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The Washington Post has an interesting piece up today about elementary school students and the promise of college. According to an article by Paul Schwartzman:
Back in the spring of 1988, they’d all been friends at Seat Pleasant Elementary, part of a class of fifth-graders from some of Prince George’s County’s poorest neighborhoods.
Then, on a May afternoon, they received an unexpected gift that would alter their lives: the promise of a college education, paid for by two wealthy businessmen. Suddenly, the 11-year-olds were part of an ambitious social experiment being tried across the country, one that brought together rich benefactors and needy kids in a largely untested but intimate style of philanthropy aimed at lifting entire families out of poverty.
One day back in 1988 Abe Pollin, the owner of the Washington Bullets and the Washington Capitals, and Melvin Cohen, owner of the film processing company District Photo, announced that they would pay for the children to go to college.
Inspired by Eugene Lang, a multimillionaire industrialist who promised college tuition to a group of east Harlem students in the early 1980s, Pollin and Cohen promised to pay for college too.
It wasn’t exactly free college. As the article explained, Pollin and Cohen would only cover the equivalent of in-state tuition at the University of Maryland, but it was still fairly generous.
How’s it worked out? Well, not so well.
The promise was impressive but achieving the goal of college completion turned out to be difficult.
What happened is that it turns out the path to college is complicated. While the 60 students, called “The Dreamers,” enjoyed a few other perks beyond the promise of college, without serious institutional reform of the education (and perhaps economic and social) system in Prince George’s County, The Dreamers turned out a lot like other elementary school students. As Schwartzman writes:
When they left school at 3:15 p.m. every day, when they weren’t lunching with Pollin and Cohen, when they weren’t traveling on their exclusive school bus, the Dreamers returned to communities rife with drugs and gang-related carnage.
Of the 60 fifth-grade students at Seat Pleasant Elementary at least three of them became pregnant, a little more than half of them attended college. Only 18 percent of the students, 11 of them, graduated from college.
One of the eventual graduates, Wendy Fulgueras, apparently wrote in her application to college that she hoped “that someday I will gain acceptance to a fine university and show Abe Pollin and Melvin Cohen that I have not squandered the opportunity they gave me.”
Fulgueras is in many ways the star of the program. But then, as Wendy, now a doctor, points out, she probably would have gone to college anyway.
Ultimately, it appears that the promise of college tuition had some impact. The high school graduation rate of the group, 83 percent, is dramatically better than average for children with their background.
The program produced a doctor, and a lawyer, and pharmacy technician. It also produced electricians, UPS drivers, an elevator repairman, and a number of people who are currently unemployed. That’s not failure, but it’s certainly not an example of incredible success.
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MS Huiner on December 20, 2011 8:47 AM:
I'm confused. First the article states:
"Of the 60 fifth-grade students at Seat Pleasant Elementary...a little more than half of them attended college. Only 18 percent of the students, 11 of them, graduated from college."
Later the writer says:
"The college graduation rate of the group, 83 percent, is dramatically better than average for children with their background."
Could the author or another commenter please clarify this for me? Thank you.
Wyatt on December 20, 2011 9:17 AM:
@MS
Wondering the same thing myself. I was thinking perhaps he's referring to the kids that actually went to college following through and getting a degree--but then, even if 13 kids went to college and two dropped out, leaving 11 grads, that would be 84.6%, not 83%.
Malatesta on December 20, 2011 11:09 AM:
Luzer almost certainly meant high school graduation. 83% is close to the level of suburban kids graduating high school, while kids from the inner city typically have a graduation rate closer to 50%.
MSHuiner on December 20, 2011 11:27 AM:
@ Malatesta
Yes, that could certainly make sense. Thank you! I appreciate it.
Rich on December 20, 2011 1:09 PM:
Most likely 83% of those who went to college graduated, although teh math doesn't quite square and they talk about a lot of people dropping out, later in the article. This is the Post, after all, and their journos aren't very good at simple mathematics. No mention of how the average Seat Pleasant kid did from that era except in generalities. My guess is that these kids did a bit better and went further. The article isn't that great at unpacking what kids need and what enlightened paternalism delivered which are probably very different things. Maybe we'll get more of that later. Posties notoriously know nothing little about the DC area outside of yuppie-ville and are particularly ignorant about African Americans or working class white people.
Daniel on December 20, 2011 1:50 PM:
83 percent graduated from high school. My apologies.
Gwen Killerby on December 24, 2011 6:10 PM:
There's a good explanation of why that group didn't do as well as suburban white kids.
From the article below:
Karelis states that "If, for example, our car has 7 dents on it, and then we get one more, we're far less likely to get that one fixed than if the car was pristine before."
because
"Poverty is less a matter of having few goods than having lots of problems."
The money thrown at these kids didn't do a lot in way of solving their other problems, such as living in a bad neighborhood.
What really would have helped was taking these kids with their families to a less problematic neighborhood, and provide their parents with a steady job. They would then have been highly motivated to get the last dent ("graduating college") fixed themselves.
jonas on January 06, 2012 5:03 PM:
Being able to "afford" college isn't the issue for these inner-city kids. There's actually plenty of financial aid available to students from poor and lower middle-class backgrounds to go to college in this country. Shoot, if you're so good as to get into a top-tier liberal arts college or one of the Ivies, you've basically got a free ride.
The problem is just *getting* there through all the insanity that crime-ridden neighborhoods, broken families, and poor schools throw at these kids.