NEWS | March 2008 - all articles

This page includes all articles in the March issue of NEWS. Return to summary or go to the NEWS archive.

Enrolling lower-income college students: why it matters
Global service: Impacting the student experience and the world
Advocacy focuses on preserving state grant funds
Briefs

Enrolling lower-income college students: why it matters

Callie Nguyen will graduate this spring from Concordia College in Moorhead with a double major in chemistry and biology and has plans to attend medical school. She’s fulfilling a dream that at one time seemed unattainable. With her family’s limited income she wasn’t sure she would be able to afford college at all. But thanks to numerous grants and scholarships she is thriving. Nguyen benefits — as does her campus community and our state.

Approximately 19 percent of undergraduates at Minnesota Private College Council (MPCC) member institutions come from families with incomes less than $40,000 and receive a Federal Pell Grant. This proportion increases to 23 percent representing students from families with incomes less than $70,000 and receiving a Minnesota State Grant. These percentages are slightly higher than for undergraduates enrolled at both the Minnesota State Universities and the University of Minnesota.

However, State Grant aid is not reaching needy families as it did in previous years. Just 10 years ago, 33 percent of MPCC undergraduates were State Grant recipients. Since 1995, this number has decreased by more than 2,500 due to increasing family incomes coupled with unchanged income requirements for receiving need-based aid. But enrollment of the lowest-income students (Pell grant recipients) has remained stable at approximately 8,000 students. And our colleges’ commitment to providing an education to lower-income students has not diminished.

Social justice issues
This commitment is partly about social justice. MPCC members have long-standing commitments of service to their communities and the world which are often tied to the institutions’ faith traditions. It is part of their missions and core values to provide access to students — including those who are less financially fortunate.

Barriers to lower-income students enrolling in college often parallel those related to race and ethnicity. Minnesotans of color are three times more likely to be among the lowest-income. In 2005, 37 percent of African Americans in Minnesota earned incomes less than $28,000 as compared to 12 percent of whites, according to the State Demographic Center. Thus, less economic diversity will correspond to less racial diversity on campus.

Studies show that lower-income students in Minnesota are becoming less likely to make it to college. In 1993, Minnesota ranked first with 48 percent of lower-income students enrolling in college; in 2003-04 the ranking fell to 11th with 33 percent enrolling. Even among the highest-ability students, fewer than one in three lower-income students will complete a bachelor’s degree, according to the College Board.

Campus and student experience
Research on racial and ethnic diversity in higher education shows that campus diversity initiatives have positive effects on both minority and majority students. Diverse institutions help improve students’ relationships on campus and positively influence their satisfaction and involvement with their institution as well as their academic growth. The same can be said for economic diversity.

Encountering students from diverse incomes as well as different racial and ethnic groups enables students to get to know one another and to deepen their own thinking about themselves and about others. For many students, college is the first sustained exposure to an environment other than their home communities.

Needs of our economy
The number of currently working college graduates who will be retiring from the Minnesota workforce will grow from 9,000 per year in 2007 to 25,000 per year in 2019. Further, the forecast is that Minnesota will have an annual shortage of approximately 12,900 college-educated workers. At the same time, total Minnesota high school graduates will decrease while the proportion representing students of color will increase. As Minnesota’s population becomes more racially and ethnically diverse, our best bet for increasing the number of skilled workers is to increase the participation and completion rates of all students — including lower-income students.

A 2004 study by the Minnesota Private College Research Foundation clearly documented the social and economic transformation of students from the lowest-income quartile as a result of their graduation from one of our colleges. Outcomes for lower-income students were similar to their upper-income peers for educational satisfaction, time to degree completion, average personal income, employment levels and pursuit of advanced degrees.

Minnesota’s private colleges and universities have a history of successfully educating students like Callie Nguyen. Recruitment and enrollment of lower-income students is a wise investment in them, our campuses and state. 

Global service: Impacting the student experience and the world

Geno means people. Cide means killing. Together they become genocide — the intent to deliberately destroy a people. It’s an issue that seems far away for most Americans but some Minnesota private college students are addressing it head-on.

Students packaged food destined for Darfur at the Building Bridges conference

On March 8 at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter. 1,200 students and others attended the sold-out Building Bridges conference, “Genocide awareness: How will history judge us?” Building Bridges is an annual student-initiated and student-led event on global diversity at Gustavus. This year’s conference aimed to give students a means to defeat the notion that one person can’t make a difference.

Gustavus students Asitha Jayawardena and Jing Han Soh applied to be co-chairs of the conference last spring. When selected, they chose the genocide theme because they felt that it is an issue often overlooked in the U.S. “Not many people know about what has gone on in Darfur and we made it our mission to tell them,” Jayawardena said.

The two formed a large committee that really came together as a group. “It’s been one of the best things to happen to me at Gustavus,” Jayawardena said. “It allowed me to excel as a leader and spread awareness about a cause I am very passionate about.”

The conference keynote speaker was Paul Ruseabagina of “Hotel Rwanda” movie fame. Ruseabagina shared his story about the 1994 mass slaughter in Rwanda with the goal of preventing future genocide events like it. “For him, the situation at Darfur reminded him exactly how it was in Rwanda,” said Soh. “He reminded us that history WILL judge us and urged students to pressure the government to take an active role in the genocide issue.”

More than 250 conference-goers also participated in a Kids Against Hunger packaging event. The nonprofit organization uses volunteers to package a nutritious rice-soy casserole that they distribute through relief organizations. The 48,000 meals packaged at the event are destined for Darfur.

“We are trying to show students that they can do something,” said Jayawardena.  “A lot of people were very impressed with the conference as a whole and I believe we thoroughly got our message across.”

Genocide Intervention Network
Another conference workshop was led by former University of St. Thomas professor Ellen Kennedy (now the outreach coordinator at the University of Minnesota’s Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies who leads the work of the Minnesota chapter of Genocide Intervention Network — or GI-Net). Jenny Lê was one of the St. Thomas students who worked with Kennedy to start the Minnesota GI-Net chapter and currently serves as its president. The organization educates people about where genocide is happening, raises money and does legislative advocacy. It also supports divestment in companies complicit with genocide, through the Sudan divestment movement .

Students worked at a table for the Genocide Intervention Network at the University of St. Thomas activities fair

Lê says that a Rwandan refugee’s story helped motivate her to get involved with GI-Net. “Her entire family was killed in Rwanda, but she had to keep going. She now tells people, ‘it is your responsibility.’ Her story moves me every time,” Lê said. Last year Lê and Heather Schommer, another St. Thomas student, went to Washington D.C. to lobby for sanctions against the Sudan government and divestment in companies that indirectly support genocide.

As part of the divestment effort, GI-Net rates legislators on their support for anti-genocide legislation and these Darfur Scores stimulated some legislators to take action to end conflict.” Lê reports that staffers for Congressman Jim Ramstad and Senator Amy Klobuchar have called the GI-Net office to find out how to improve their Darfur Scores.

The chapter receives so many speaking requests that Lê said they decided to develop an educational presentation that could be used by anyone. The resulting “Upstanders” uses the words of real-life people and is meant to be presented by one or more readers. “These people weren’t bystanders — they actually changed outcomes,” Lê said. “Their stories help educate and teach others how to advocate effectively.”

One voice is that of Brian Steidle, a U.S. Marines captain in 2004: “When I was in Darfur and a witness to genocide…I believed that they’d have the Marines on the ground in a week and this would be over. That was nearly four years ago.” Another voice is Mark Hanis whose four grandparents were holocaust survivors. “I was determined not to sit idly by while this tragedy was happening in Darfur. My friends and I formed an organization called the Genocide Intervention Fund to raise money to support the African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur.”

Involvement in GI-Net has been extremely beneficial for the students involved, according to Lê. While working to prevent genocide, students have honed their public speaking skills and gotten a real sense of what civic duty means. “And we now know what’s going on in the Congo, Sudan and the world,” she said.

Advocacy focuses on preserving state grant funds

Thousands of Minnesota college students could benefit from a welcome influx of $15 million into the State Grant program, which provides need-based aid. That would be an increase of about 10 percent over current state spending; Minnesota could finally reverse the recent trend of seeing the value of these critical awards shrinking.

To make this new State Grant investment a reality will not require new state spending. Given recent action by Congress, changes in federal student aid will trigger this increase in the State Grant program — but only if current state support remains stable.

“This is an unusual opportunity and we hope the Legislature will follow the lead of Gov. Tim Pawlenty and the precedent of his predecessors,” said David Laird, president of the Minnesota Private College Council.

Last year, for the first time in over six years, Congress increased the maximum award level for the federal Pell Grant from $4,310 to $4,714. This investment is projected to increase the resources available for Minnesota’s neediest college students by 10 percent over current spending.

Students meet with Sen. Dick Day during Day at the Capitol event to advocate for need-based aid

In addition, because of connections between the Pell and the State Grant programs, the federal changes trigger the $15 million of new potential State Grant funding. So 80,000 Minnesota college students who receive State Grant would benefit. Depending on how the state’s policymakers choose to reinvest the $15 million, more students from middle-class families could qualify for state aid and the size of awards for current recipients could increase. Both of these changes would decrease the amount students borrow to attend college.

An increase in the state’s need-based aid funding, however, is not guaranteed. The state is currently facing a $935 million budget deficit, and since the state is required to have a balanced budget it must eliminate the deficit by June 2009. This will require Pawlenty and the Legislature to find ways to cut spending — and the State Grant program is always a potential target.
 
In his budget balancing proposal, the governor protected the State Grant program. Given the State Grant program’s ability to help keep higher education affordable by targeting aid to those with the greatest need, the governor came forward in support of expanding the State Grant Program in order to take advantage of the Pell increases. (Pawlenty did call for a 3.85 percent decrease in spending for both the University of Minnesota and the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities, or about $53 million across the two systems.) The Legislature is now considering proposals to balance the budget, but leadership from both the House and Senate have indicated a desire to minimize cuts to higher education.

The State Grant program helps students at public and private institutions; 21 percent attend the 17 nonprofit colleges that are part of the Minnesota Private College Council. Three-quarters of the recipients are from families with incomes below $40,000. For more on the State Grant program and its benefits for the state, view our fact sheet PDF (361 KB).

Briefs

• A new American Council on Education report shows that college-bound high school students' interest in study abroad and other international learning experiences while in college is strong.
• The Facts: 2008 — a summary of facts and highlights about our 17 Minnesota private colleges and universities is now available for order or reading online.
• “Vanishing Graduates & Minnesota’s Future,” a program that the Minnesota Private College Council is producing in partnership with Twin Cities Public Television Minnesota Channel, will air for the first time on Sunday, April 13 at 7 p.m.  The program is part of the Council’s LearnmoreMN initiative; it aims to make people aware of our state’s education challenges and inspire them to do something about them.
• The new Minnesota Measures 2008 report from the Minnesota Department of Education ranks the state on key educational measures. Minnesota earns favorable ratings on some indicators and performs at or near the national average on others.