Imagine completing half of high school only to have to drop out and face uncertain futures and severely limited resources.
This scenario is all too common among low-income students, according to a study conducted by the University of California’s All Campus Consortium On Research for Diversity.
In an effort to improve education for low-income students, researchers from across California and from schools in several other states collaborated on a special issue of the Journal of Education for Students Placed At Risk earlier this year.
Researchers found that a large percentage of low-income youths between the ages of 16 and 26 ““ particularly underrepresented minorities, single mothers and undocumented students ““ do not complete secondary school or lack postsecondary educational opportunities because of a lack of resources.
People fell under the category of “low-income” if their income was less than 185 percent more than the poverty line, which meant they qualified for free or reduced lunch in schools.
According to the study, only 13 percent of low-income students obtain a bachelor’s degree by the time they turn 28. Thirty-five percent of disadvantaged young adults between the ages of 19 and 22 do not hold a job or attend school.
“To understand the educational picture, it’s important to understand their access to health care, transportation and (housing),” said Amanda Datnow, professor and director of education studies at UC San Diego and co-principal investigator of the study. “So it’s really a larger social problem.”
Many of these problems are prevalent in urban and rural areas where the instances of poverty are much higher.
“For example, if you don’t have transportation, then you can’t get to the college or high school across town,” Datnow said. “If you can’t put food on the table, then education will be low on your priority list.”
Furthermore, many schools serving low-income communities in California do not offer A-G courses, which are the prerequisites to attend most state universities and private colleges, Datnow said.
“Oftentimes, administrators don’t expect the kids to go to college, so they don’t offer the courses,” she said.
“Oftentimes, students complete all their coursework, and they think they’re on track (for) college, but they really aren’t.”
The collaborative publication is only part of a five-year study titled Pathways to Postsecondary Success, which was funded by a grant totaling a little more than $7.6 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
For the past two years of the study, researchers looked at quantitative data from various sources, such as surveys and statistical charts, said Tara Watford, director of research for the Pathways to Postsecondary Success at UCLA.
The next step will be to perform case studies on about 300 students in Los Angeles, Riverside and San Diego counties to understand individuals’ perspectives on access to postsecondary education, Watford added.
At the end of the study, researchers will make recommendations on how to improve the availability of education for low-income youth in California.
The Los Angeles case studies will focus on community college students, whereas the San Diego studies will target public high school students, Watford said.
Researchers in Riverside will interview women who recently made the transition from welfare programs to community college, she added.
“We’re looking at women (from ages 19 to 26) because they have higher levels of poverty and are mostly single mothers,” Watford said.
Access to postsecondary education also includes access to vocational schools, which prepare students for more technical jobs.
“Access to the labor market is much different for undocumented people,” Watford said. “Even if they get a college degree, (it) doesn’t mean they can get a job because they need documentation.”
Such conditions require policy changes to improve. But researchers are waiting to gain more perspective on the matter before proceeding with recommendations.
“We haven’t done our interviews yet, so we don’t know how politics would change their lives,” Watford said.
“That would be something we’d like to hear from the students themselves.”