MORE GUIDANCE, BETTER RESULTS?

ability to persist in school. (The other college in the qualitative study was KingsboroughCommunity College. Because Owens joined the Opening Doors demonstration a year afterLorain, it was not included in the study.) Program group students at Lorain rated their counselingexperiences highly. They reported interacting more often and more intensively with counselorsthan the control group students who were interviewed. Most said that they could drop inon their Opening Doors counselor without an appointment, and others said they could call or e-mail and get quick responses.Discussing the Opening Doors counseling services, one student who had been out ofhigh school for a few years said:I feel like if I had the kind of help they’ve given me when I tried to start rightafter high school, I might have already completed my degree. Maybe I justneeded the counseling that I didn’t know [how] to get. 11Students reported that they received help from their Opening Doors counselor with academicissues, as well as personal problems that were interfering with their school performance.A program group student who had an acute health problem described the help she received:I was in the hospital last semester…. I got put in ICU. [My Opening Doorscounselor] went to all of my instructors and … he just went over the top. If Ihadn’t been in this program, I might have had to drop out. And then I endedup with a 3.0 GPA…. I really felt appreciation for him. 12In sum, the 12-month survey and the interviews with sample members from Lorainprovide evidence that the Opening Doors program positively affected at least some samplemembers’ experiences in college.Looking to the Report’s Next ChapterThe results discussed in this chapter show that Lorain and Owens operated an OpeningDoors program that provided services that were distinctly different from those that wereavailable to the study’s control group members. The counseling services were more intensive,comprehensive, and personalized than the colleges’ standard services, and almost all of theprogram group members received at least one stipend payment. Furthermore, participatingstudents expressed positive views about the Opening Doors services. The next question that thisreport addresses is whether the differences in services yielded substantial changes in students’academic and other outcomes. The following chapter discusses the answer to that question.11 Gardenhire-Crooks, Collado, and Ray (2006), p. 17.12 Gardenhire-Crooks, Collado, and Ray (2006), p. 17.41