Tag: College Persistence

The serial events that lead so many low-income college students to drop out of college sometimes remind me of a recent DirecTV ad. The commercial is intended to be funny, but it parallels the compounding struggles faced by low-income college students in a painful way.

Dell Scholars, on average, have an ACT score of 19 and an SAT of 1400. (The maximum scores for these tests are 36 and 2400, respectively.) Judging from those test scores alone, you might not have much hope that these students could be successful in college.

My mom cut grape vines. The summer before my freshmen year, she was diagnosed with cancer. I could have given up and focused entirely on what was happening at home, or I could have given up and blamed my defeat on cancer, but I didn't. I still did all of my work.

The latest news on increased US high school graduation rates is heartening. But not enough of those gains are propelling students through to college graduation:

What’s the most effective college persistence strategy? There are a lot of contenders for that role, but near the top is peer-to-peer mentoring. Meet the our Dell Scholar Ambassadors, and learn what they do to help other students stay in school and graduate.

From the start the Dell Young Leaders scholarship program was designed to offer more than a check. It includes everything from academic tutoring to social mentoring to help obtaining basic supplies in order to stretch students' monthly budgets. Peer mentorship is also key.

Nearly 89 percent of Latino students recognize that a college education is important for success in life. So why do only half of those students say they plan to get a college degree?

Student debt correlates to college completion. When we saw 20 Dell Scholars facing a collective $2 million bill at graduation, we went into action.

Dell Scholars defy the odds – 85 percent of Dell Scholars graduate from college with a degree within six years, compared with only 19 percent of kids from the same economic background, and with just 59.5 percent of the entire college-enrolled student population.

I hope I never earn the title “Dream Crusher.” It’s not one I want, and it’s not one I think I deserve. But I believe that the concept of “living the dream” excludes student loan burdens that extend into retirement. So if the tradeoff is a Dell Scholar who makes it through to graduation, I'll learn to live with it.