A BluePrint for Success: Case Studies of Successful - Educational ...

A Blueprint for Success
gram, CB-STL staff observed the “cascading effect of poor grades.” CEO Zarin provided an example:
A student arrives with optimism, realizes they are unprepared, fails course work, isolates
himself/herself, and doesn’t identify their academic or social problems with institutional
support centers (i.e., student perception through the lens of stereotype threat bias is,
“They’ll just think I’m some dumb black kid” or “They’ll think I’m just some poor kid”).
The student goes into academic probation, financial aid is withheld, and it then becomes
very difficult to regain their footing UNLESS there is a very supportive authority figure
who can help them regroup and get back on track.
Another area of unexpected learning was the degree to which early and chronic trauma in students’
lives impacted them after they left for college. CEO Zarin noted, “It was almost like Post Traumatic
Stress Disorder.” She explained:
While students were at home in ‘survival mode,’ their coping mechanisms worked well for
them. When they were suddenly introduced to a great deal of freedom and an environment
that was danger-free, they began to experience mental health issues that threatened
to derail them socially and academically. While all students experience stresses in their
transition to college, the degree to which our students experienced stress made them especially
likely to engage in behaviors that led to attrition.
Another lesson learned was the sheer number of structural obstacles students face at colleges and
universities, including the “Darwinian approach to students’ learning” that many professors maintain;
the frequent disconnect between admission offices, financial aid offices and student support
centers; the fact that enrollment and housing deposits must be made before grants are received; and,
the circular nature of students having to make-up courses in order to keep their financial aid, without
being able to get the aid to enroll in the make-up course until they complete an appeal process,
by which time they’ve missed the enrollment deadlines, etc. Further, CEO Zarin noted that, “the
verification and award letter processes alone can be daunting, especially when they are combined
with unfriendly attitudes and presumptions (from some front line financial aid providers) that students
are hiding information.”
College Bound St. Louis recently expanded its focus and “moved the stake in the ground” from college
success to a focus on career and life-sustaining wages for their students. This expansion emerged
as the staff began noticing that students entered college with little or no proficiencies in math or science
and, even though they are persisting in college, they could not persist in ‘wealth generating’ majors.
CEO Zarin noted that, “Most of our students, because of their academic deficits — particularly
in math — are not able to pursue wealth-generating majors. They start in business, biology or engineering
and must transfer out into majors that have less rigorous requirements. For many of our students,
their majors are ones that they selected by default, not preference.” If the goal is to help low-
Educational Policy Institute 39 www.educationalpolicy.org