Dive Brief:
- The American Association of State Colleges and Universities has launched a three-year project aimed at redesigning the first year of college to improve outcomes for all students, but particularly those from low-income families, first-generation college goers, and underrepresented minorities.
- In announcing the project, the AASCU pointed to data about attrition from the first to the second year of college, identifying that first year as a critical barrier to success and calling for a range of interventions that reflect the needs of the modern student body.
- The Re-Imagining the First Year of College, or RFY, project features 44 participating institutions that will form a learning community to review and share strategies and begin a comprehensive reform effort on their own campuses focusing on four areas: institutional intentionality, curriculum redesign, changes in faculty and staff roles, and changes in student roles.
Dive Insight:
The RFY team plans to share out best practices and key findings with the wider educational community over the next three years. The project is being funded by the Gates Foundation and USA Funds. Initiatives like this are important in their recognition of the stubborn higher education attainment gap in this country. White Americans earn college degrees at higher rates and their progress has been more pronounced than Latinos and blacks. However, this country’s K-12 schools are now majority-minority with Latinos growing faster than any other group. A system that adequately educates middle-class white students is not enough.
Men of color are particularly disadvantaged in almost every metric of college success. J. Luke Wood studies student outcomes at community colleges, primarily, as a professor and program director at San Diego State. His recommendations for improving outcomes among this group are strategies that will augment the learning experience for all students.