post-Secondary Success, with the goal of increasing the number of low-income young adults who earn a postsecondary certificate or degree and go on to get jobs that pay a living wage.
We've been experimenting for years, and we've learned from many others who have also been experimenting. Now it's time to admit what hasn't worked and be committed to scaling up what does. We have to set high expectations for ourselves, for the community, and for the students, creating pathways for them that are rigorous, disciplined, and demanding. It will take a sustained effort and a large-scale investment to make it work. And as it does, we hope to become a model for other communities that face the same challenges.
We need our minority and at-risk students; we need them educated, bi-literate, and equipped with skills that can transcend state and national borders. We need them to run and expand our businesses and invent new ones. We need them to teach our children and to design our homes. We need them to care for us when we're ill and to perform life-giving surgeries.
When I became a new college president many years ago, I interviewed presidents of highly successful colleges. I wanted to find out what the most important job of a college president was. Like a good student, I made a list of the questions I wanted to ask and took copious notes.
“Preserving the democracy of the United States” was the answer from Miami Dade College President Robert McCabe. “My job is to take in the next wave of immigrants. Sometimes it's Haitians, other times it's Cubans, and sometimes its native Floridians who never had access to college. I help them get educated and vested in the democratic system. If I do this well, they will nurture, defend, and sustain our democracy. Therefore, my job is to preserve the democracy of the United States.”
I closed my notebook and came home. I adopted the same mission. More than 20 years later, this fundamental purpose has not wavered. Providing access and helping students achieve success in higher education goes beyond the benefit to any single graduate or family. It is the most important work that any of us could do to sustain our democracy.
A native of the region she serves, Juliet V. García became the first Hispanic female to be named president of a college or university in the US when she took that post at Texas Southmost College in 1986. Six years later she joined the University of Texas System as president of the UT Brownsville. She was named one of the top ten college presidents in 2009 by Time Magazine and served on President-elect Obama's transition team. She is a board member of the Ford, Robert Wood Johnson, and Public Welfare Foundations.
Angela K. McCauley (angela.mccauley@utb.edu) has had more than 17 years of experience in higher education. Having formerly held posts in marketing and communication, she has served as assistant to the president at UT Brownsville since 2006.
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