Closing the Gaps: A Look at High-Risk Students

CCSSE is committed to helping colleges use data in their efforts to close critical gaps in educational attainment. Toward that end, CCSSE has identified, and is tracking data for, high-risk students. These students are disproportionately African American, Hispanic, and female.

Students are considered high risk if they exhibit several factors that are shown to jeopardize undergraduates’ attainment of their educational goals. Community college students generally are three to four times more likely to reflect those factors than are their counterparts in four-year colleges and universities.¹

The following risk factors are reflected in the CCSSE survey:

• being academically underprepared (i.e., students who have not earned a high school diploma and/or have participated or plan to participate in developmental/remedial education);
• being a single parent;
• being financially independent (i.e., students who rely on their own income or savings as a major source for college costs and indicate that parents and spouses/significant others are not sources of income for that purpose);
• caring for children at home;
• working more than 30 hours per week;
• being a first-generation college student;
• being a part-time student; and
• identifying the cost of attending college as a significant issue.

Each year, CCSSE analyzes student responses on the risk factors and creates three groups of student survey respondents: low-risk students, who exhibit zero or one of the risk factors; moderate-risk students, who exhibit two to four risk factors; and high-risk students, who exhibit five or more risk factors.

In 2003, 17% of CCSSE respondents were high-risk students, about two-thirds (66%) were moderate-risk students, and only 17% fell into the low-risk category. Findings for high-risk students in 2003 are consistent with 2002 results. They show that community colleges are offering services designed to address issues related to risk and that students are using and benefiting from these services. Continuing support for high-risk students is essential for community and technical colleges, as success with these students is among the most significant contributions they can make to their communities and states.

¹ Source: Educational Testing Service, The American College Turns 100, 2000.

Findings for High-Risk Students

• Educational goals. High-risk students are less likely to set transferring to a four-year institution as a primary goal — 40% of high-risk students versus 60% of low-risk students have that goal. High-risk students are more likely to aim for completion of an associate degree (65% of high-risk students versus 54% of low-risk students).
• Effort. High-risk students appear to be exerting significant effort to succeed. This finding is not surprising because they are overcoming significant challenges to attend college. High-risk students are much less likely to come to class unprepared (one-third say they never come unprepared as opposed to 20% of low-risk students). They also are more likely to ask questions and participate in class discussions and are more likely to prepare two or more drafts of a paper or assignment before turning it in. They devote as much time to studying as do their lower-risk classmates, despite more demanding commitments outside of school (78% of the high-risk group work more than 30 hours per week compared to 7% of the low-risk group; 60% spend more than 20 hours per week caring for dependents compared to 8% of low-risk students).
• Campus services. High-risk students also are taking advantage of services offered by their colleges. They are more likely to give high ratings to the importance of tutoring, skill labs, financial aid advising, academic advising/planning, and career counseling. Moreover, the more risk factors students face, the more likely they are to participate in study-skills classes, college orientation courses, and success courses. However, high-risk students’ satisfaction with these services, in absolute terms, is lukewarm. It is possible that high-risk students, who are predominantly part-time students, may find it difficult to take advantage of services offered primarily during traditional business hours.

Reflections on Results

These promising findings for students of color and students at risk stand in marked contrast to other facts of life in American higher education. National statistics document disturbing and stubborn realities: African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans, along with low-income students, still are underrepresented in terms of college participation, and they are less likely to persist, graduate, and transfer than are their white peers. As promising as the CCSSE results appear to be, these gaps tell a critical story.

In the CCSSE results, we are seeing, in part, the significant additional effort that is the mark of minority students and “high-risk” students who are successful in community colleges. But CCSSE also is surveying a sample of students who already have cleared a range of often-daunting obstacles, such as financial aid applications and decisions, the registration process, and in most cases, their first semester of college. Colleges that do careful cohort tracking generally note that when community colleges lose students, they lose them early. All of these findings together illustrate the critical importance of connecting with students from the moment of their earliest encounter with the college. In other words: Engage early. Engage often.

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