captioning performed by vitac >> does it say to you, any of you that maybe trio or especially student services, others, shouldn't be a grant, but should be almost a formula based on how many low income minority students you have in your institution, that it shouldn't be a question of whether or not you have a good grant writer and the ability -- and someone has the time to do that, but simply to say when the cal state system has so many -- so many latinos in their system, or african-americans or whoever that we need the ability to say

this should not be a discretionary program, this should be a mandatory program because we have a national -- we have a national challenge, a national goal to ensure that once you're there, you make it out, because we heard testimony yesterday, what happens about people who don't make it out the debt burn that it causes to them, how it creates the legacy of debt for the next generations, that impedes their ability to move on. there are things we can do. so are these things where we should be rethinking the issue of grant and thinking more along the lines of pell or something as an entitlement to institutions. almost a reward for their ability to enroll to enroll minority and disadvantaged students but also a practical reality that we're going to help make more productive people if we give them the resources to stay and succeed. >> yeah. let me just answer quickly and

carefully, if i may. >> i understand. >> it is an interesting question, but i think we have to consider it carefully. there are provisions in the regulations that spell out who should be served by many of these programs and i'm very clear about those regulations and they're clear that they're designed to serve first generation and low income students, no doubt about that. i think the question is where the grants ought to live, and what kinds of institutions should -- >> actually not even that. part of what i was looking at and yesterday i asked this as well is do we need -- i mean, it is great and it is certainly -- it is creation, we understood, that first generation individuals are people who deserve extra attention. but the fact of the matter is that over the past 25 30, 40 years, you know since the advent of the civil rights act, things have changed.

we created a legacy of -- we created a legacy of pofrverty and injustice in certain communities where essentially for all testing and practical purposes they are first generation. their generation never got the chance to get the promises of that government and others had made and the war on poverty and others. do we need to change that and say trio should not be just -- should not be a grant or restricted to this category, but we should look at disadvantaged students generally, and a trio type program for all those students? >> yeah. again, i think it's theoretical question. it is a philosophical question. i think in the actual -- >> it is a legislative question. it is a fiscal question. >> all of those things combine and i think one of the opportunities congress will take

up the reauthorization of the higher education act, and it is one of the questions that i think is worth pursuing and i think the, you know, what's baked in or the bigger question there is how effective are the programs that we're currently invested in could we leverage the funds differently, or focus them differently in a way that would be more effective and ultimately sort of improving the social mobility of the students that we think the programs were intended to help. i think that's one of several questions that we could take up but we should do it carefully because there are no clearancers in . and the final thing about that, the final provisions that spell out how federal grant awards would be made has to be careful not to offend the constitution and applicable laws, which will make it very difficult, in some cases to focus on specific populations as recipients of federal funds. >> sure. >> thank you.

commissioner -- sorry vice chair? you're next, followed by commissioners -- >> i thought miss -- >> sorry. okay go ahead. >> well, i'm not necessarily going to tell the federal government where they should read the street, but there are many, but i will say there are -- you brought up the point of successful grant writers. i think we have a problem of capacity at some institutions and social capital in terms of being able to leverage the best grants, the best designs and so forth, and so i think maybe investing in institutional capacity to have stronger grant opportunities and more successful grant opportunities would be one way to think about where to spend additional funds and i do think even if we were going to redistribute or between programming, i do think we still need some form of accountability that the money is being spent

right. and i think dr. minor's point about not offending the constitution, there is a way, i think, to be able to increase capacity of institutions with the lowest income students and still call for accountability. >> thank you. madam vice chair followed by commissioners narasaki and heriot. >> thank you very much, mr. chair. this question would be to all of our panelists. as educators and others have looked out and reviewed pathways to higher education for our poor, our first generation college, our underrepresented minority students, one of the fairly novel concepts that has been developed is that of the early college. and as i understand that program, it combines high school and college that by the time a

student completes their high school requirements, they have also completed two years of college. i was wondering if there is any data out there and whether this is a trend that you see merit in or what do our statistics and our information tell us. >> well what i would say is that in these are fairly new programs, not in all cases but we hadn't seen them as systematic programs, one of the challenges is that public education in our country belongs to the states. and a few places that i've lived, i had the pleasure of learning there were more school districts than counties which all have different calendars, different graduation requirements, different rules and regulations about how to account for courses. and i think it is challenging i

think theoretically and conceptually it is a wonderful idea, and two ways, one is that students actually accumulate college credits, which makes college more affordable, but i think what is more important about that is that they actually understand themselves as clearly transitioning from high school to some post secondary institution. so it is a way, maybe not formally, but i think culturely and socially to get students in the mind set of they're expected to transition from high school to some post secondary institution. so i think it is early, you know, it is interesting, i was in the state of florida a few weeks ago, and their legislature is mandated that they have got four lab schools attached to the universities. one of them is fifau, florida atlantic university, which not only does early college. i actually had an opportunity to meet a 17-year-old, a

19-year-old, who both were on their way to graduate school that they had accumulated so many credits not only in high school, but on a college campus during that period of time. so we have got models, but i don't think we have got a systematic data at this point to suggest which models of early college work best. >> is that something that the department of education can -- i understand how education is generally a state-run program but is there something that the department of education could possibly do to encourage folks to go and to get additional information? because you're right, the kids are actually on a college campus in more often than not and they begin to see themselves there. >> absolutely. it is one of the things we expect to incentivize in our programs that is appropriate. we're excited about the potential of early college. >> at the national center for

education statistics we collect transcript data from high schools and we're also beginning to collect data from middle schools as well because some of these kids are actually involved in these programs. it is a new trend. and it takes a while to sort of get this in the mold of data collection. but we are on it. we all understand it, even different models or types of these programs. but it takes time to collect these data and get them into the pipeline. i should say though that one of the things that is going to facilitate this type of data collection the digital approach to transcript data collection, currently what is done for most -- most schools and school districts is that we have to do it by hand, which is very labor intensive. the coding of the data is not very standardized. so there are some issues to work

out. but it will -- it will be available in the coming years. >> i would add that i think the institute of education sciences started to fund a couple of researchers looking at the effect of dual enrollment, not to necessarily early college high schools but one of the things to note on these programs is what are we measuring? are we measuring students who would have gone to college anyway? and it is getting through that issue of selection bias and finding the benefit to students who may not have gone to college and i think that's one of the key things to disentangle out of this. but -- and forgive me for repeating this again, but there are ways to begin to measure this and i think some of the state databases, like the one in texas, would be able to give you some of the answers that you're looking at. because we are seeing students from the rio grande valley, from south texas, the poorest

counties in the nation, graduating with associates degrees leaving high school. we have yet to -- we don't know what that means for long-term trajectory, but we have evidence that completing the associates degree does lead to increased thoughts of completing a bachelors degree. >> thank you. mr. chair, do i have time for one more comment or question? >> sure. >> as a former state trial and appellate judge, i saw early on that indeed there was a correlation between education and incarceration. it was often repeated that number of students not reading at grade level by the third grade was one of the assessments used to project the number of prisons that were to be constructed. and the number of prison beds that we would need as the states and the nation.

can you comment on that. is there any truth, dr. carr, to such a statistic being kept and if you know whether in fact it is used as a projection for the number of prisons and prison beds that we'll need. >> i can say we don't keep it but i don't doubt that it doesn't exist or people aren't using it to make such projections. but i can say that the gaps between minority students and white students are large and persistent and they start early. and this is something that we really do need to be concerned about, the reading of students, of the inability to read as early as third grade is a predictor of a lot of factors that are detrimental to the future of the projectory of the students and their academic pursuits.

i think, though, we cannot lose sight that there has been significant progress. it is not all doomsday. it looks bad. i realize. but the data suggests that all students, all race and ethnicity are improving, though the gaps are still there. and the only reason the gaps are narrowing is even as small as they are is because the bottom of the distribution is coming up quicker. and that means that minority students, black students, hispanic students are making significant improvements. >> dr. flores any comment? >> i will concur with peggy. it is not something that the department of education maintains. >> and i would just add there is evidence out of economics it shows increased educational -- and completion of the high school degree reduces crime. >> commissioner narasaki

followed by commissioner heriot. >> thank you. dr. minor, you made a comment that there were clearly many more students who are eligible to be served to probably aren't being deserved because of the limitations on resources. do you have an estimate about how many we're talking about? >> i think it depends by state, but in most programs let me say it this way we probably could double the number of students that are being served by the programs that are currently funded. >> so some of the witnesses who are testifying over the -- these two days of hearings have proposals of either they feel that there is insufficient data to show that trio and the other programs have been sufficiently successful, so that we should just eliminate funding for that, or some of them have been

successful, some -- perhaps it would be better to roll it all into one big general grant program that was more flexible. i'm wondering what your take on it in terms of the data, how could we improve the data collected, dr. minor. you noted the department has been doing more rigorous databased research. i'm wondering what you've learned. and i'm wondering whether you -- any of you have response to the issue how could the programs be improved? >> well, thank you. i appreciate you highlighting the point. there is no doubt about it that we need to have better evaluation and data attached to this kind of investment annually. i make no bones about that. in terms of what to propose, in place of or instead of is an interesting question because as durable as the programs have

been, i don't think there is consensus in the field about how to replace them or how to do the work better. i think the one thing we are clear about is that there are many factors that contribute to a young person being successful in the education system, and so there is some need for diversity of efforts. but one of the things that i've been very clear about and i think the department is very clear about is increasing the rigor of the evaluations that are attached to the program. some of the programs were started 50 years ago. and rigorous evaluation about effectiveness was not a part of sort of the legislative record at that time. but i think now as we move forward, i think we do -- we are significantly more sophisticated in terms of the social science, we still have some serious data problems to fix, but i can guarantee you it is not just the department that the grantee communities and the constituents

are also very cooperative and interested in and willing to learn about how to more effectively serve students. i met with the group just two weeks ago, and one of the things that i try and communicate to them these are not federally funded programs to build roads or to build bridges, these are young people. and i take seriously the issue that we could be spending taxpayer dollars in programs that don't effectively help students be successful in an educational system. it is something we're very serious about. and i expect that to become a much more significant factor going forward. >> anybody else? >> has congress been providing sufficient funding to do the kind of research that i think everybody agrees would be ideal? >> the answer is no. what is interesting, when we raise this to the grantees

dr. flores mentioned that the kind of expertise and the kind of data collection and capacity required to do the kind of evaluation has not sort of been baked into the budget. so one message from grantees is that we're working as hard as we can, james to serve students. now you want to sort of lay on this exquisite elaborate evaluation without additional resources. it is problematic. and so i think that's something that we have to take up if in fact, we're going to ask individuals who have been awarded grants to do additional work, to be responsible for rigorous evaluation. we have to be serious about providing that kind of support. >> commissioner heriot? >> actually i think dr. carr was -- >> you sure? >> i have one more -- one more question. >> okay. >> so it's been my experience that the cost of attending

college is not just the tuition and fees, the challenge it seems in a lot of the reading that we have is that not surprisingly if you come from a poor, low income family, you're trying to work full time. or a lot. and that contributes potentially to not being able to finish on time. and so i'm wondering how much research, if any, has been done on the efficacy of providing stipends so that students not only -- so that they can spend more time being able to study and take a full load than having to have the stress of working full time as well as trying to carry a full load. >> let me just say quickly, i'm very proud of one of the programs that is run by the department of education. it is not a trio program, but we refer to it as campus child care access means parents in school. what it does is provide child

kerouac cess for students who have children. i think it is a critically important factor. one thing i want to make clear and i don't know if this data point has come up in the day and a half that you all have heard testimony is that we often talk about college students as 18-year-olds who just left high school. when in fact, that's not true, that the mean age of students has gone up over the years. right now in this country there are more individuals between the ages of 25 and 64 individuals we expect to be in the workplace that have some college, but no degree, meaning that they started college somewhere and they fell out. there are 36 million individuals in that age group. and only 33 million individuals in that age group who actually have a bachelors degree. what that tells me is that not only do we have to provide very traditional opportunities for

individuals to earn a post secondary credential or degree, we also have to provide less traditional ways or nontraditional ways for students who may have started three years ago, stopped out to work, to have children, to raise a family, to do those kind of things and we have to provide the degree opportunities and pathways for those individuals to return. >> i think i would add that the common student is no longer the 18 through 24-year-old without work responsible tizilities or family responsibilities. part of that may mean well, you still have to fill out the fapsa and figure out how to comply with federal regulations, and at the end of the day for many students, they never get near filling it out. there is some -- there is going to be significant scaffolding needed to understand who would qualify for a stipend

especially if it is federal money, so we come back to the simplification of how to even make yourself known as a student in need and, you know the easier way out so to speak is to just pay as you go at community colleges. so i think it is a great idea, it could be a great experiment, but it is going to require additional scaffolding. >> thank you. >> commissioner heriot. >> thank you. i just wanted to go back to the point that the chairman started with. and point out that it is a complicated world for all races and we talked about disaggregating data for asians and for hispanics. but disaggregation will make things look different for blacks and whites as well, i believe. for instance my understanding is that caribbean blacks tend to do better in the higher education setting than

noncaribbean blacks. and that among whites you get some big differences as well. some ethnic groups do better than others in higher education. jewish students for example, have been extraordinarily successful in the higher education setting. scotts irish on the other hand have been considerably less successful in that setting. have not been nearly as well. this is not to say that these groups don't excel in other areas. but in the area of higher education, there are big differences among, you know subgroups within blacks and within whites. has anyone collected any data on that? is there any plan to collect data on that kind of issue? i guess this is for you dr. carr, but anybody else who would like to jump in there. >> it is a very c of questions, you start asking people those sorts of things about their religion, even

sometimes their origin. and the country of origin. we have to be very careful, we work closely with omb regarding how we can ask these questions. and how we can report out on these questions just because the state or the school districts collect the data doesn't mean that omb will support us reporting out on data in that way. but i do -- i do think that there is a wealth of data through other means, not just from the national center of educational statistics that show that blacks there is differentiation, blacks from the african nations, for example tend to score higher, the caribbean blacks as well. so there is a lot of information that tells us that we need to be paying attention to these differentiations. but we have to be careful about how we ask these questions. >> i appreciate your question. i think it is very important in

terms of -- when the question to me makes me think about studies of immigrant students and generational status and the census has many data sets where you can begin to disaggregate among white, black, asian, latino, native american groups and there is considerable work thinking about bigenerational status for each group, how are they doing. i would be happy to refer you to that research. i don't think the answer is to not disaggregate because we're thinking about where to spend federal money or even state money, it is important to know where the gaps are. >> i would add one sort of technical problem with the disaggregation pathway and this is a statistical one. once you start disaggregating at a certain level you're not going to have enough cell size or power to detect patterns that are reliable and dependable over

time. in many instances you can't go down as far as you would like or to cross those routes with gender, for example. pacific islanders is a really good case. there are very few and they're sort of located in certain states, only about five states to be specific. >> the thing that worries me is that i think a lot of americans get the idea that blacks as a group and whites as a group are monolithic. neither group is the least bit monolithic. they're very complicated groups. and it is -- i take your point on the difficulty of collecting the data and the sensitivity of the issue. but it is important to me that people understand that these are not monolithic groups. >> quick question? >> i hope so. >> okay go ahead. >> thank you very much to the panelists. thank you, mr. chair.

dr. carr, what factors contribute to the determination of what accounts first of all socioeconomic status. i think we have a general understanding that has to do with primarily income or there are other factors that contribute it a determination of someone's socioeconomic status. >> there are three factors in the literature that are typically used to determine socioeconomic status. collings head identifies income, parental education, and occupation as the three key factors. but having done research in that area, myself, i can say even within those key factors there is differentiation about what they actually mean based upon the cultural and racial makeup of the family. so income, for $100,000 income for a black family might mean something very different than

$100,000 for, say, a white family or having a four-year degree for a black family a family with parents with four year degrees may be something very different from a family with a different sort of access to a different type of four-year institution. so it varies. so we have to be very careful. so the department has depended most notably on data from the free reduced price lunches i mentioned earlier. but we're having problems now with the reliability of those data. and collecting those actual income data from the parents is also a bit of a herring because they -- the parents often don't want to tell you how much they make, even when you give them a range. >> so income parental education, occupation.

i alluded from one of your graphs that asians, even from low scs dramatically outperform not just other groups from low scs but groups from high scs. is there data why low scs asians outperform everybody else? >> the asians are not disproportionately located in the lower scs as compared to say, say, blacks and hispanics. unless you separate the asian pacific islanders out there very poor. so you don't see the pattern that we saw here today. >> one other question for dr. minor. you mentioned a number of programs, trio, gear up, campus program, do you have an understanding of how much those

programs or total expenditures for all the programs have -- it has been level, has been flat, has increased from 1990 to the present. do you have any data related to that? >> yes we have very specific data for all of the programs in terms of the appropriation levels from eyre tolevel s from year to year. there have been small incremental increases, subject to the budget but fairly flat compared to lots of other indicators. and the big question, again is whether or not the investments or 2% increase or 3% increase, whether or not that is sufficient to actually sort of see the movement we need to see across the country, but in the last several years they have been flat with small incremental increases. >> okay. and when do those programs, for example, when did the bulk of these programs have their incipient yen sy, recently or can you take it back to 1970s,

1980s, 1990s? >> some of the programs we spoke of earlier, the suite of trio programs, upward bound talent search eoc were -- are about 50 years old. and they were a part of the legislation, the great society that sought to end poverty in the 1960s. some of them gear up that we mentioned came on line in 1998. some of them first in the world, as recent as last year, 2014, was the first year that grant program. so the majority of them there was a bundle that came on line about 50 years ago. some mid to early 90s. some of them are new. president's goal is to be first in the world. that has been complemented by the establishment of a grant

program to spur innovation and degree completion and post secondary education. that program this year is two years old. >> we're already over time. i want to ask one quick thing before we close. dr. flores you mentioned i think, dr. minor also concurred that starting a associates -- community college makes it less likely that you're going to obtain your bachelors degree. is that correct? >> students who start yeah. >> okay, so yesterday, dr. flores, william flores president of the university of houston downtown indicated one of their success factors is that those students who enroll in a community college and then transfer to anywheretheir school, they have them go back and complete their associates degree and graduate, go through a graduation ceremony.

that increases their likelihood of completing their bachelor. i don't think that's necessarily inconsistent with what you're saying. but could you address that if you're even familiar with that latter issue? >> i think my light is off i'll speak loudly. so the evidence -- i was speaking about didn't account for these potential innovation ss. >> use that mike. >> okay. i don't think those are necessarily inconsistent sore stories. i think we're talking about an additional intervention. the university of downtown houston study started this intervepgs ofinter intervention of taking students back. the other studies didn't account for that intervention. not that they're inconsistent. that could be an additional way right. the students already transferred. that says a lot about the student. most students never even transfer. >> mr. chair, can i answer his question? >> is that what you wanted to

do? go ahead. >> yes. so for the asian-american community again, a lot of the demographics are shaped by how immigration has created the community here. and the biggest predictor of poverty in the asian-american community is limited english proficiency. as you know, many asian languages aren't based on latin, so it is very difficult -- much more difficult to learn english. and so you have -- you have a situation where a lot of parents, for example from korea, and other countries may be highly educated may have college and advance degrees but can't automatically turn their professional licenses here into a professional license to practice whatever their career was. they end up owning grocery stores or doing very low income work. so they're highly educated as parents, which is the best predictor of whether the kids go to college. their income is going to be very low. >> my understanding is parental

education is one of the scs factors. >> yes it is. but these factors need to be culminated into a single construct for them to be truly predicted. >> i'm going to wrap this panel up. it is fascinating. we could talk for much more. we also have another panel and want to be respectful of that. thanks to each of you. fascinating and helpful. as i bid you farewell, stick around for the balance of the day, i would ask the other panelists to begin to move forward and our staff to change the nameplates so that we can get started on our next panel. thank you.

okay. we'll get started. we're reconvening now for our second panel of the day. let me briefly introduce our panelists and swear them in. our first panelist is dr. timothy p. white from the california state university. second panelist dr. william e. kerwin from the university system -- i'm sorry. looking at the wrong one here. okay. patrick hogan. okay. sitting in for dr. kerwin. patrick hogan. we have scott miller of the university of virginia. we have dean maurice apprey from the university of virginia. and we have vijay pendakur from the cal state fullerton school system and our final panelist is dr. darrick hamilton with the new school of public affairs.

i'll ask you each to raise your right hand to be sworn. do you swear or affirm the information you're about to provide us is true and accurate to the best of your knowledge and belief? yes? okay. thank you. dr. white, please proceed. >> thank you, chairman castro, commissioners and staff, for the opportunity to speak with you today. my name is timothy p. white the chancellor of the california state university. the csu is a public university comprised of 23 campuses, 460,000 students and 47,000 staff and we're celebrating this year our graduation of our 3 millionth living alumment we're one of the largest and most diverse university systems in the country. i'm honored to be before you this morning to discuss the work that the cal state university does to expand access to a quality education to provide the tools students need to excel and to graduate and to carry out our public mission for the good of all californians and

americans. education has a unique role as a gateway or in its absence a barrier to social mobility, economic prosperity and civic engagement and responsibility. therefore, equitable access to quality education is an important issue in the advancement of civil rights. the csu is born of the idea that a high quality education should be accessible to all, who are willing and able to do the work. this idea was and still is revolutionary. california's public higher education system remains a model for many colleges and universities around the country and the world. by creating multiple points of entry, for high school graduates, transfer students, returning adults and advance professionals, california's public colleges and universities are meeting the needs of the modern student. you can see the public mission of the cal state reflected in our student population. half of our students are earning undergraduate degrees and

receive pell awards. and the third of our students are among the first in their family to attend college. many students commute from their childhood homes and their majority work to help cover school and family expenses. student of color make up nearly two-thirds of the degree seeking undergraduate population at cal state and more than half of all bachelors earned annually by california's latino students, which is the state's largest demographic group are earned at the california state university. expanding access to historically underserved students is central to the csu mission. access is only part of it. it is getting students to complete a high quality degree, and flourish there after is our true goal. the first and often the most daunting barrier to degree completion is college readiness. the csu has embraced several approaches to empower students who need additional preparation to be successful in the

university environment. the steps including partnering with k through 12 and community colleges, to help students develop university level skill sets, while also forging clear degree pathways between the systems. we know that for in the near term goal of high school or community college education is receiving that university acceptance letter. yet we as university folk must look out to the further horizon acceptance to a csu must come with a plan, a plan of support and the will and the abilities and the resources to execute that plan. that is why we recently launched graduation initiative 2025 really an ambitious effort to raise our 4 and 6 year completion rates while narrowing the persistent degree containment gaps for historically underserved and low income student populations. the core principle of this initiative is all students should have the opportunity to succeed, regardless of the neighborhood they grew up in, the schools they attended their parent educational level, or their family income level.

serving the modern student means confronting the full range of barriers they face. yes, i'm here to tell you that these barriers can and will be overcome. csu students faculty and staff are already leading the way. we're bringing to bring individualized learning to scale, in a massive system of nearly half a million students, and this bold action requires a combination of resources from the university from the state and from the federal government. university and state efforts have also kept our tuition and fees down for students and their families, and at an average of $6,559 for the full time graduates and has been at that rate now, constant rate for the past four years. roughly half of our students graduate with no student debt and those who do borrow do so at levels well below the national average. modest increases in federal financial aid investment combined with strategic reallocation of existing

resources could help ensure that the csu students continue to have the resources they need to be successful. for example, as detailed in my written statement campus funds are being reallocated inequitableably. outdated formulas mean existing dollars go to a few students at high cost institutions, this is a policy area that lawmakers can, and in our judgment should address. likewise, the trio and gear up framework could be strengthened by strategically investing in transitional programs like summer bridge, focusing more attention on preparation in the stem disciplines and expanding veterans upward bound for example. these suggestions actually are modest yet they are important and they are achievable. the combination of federal state and university efforts helps students stick through the early phases of an undergraduate education, the time frame of highest attrition. these coordinated efforts are a tremendous benefit to underserved populations, and begin to address the civil

rights ramifications of unequal access and unequal support to degree. in the entire american public shares in the benefit of better access and student success. through a stronger global economic position, and a stronger society. we're all in this together. for me it is professional. but it is also intensely personal. i likeas an immigrant from argentina, i was low income. and my high school, like yours, did not encourage me to consider college. but i attended the california community colleges. and two of the california state university campuses and the university of california berkeley and in post doc at the university of michigan. well here i am. i'm proud to have had the opportunity through public higher education to be lifted and launched into an interesting and consequential life. in part of my support came from

the federal government in what was then called the national defense student loan. thank you very much. >> thank you, dr. white. mr. hogan? >> thank you, mr. chairman. members of the commission. >> it is off? >> thank you. i am not chancellor brett kerwin. due to a family illness, he had to attend to his wife this morning. i'm p.j. hogan i'm happy to be here today. by way of background, the university system of maryland comprises 12 institutions, three research universities, three historically black institutions four traditional comprehensives, two regional higher education centers, one specialized research institution, and one virtual university. we are we believe, a microcosm of higher education across the united states in a very small

geographic state. in that vain we experience a lot of and have a lot of takes on programs i'm going to speak about. in a moment, i'll offer some thoughts on these programs and their funding. but let me begin by thanking the commission for holding these hearings, very timely, with the reauthorization of the higher education act, coming up. chancellor kerwin has repeatedly said that it is a national disgrace that students and families coming from the lowest quarterle of income graduate 10%, 9% to 10% chance of graduating college where as students from the upper income quarterile graduated 85 to 90%. that is just unsustainable as a society. while there are many and complex reasons why more low income students don't complete a college degree obviously the volume of financial aid dollars, the efficacies of the programs

that make these dollars available are critical to expanding success rates for these students. as you know, there are roughly 7,000 institutions of higher education that participate in the federal pell grant and/or federal student loan programs. many of these also participate in one or more of the scog federal work study and federal perkins loans program. i'll speak to these first three programs and turn my attention to the various trio programs. let me start by noting that their very positive impacts to these programs. i know there are proponents of ss rolling the programs into one loan, one grant, one work to make the process more streamlined, and while that may sound great in theory, speaking to our campus-based people on the front line that deal with students, this doesn't hold true in practice. the benefit to campus-based programs is that they are just that, they arecampus-based and

they really are student based. the institutions know their students and have flexibility under program requirements to award the funds accordingly. because of that the relatively small dollars invested in these programs have a tremendously high return relative to retention, persistence and graduation rates for underrepresented students. these programs level the education playing field for underresourced students and are often deciding factor about a student completing had his or her degree. but they are woefully underfunded and many students are not able to take advantage of that. i'll cite an example. towson university, one of our comprehensive universities towson enrolls, the annual cost of attendance for an in state student including housing, room and board is $24,688. here is how towson student aid

breaks down from the most recent funding levels of fq-14. pell grants are the largest source for underrepresented low income students. more than $20 million reaching 20,000 students. institutional need-based grants directly from towson, that's $16 million impacting 4,500 students. state grants through the maryland higher education, $11 million. that's 4,000 students. then you have scog, $500,000 touching 313 students. work study $440,000 reaching 337 students. you can see the difference. just looking at the example of towson, consider how many more low income underrepresented minority students could be reached with additional funding and/or improved formula for more equitable distribution of these funds. as chancellor white pointed out,

the formula on some of these, it says what is the cost of attendance? and what is the family expected contribution? well, if you have a very very high cost of attendance institution and a very low expected family contribution, where do you think the money's going to go? it's going to go to institutions that have very high tuition. it really doesn't -- i mean it makes sense in theory, i guess, if you're trying to think about the need there, but it doesn't serve the vast majority of students well. this approach often results in suboptimal allocation of funding. there are often funds returned institutions but not allowed to be recycled to other institutions. the proposed allocation formulas from the national association of student financial aid administrators and department of education would place greater emphasis on the neediness of each school's student populations, unlike the current

formula. we also want to make one point very clear. we are all for making every program effective, spending every dollar as efficiently as possible and putting the money where it can do the most good for students. but given the relatively small contribution of federal work study and seog overall, aid funding, the impact of any change to the efficacy of these programs would be minimal. to significantly increase their impact there needs to be substantial increased funds for these programs. as you know, congress hasn't appropriated new perkins funding since fy 2006. since then schools have been collecting and relending funds from the old federal contributions and old institutional matching funds. at this point, i want to quickly turn to the trio programs. they frankly have been a wonderful success. we have participated in upward

bound, student support services ronald mcnair program and they have tremendous graduation rates. it is clear from our flagship campus at the trio programs have been a vital part in advancing the access and success of low income first generation students. but trio programs have also received cuts in recent years. you might say they're flat-funded but if it's not keeping up with inflation, it's a cut. let me close by returning my original observation as a nation we need to do more much more, to support higher education access and completion for low income underrepresented minority and first generation college students. sadly, because of low college participation and completion rates for low income students, the claim that america is the land of opportunity and an upwardly mobile society now are beginning to ring hollow. for many, the american dream has become a nightmare. again, i thank the commission for taking on this very crucial

issue in the future of our country and happy to answer any questions. >> thank you, mr. hogan. dean miller? >> morning commissioners. thank you for the opportunity to testify today. my name is scott miller i'm director of financial aid at the university of virginia. thomas jefferson founded the university of virginia in 1819 with the goal of creating an educated citizenry to advance the ideas of democracy. today, the university is comprised of 11 schools with 15,400 undergraduates and another 6400 graduate students. approximately 70% of our undergraduate students are virginia residents. the dean would like to share today about part of the university's approach to access persistence and graduation and the partial role that campus-based funds play in that process. the university's office of undergraduate admission reviews a student's academic credentials and extracurricular involvement to select the strongest candidates for our student body.

the office practice a need-blind method in which the ability to pay for school is not a criteria considered for admission to the university. in the fall of 2003, uva's president challenged student financial services to develop a program to change the so-so economic diversity of the university. our office suggested meeting 100% of demonstrated financial need and the university's board of visitors approved access uva in february 2004. the practice of meeting need for all students in state and out of state began with the entering class in the fall of 2004. the university of virginia is just one of two public universities with a need-blind admission policy and a commitment to meeting 100% of demonstrated need for all students. if a student is admitted to the university, finances should not be an issue to those with financial need. in order to meet 100% of demonstrated financial need the university reviews a student's

eligibility for financial aid from all sources, beginning with federal, then state, and finally institutional. in the first year of access uva, federal sources made up 42% of the aggregate financial need and state sources, 11%. the university spent $11 million or 30% of aggregate need of its own money for need-based grants. for '13-14, the university's cost was $46.1 million to meet the approximate aggregate need, financial need of $100 million for our undergraduate population. federal sources have dropped to 33% and state sources have dropped to 6%. for this same time frame, campus-based funds have dropped from meeting 18% of demonstrated financial need to 5%. access uva has helped to increase the percentage of students with financial need from 23% to 34% of or undergraduate population and our pell grant population has increased from 5% to 13%. to demonstrate further

commitment for need-based grants, the university through its recently enacted affordable excellence program, has set a goal of $1 billion for endowed scholarships. once reached, these endowments would generate about $50 million each year for scholarships and will help offset the shortfall from decreased commitments from federal and state sources. after the initial implementation of access uva some concerns arose. some high achieving low income students will self-select out of applying for admission because of information in the media about increases in the cost of tuition, misunderstanding about the availability of financial aid, and fears of college loan debt. many low income first generation college and unrepresented students are not receiving the advice and support they need to identify and enroll in colleges where they will persist to degree, with lasting consequences not only for those students but also for the nation. nearly 25% of low income students who score in the top

quartile in standardized tests will never go to college. college access studies have found that the complexities of college and financial aid applications are a serious barrier for low income students. many of whom are the first in their families to consider college. the national student to guidance counselor ratio of 467:1 means the average student spends about 20 minutes per year talking to a counselor. according to the department of education, 90% of the fastest growing jobs today require post-secondary education, yet the u.s. lags behind other nations in young adults enrolled in higher education. to assist with these other issues the university began the virginia college advising corps in the fall of 2005. the advising corps places a recent university graduate in a high school in virginia for two years to support the work of the high school counselor by helping all students, not just those interested in the university of virginia, to realize the dream of a college degree. advising corps members are

supported financially by the university. other sponsors and by the americorps program. currently 17 advisors serve in 19 partner high schools and the program became the model for the national college advising corps which is now present in 14 states and 423 high schools. for '15-16, the number of advisors who receive campus-based funds while a student at the university was 65%. advisors use a near peer mentoring model. high school students can easily relate to someone who is not much older than them and who may have come from a similar background. college advisors help students identify and apply to post-secondary programs that will serve them well academically and socially thus increasing the likelihood that these students will earn their degrees. based on an independent evaluation, when looking at high schools served by a college advisor compared to seniors at non-college advising corps schools, students served by advisors are 23% more likely to

apply to college 23% more likely to have heard of pell grants, 18% more likely to submit to fasfa 17% more likely to attend a financial aid workshop. access uva and the virginia college advising corps are just two of the many initiatives that the university of virginia has utilized to increase access to higher education. after we meet their demonstrated financial need, we will tell you about efforts regarding persistence and graduation. >> dean apprey? >> thank you. my approach would be the following. if and when the funding is in place, let's look at what students have the peace of mind to accomplish. i will begin with the pivotal question. most universities have support

services to foster facilitate an entry, if you like persistence and graduation. these programs include peer support programs, faculty mentoring programs, academic advising, graduation audits, among others. what is different at the office of african-american affairs at the university of virginia that enables these same students these same programs, to yield substantive outcomes? one, there is a clear and explicit strategic position which i will give you an outline of in a minute. two, the strategic position must have strategic consistency with the equally high expectations of the university. three, strategy precedes operational effectiveness and four, as a result, our programs

work because horizontally, they are synchronized around leadership, identity and academic performance and basically, they all rise to the explicit and clearly stated strategy. there has to be a strategic position that guides the practice of student support. this strategic position is that high graduation rates must align with correspondingly high graduating grade point averages. translation, for over 20 years the university has led the nation among the flagship institutions with the highest graduation rate, something around 83% to 88%. yesterday's figure came in at 86% for this past year. and what we want to do is create

an alignment between that and the grade point averages with which they graduate. two, there must be a strategic consistency between the high expectations of the university and the program that implement the strategic goals and objectives of the institution. translation, the university of virginia generally expects the student to graduate within eight semesters. programatic efforts must therefore use this expectation to guide this strategic implementation. secondly, in addition, students are generally expected selected who can both contribute to life at the university and benefit from it. thirdly, strategic position must precede operational effectiveness of the programs to achieve this success. all programs must synchronize and design their efforts to make that expectation happen.

the point here is that graduation rates look good for the university but they don't put food on the table. grade point averages do and that's why that alignment is so important. next these three pivots identity, student academic performance matter. because at the end of the day you want students to become the leaders that the university was set out to create. two, it matters that an african-american student knows why he or she is a teacher of that particular origin and third, student academic performance must allow the students to compete for greater access to more opportunities when they graduate. when you put all these together you will have a set number of

programs that make these things happen facilitate an entry in adjustment program called the peer advisor program gets the student started, retention programs follow which we call the grad style program that includes faculty mentoring, et cetera, and the cultural center also fosters cultural programs to create a background of safety and a sense of identity and difference while there at the school. and lastly the s.t.e.m. areas to be emphasized because many many courses like economics, calculus, subserve oppression for students going on to professional school. the last five slides. if and when you've done this well what you will discover is

that the graduation rates will continue to stay high and students who are in the cohort of 3.0 to 3.4 also increases. and with that in mind let's go to the slide that gives you the gpas. go to the next one. go all the way to the end. there it is. so here for example, in the 3.4 to 4.0 range i gave you ten data points. in 2006, students graduated in that cohort with 10.4 in the 3.4 to 4.0 range.

today, it's 20.7 in the 3.0 to 3.399 range. 2006 it was 27%. today, it's 61%. put them all together in 2006, students graduating in the 3.0 to 4.0 range were 27.4%. today as we're speaking it's 81.7%, more than double that gpa. so key is focus, focus focus and keep strategic position in line and all the programs will follow. thank you for the attention. >> dr. pendakur? >> commissioners, i want to start by saying thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today. my name is vijay pendakur

associate vice president for student affairs at cal state university fullerton. my testimony aims to support and augment earlier testimony of chancellor white on the impact of federal funded programs on educational attainment for minority students, specifically through the loans of cal state fullerton. chancellor white often says and i firmly believe that access without the opportunity to succeed is not true access. a meaningful education means not only getting your foot in the door but being empowered with the support to persist and succeed all the way through to graduation. enrolling in college is a critical step for minority, low income and first generation students but this is only the first step in a long educational journey. along which these students face proportionally greater social cultural and economic barriers than other students. at cal state fullerton we have an intimate understanding of the barriers they face and we have a proven record of giving them not

just access but a collegiate experience with the possibility of great success. as one of the largest campuses in the largest state university system in the nation, cal state fullerton is a model comprehensive university for inclusion, proudly serving a diverse student body. we are a designated hispanic serving institution and an asian american and native american pacific islander serving institution. 63% of our 38,000 students identify as native american, black, hispanic, asian and pacific islander or multi-ethnic. 43% of our undergraduates are pell grant recipients and 57% are first generation college students. yet at cal state fullerton we recognize that access alone is not enough. we are also a national model for student success, ranked first in california and tenth in the nation for graduating latinos and fourth in the nation for graduating underrepresented minority students. furthermore, our students graduate with less debt than the average public university graduate and earn higher

salaries over time. these historic achievements are a foundation for even further growth. beginning in 2012 cal state fullerton's president mildred garcia initiated a strategic planning process to establish a metric driven plan to guide our institution towards the goal of becoming a national model for how becoming a public university can boost graduation rates through thoughtful efforts to keep students connected to their education and empowered on their way to a degree. i have detailed many of the relevant strategic plan activities in my written testimony but want to highlight several initiatives that might be of particular interest to the commission today. cal state fullerton is proud to house six trio and gear-up programs which consist of educational talent search, upward bound two gear-up grants, student support services and the mcnair scholars program. educational talent search, upward bound and the two gear-up grants serve nearly 4500 students who attend local high schools with the highest need and schools that enroll the

majority of their students in free and reduced lunch programs. these pre-college programs have a profound impact on the student participants and our assessment results speak to these programs' success, with over 90% of the participants enrolling in college after they finish high school. beyond establishing a strong pipeline for access, cal state fullerton also offers programs to bolster student success and educational quality for our first generation and underrepresented college students. our student support services program aims to increase the college retention and graduation rates of participants through academic advising, tutoring financial aid advising and other financial services. student support services serves 160 undergraduate students who come from first generation low income or disabled backgrounds. and the participants achieve a six year graduation rate that is nearly 16% higher than the institutional average. in addition to our student support services program we also run a mcnair scholars program committed to empowering higher risk and underrepresented

students with access to graduate education. nationally, only 11% of doctoral degree recipients in 2013 were from historically underrepresented racial backgrounds. programs like the mcnair scholars work to expand our nation's population of highly trained intellectual leaders by creating a pipeline for greater diversity and future doctoral degree recipients. by showcasing our innovative approach to fostering greater access in the community while also creating a campus ecosystem conducive to retention and graduation, cal state fullerton can be seen as a case study for what may be possible at the national level. we are already achieving great things with our past and current initiatives, but without continued and expanded federal support, these initiatives are unsustainable. the current limitations in federal funding disproportionately affect the students that rely most heavily on programs and grants from the federal government. these limitations are adding additional obstacles for students on their pathway to transformative learning and

degree completion. we are also keenly aware that these limitations and obstacles to students can easily be remedied. we believe that a return to the year-round pell grant program would serve as a powerful driver for our students to finish their college degrees in a timely manner. my president, mildred garcia, often speaks about higher education being a private good and a public good. having just watched -- having just finished spring commencement, i watched 60,000 family members and friends celebrate the achievement of a private good, the attainment of a college degree. when our newly minted titans advance in the work force, raise productive families and contribute to uplifting their communities, they are achieving the public good that higher education has to offer our society. it is our moral imperative to protect and institutionalize the programs that ultimately result in equitable outcomes not just equitable enrollment. this is one of the key civil rights issues of our time.

commissioners, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. i welcome any questions you might have. >> thank you. dr. hamilton? >> good morning. thank you, commissioners, for the opportunity to present before this important commission. my assigned task, i'm derek hamilton, associate professor of economics and urban policy at the new school which is a university of new york. my assigned task was to examine the possible civil rights impact that access to and completion of higher education has on minority higher social mobility. my comments are going to focus on the racial wealth gap and the role or lack of role that higher education plays in providing economic mobility to address the racial wealth gap. why focus on wealth. wealth is the paramount indicator of economic well-being. wealth provides economic opportunity and security to take risks and seals against financial loss and some wealth provides people with the initial capital to purchase an appreciating asset which in turn

generates more wealth from one generation to the next. wealth is also the economic indicator in which blacks and whites and other ethnic groups have consistently been most disparate. in the economic recovery period following the great recession, the census reveals the typically black family owned a little more than a nickel, six and seven cents respectively for every dollar in wealth held by the white family. the typical black family has a little over $7,000 in wealth while the typical white family has close to $112,000 in wealth. research and public policy has focused primarily on higher education as the driver of upward mobility. however, education alone does little to explain differences in wealth across race. it's more likely the case that wealth differences across race explain educational attainment differences.

nonetheless, the conventional wisdom is that to address racial disparity, blacks need to simply get over it stop playing the victim role, stop making excuses and take personal responsibility for racial inequality. it is as if the passage of the civil rights legislation conventional explanations for racial disparity have evolved from biological to cultural determinant. the implication of this retore i canal shift is a shift away from public responsibility towards the condition of black americans and other ethnic and racial groups. for example, although affirmative action is designated as a positive anti-discrimination policy aimed at desegregating elite institutions, including elite university admissions, a common perspective is that affirmative action amounts to reverse discrimination, where unqualified blacks take the admission slots for qualified whites.

this argument underscores white entitlement to pervert social positions and assumes that whites generally are qualified while by default, blacks generally are not qualified. this ignores the historical advantage and protected access that whites continue to hold via admission preferences for university legacies and other channels which serve as examples of hidden forms of affirmative action for privileged groups. it also ignores the well-documented evidence from experimental psychologists involving the phenomenon of serial type threat, serial type boost and serial type lift. they collectively demonstrate that outcomes on high stakes standardized tests like the s.a.t. underestimate the achievement of college readiness for test takers from groups socially stigmatized as cognitively inferior while correspondingly exaggerate the scores for individuals from groups socially deemed as cognitively superior.

nonetheless, the conventional wisdom is that only -- if only black youth were more focused on education, they could get a good job and pursue a path way towards economic security. yet at every level of education the black unemployment rate is about twice as high as the white rate. data reveals that white high school dropouts have lower unemployment rates than blacks who have completed some college or earned an associates degree. a recent report by jones and schmidt indicates that unemployment rate for black recent college graduates exceeds 12% and is as high as 10% for black recent college graduates with a s.t.e.m. major so college degrees positively associated with wealth within race but does little to address the massive racial wealth gap. for families whose head earned a college degree the typical black family has only -- has about $23,000 in wealth while a typical white family has close to eight times that amount with

about $180,000 in wealth. this amounts to a difference of about $160,000 between similarly educated households. furthermore, and perhaps more alarming, black families whose head graduated from college have only two-thirds of the wealth of white families whose heads dropped out of high school. it's noteworthy that a good job is not a great equalizer as well. white head of households where the head is unemployed have nearly twice the amount of wealth for black head of households where the head is employed full-time. education is not the anecdote for the enormous racial gaps in wealth and unemployment. none of this is intended to diminish the intrinsic value of education. there is clear intrinsic value to education along with a public responsibility to expose everyone to a high quality education. what is concerning is the overemphasis on education as the panacea to address socially

established structural barriers and racial inclusion. the racial wealth gap cannot be explained by higher education. it is explained by inheritance bequest and in vivo transfers which account for more of the racial wealth gap than behavioral demographic or social economic indicators. these intra-family transfers provide young adults capital to purchase a wealth generating asset like a home like a new business or a debt-free college education that will appreciate over their lifetime. access to this non-merit based seed capital is not based on some action or inaction on the part of the individual but rather the familial position in which they are born. insofar as we are truly interested in living up to the american promise of a civil right to economic opportunity and upward mobility for all we need to acknowledge and address the role of intergenerational resource transfers and recognize

the limitations while also recognizing the value of education. one such route would be to write to upward mobility and economic transformation would be child trust accounts which i'm happy to talk about more in the q & a but i think my time is up. >> thank you, dr. hamilton. >> that was a very sobering analysis, and to put into perspective the fact that nothing is a panacea. but i also appreciate your recognition that this is a significant issue, and one that does address at least partially the aspiration for upward mobility and improvement in one's socioeconomic status

within generations and beyond. i would like to ask chancellor white to comment on the strategies that have been utilized in the california state university to address the challenges with respect to persistence and degree attainment, and, if you would, talk about the way those strategies may have differed -- may differ from the strategies discussed by dr. miller and dr. apprey, given the differences between the comprehensive university and the flagship university, as well as any other

important differences to take into account. >> thank you, commissioner. for the next three and half hours, i will be happy to answer your question. i think to step above the specific program, what really i think is at stake here for students who come from the disparate sectors and fabrics of society is how do we make them be prepared, feel welcomed and challenged and supported, all at the same time. the various programs, such as the summer bridge program or the early start program. let's take the san bernardino campus in inland southern california has a high number of pell eligible students. a lot of poor kids. this upcoming summer, president morales has as a requirement all

incoming students need to be in residence for two weeks on campus before the start of the fall term. there are dollars associated with that. the idea being during those two weeks, the students who may come feeling that they can't succeed will end up leaving knowing that they will succeed. they know where the library is, the laboratories are, they know how to interact with students, they know the faculty are there to support and engage. i think before getting into specific programs, i want to say the idea here is sort of a velcro idea. the students who come from first generations do not have a family member to say, hey, how do i go about being successful in organic chemistry or how do i recover myself when i stub my toe on an essay on american history. we need to provide that level of support while at the same time holding a very high expectation for achievement. these programs that take at

scale for us but individualize those kind of experiences in the weeks and months and years before they get to us at the university and once they're there to also have early in their first and second year, which is the place where the greatest attrition occurs, the fact they can get into a small learning community by whatever design, whether it's a peer mentoring group or a cohort faction or a laboratory or clinic or studio where they get that personal attention and realize they are both welcomed and challenged. we often get criticized in california for having a low four and six year graduation rates calculated on first time full-time students when you have, as we heard earlier, our average age is almost around 25 years of age now and most of them are working 30 hours a week or more. they, in order to manage life cannot take a full load all the way through. we could raise the graduation rates by excluding those

students from enrollment. but i think we have taken a position at csu we should be prideful and crow about who we graduate, not who we exclude. we are working hard on getting more students to degrees sooner by these cohort individualized programs, recognizing that they are not a monolith, as you mentioned earlier, across any race or ethnicity, rather to individualize the programs that help support them have success and achieve and move to degrees sooner. that may differentiate from the flagships who have different admission standards. coming together as americans, all of those pathways. the point i would like to make america is not a monolith. multiple portals of access, multiple ways to be successful that's the way the american dream in this multi-cultural world of ours will succeed going forward, it seems to me. >> could i ask -- yes.

>> i was just going to tag onto the back end of chancellor white's comments with remarks from cal state fullerton's vantage point. i'm a new addition to cal state fullerton. my past experience is for a number of years, working with student retention persistence and timely graduation in selective institutions or flagship institutions, i thought okay i've come to cal state fullerton, i've done my research and i have a good idea of what is going on here. and entering an environment that is 90% commuter, 50% pell, a lot of the methodologies that are normative at flagship institutions and selective private institutions are limited in their scaleability. the emphasis at cal state fullerton has really been on persistence and timely graduation strategies that are eminently scaleable. one of the more granular points

i wanted to add to the conversation is the importance of things like technology. we don't have the funds to hire the number of academic advisors to meet nakata standards. we are not going to get to that 250 to 1 ratio to do truly transformative advising every step of the way. but what we can do is on-board technologies that allow the advising staff we do have to use a much more sophisticated predictive predictive analytics platform to spend with students is spent on the students who need the help the most and the students who are most likely to benefit from the academic engagement across their first two years. really leveraging i think what in the private sector would be called big data to benefit the core practices like academic advising. alternately, putting technology in the students' hands, allowing them to use mobile platforms to bring a

sense of coherence to their degree pathway. whenever students see a murky sea of, you have nine million options on your way to graduation, it can actually result in analysis paralysis and the inability to move forward. an hour ago we were talking about community college swirl and the inability to really leverage that associates degree effectively. we are able to put technology in students' hands now and soon we'll be better at it, that allows them to really see the degree pathway mapped out for them from their first year forward. so they can say, you know, i'm thinking about switching from this major to that major, which is very common. what will the implications be on all the credits i brought in and how will that reorganize itself. so that my time to degree doesn't change. what do i need to do as a result of this shift in career discernment and the need for a new major so that they don't have to be able to sit down with an advisor for an hour to map

that out. we have been able to access technology that will remap it for them. i think a combination of these scaleable enterprise-wide solutions we're looking at are important in the thinner budgets and in the very high risk ecosystem that an access focused comprehensive like the cal states embody. >> i would imagine, dean apprey that those principles although slightly different have some resonance to the presentation that you made. >> i do think that sometimes we make the mistake of scaling across campus too soon. we find a successful program and we are too quick to try to save money and therefore try to get everybody into that system. i put my business hat on and say

short versus scaling across is the way to go. you don't say this program has a wonderful peer advisor program, let's do it for everybody. you have to systematically think your way through it. there are very specific things that we have done that i think makes students successful, and i would do this whether i was at a small university or a large university. there are specific advising and mentoring skill sets to impart. students don't typically -- students from underrepresented and underserved groups don't typically do well in s.t.e.m. areas unless special efforts are put into those. so very specific counseling strategies like making sure they have core sequences in the right

place, making sure no one takes economics before they have done calculus and statistics, because you've got to get them early into the idea that quantity and change comes before quantity and chance, quantity and chance comes before quantity and prediction. if you have these kinds of specific strategies in place, they can do economics, they can do genetics, they can do engineering, they can do experimental psychology. >> thank you. could i ask one more question, mr. chairman? >> sure. >> both for dr. hogan and chancellor white, could you talk about the number of students who come to your campuses from the community college? at least my recollection is almost two thirds of the

students who are graduated by the california state university came to the university as transfers from the community college. and yet, commissioner yockey, the answer to his question about how predictive of success is actually going to the community college in the first place, those two -- what is the relationship between those two seemingly contradictory statistics? chancellor white and dr. hogan? >> briefly, we admit about 110,000 students every fall. of which about 50% come from the community colleges so about 52,000, 53,000 students, and the balance are either restarting or coming out of high school.

and you are right, the community college transfers for us tend to be more successful and result in about 60% or so in any given year, it varies 2% or 3% of our overall graduates. a couple of things have come into play. first, in various regions, long beach being one, there is an affiliation between the k through 12 system the community colleges and the cal state campus in long beach to where the faculty and administrators and the community know that if a student does the right things in k through 12 and goes to the community colleges and takes certain courses and performs at the right level there, they are assured admission into long beach state and they can get through in two more years or three more years. that partnership is developing in many different areas, fullerton has one, some up north in san jose san francisco bay area so that's one thing where we sort of regionalized the systems and created that feeder system in that region.

there is also legislation that occurred a handful of years ago in california creating associate degrees for transfers, which actually challenged both the community college faculty and the california state university faculty and to a lesser extent, the california university faculty to create model curricula where students take a certain set of courses at a community college, it's guaranteed access when they pass them at the appropriate level guaranteed access to a california state university campus. that has just started about two or three years ago with some degree of success. last year 6,000 or 7,000 of our students came in with associate degrees for transfer. that means all of their lower division work is taken care of and they can get right into their major and have a much greater probability of success. the swirl part that happens and the getting lost part happens when they just get thrown out of high school into a community college without any direction. i think the paralysis of too many choices and distractions of

life is what gets in the way. we actually worry sometimes, particularly the first generation low income that if they get thrown into a community college without some sort of a lifeline that we will never see them again. and they will go off and never fulfill their potential. i don't think they are contradictory but i think it's the evidence of where there's success means there's some structure and some expectation to go beyond the community college. >> dr. hogan you want to comment? >> some of my comments will sound very similar to chancellor white's but i will also give you some specifics. 15 years ago we took in three first time full-time freshmen in the university system of maryland for every one transfer. in 15 years, now today, it's a one-to-one ratio we are taking in. that's a huge shift. why? i think societal. i think parents in society have

deemed community colleges as a good -- i'm not a spokesman for the community colleges but maybe i'm just lucky. in maryland, there are great community colleges around the country. we have 16 phenomenal community colleges. if you think about people always say oh, it's so expensive to get a college degree. there is an affordable way if you want. and there is no more affordable way then going to community college, living at home. you might be living at home for work reasons or family reasons, all kinds of reasons, and then transferring the last two years to a four-year institution. now, for that to work, as chancellor white said, there has to be some structure. we have a program in maryland called aces, and it's a collaboration between the university system of maryland, community colleges and k through 12. where the community colleges

send coaches down into the k through 12 schools, identify students low income first in family potentially going to college, who just with some structure that frankly, they don't have at home or there is not a family history of you know it's not a question of where are you going to go to college. that question is if you are going to go to college. and they helped get them on a guide path a glide path and guide path to college. we have a way to go maryland program. we go out into middle schools around the state and especially low income middle schools, and have seminars, invite the students and parents in and this is the academic track you need to get on, okay, starting in middle school so you're college-ready. and, oh, by the way, start thinking about scholarship

programs and financial aid programs and if you can put a bit of money away, $25 per month savings program. all of those structures are in place. and we have a very, very almost seamless articulation system between our community colleges and our four-year institutions. that is key. also, there is nothing worse than going to a community college, taking 60 credits, and having 40 of them transfer. to be successful, they need to be -- they need to be real courses, they need to be aligned with the courses for a freshman and sophomore year at a four-year institution so they will transfer, so when the student comes in their junior year, they are truly a junior. >> so there are programs that

work. >> we even have one last one, if i may. >> sure. >> we found a lot of students, talk about this churning or swirling or sometimes we call it credit accumulation with nothing to show for it. we found a whole group of students who went to community college, got 30 or so credits, then transferred to a four year institution and got another 40 credits. and then that's it. they now have 70 credits, nothing to show. we have a reverse transfer process. we identify those students, communicate with the community college, and that student -- because that student is likely with 60 or more credits if they're the right courses is eligible for an associates degree. so they have some certificate, some -- also, i'm sorry to go on, we established by legislation a two plus two

program that rewards students for going to community college, getting the aa degree, and then transferring to one of our four-year institutions. if they go to community college, get their aa degree and they transfer, they get $1000 semester scholarship if they are regular -- all majors. if they are a s.t.e.m. major $2,000 per year. there is a financial reward incentive for doing that. an institution like coppin state university, historically black institution, right in baltimore city, they're woefully low six-year graduation rate. but the students who transfer from community colleges, four times as high graduation rate. i was actually quite concerned when i heard statements that community college transfers don't succeed. we don't have evidence of that.

ours do succeed. >> i want to acknowledge that for some time now commissioner kladneigh has been on the line. he hasn't asked any questions but is listening and participating. i will now turn it over to the commissioner kirsanow followed by the vice chair. that may end up taking most of our time. >> thank you to the panelists. this has been very informative. at some point in the near future we will be writing a report that will make recommendations for increasing college access, persistence and attainment rates for underperforming minorities. we have had several panels that have been phenomenal and they have cited a number of programs that ostensibly increase all of those rates but when you write a report to congress and the

president, it comes down to basically one thing, money. okay? so i've heard from a number of panelists we need substantially more funding. i've also heard from panelists that some of these programs have been in effect for 50 years. we have had a department of education in existence for 36 years. it is $70 billion per year, spends trillions of dollars yet s.a.t. scores are flat. college attainment has gone to number 11. we spend trillions of dollars and have very little to show for it. i saw another graph today that shows the achievement gap between blacks and whites over the last 23 years has narrowed by two points. two points. that means it will take 300 years before it's erased. that, to put it charitably, is just a modest improvement. i'm being very charitable. i don't mean to be throwing cold water on all of this but if we're writing a recommendation

to congress if it comes down to money, of the myriad programs i've heard about here, and there are a number of interesting ones, dr. apprey has a lot of interesting approaches all of you have. bang for the buck, which ones in your estimation are the most effective? >> i would say the ones that allow our students to engage with faculty on a campus and not be scurrying off for part-time jobs, so they can actually engage in the learning enterprise are the ones that bring the most value. that is the thing, work study, because you're working in a laboratory with a faculty member. you have your organic chemistry exam coming up tomorrow do well on it, somebody cares about these kids. to me, education to me is more

than just the abcs and their majors, it's learning how to work in group settings learning how to set goals, learning how to aspire for success but manage defeat. it's much more than just being able to know sarbanes-oxley if you're an accounting major. i would say what matters most are the types of support mechanisms that let those who come from a low income status or first generation status naive status, if you will, of what college is all about, the opportunity to be engaged and to stick and to really focus and not just be dropping in and dropping out and taking one class. >> go ahead. >> i will be brief. i think, commissioner, one of the things you said really struck a chord. right now, the largest public coherent effort to try to

address a lot of the problems you're naming is the access to success initiative. it's a national effort. it's over 22 i think state systems are involved, hundreds of institutions to try and connect historic commitments to access to actual issues of college success. the learning that i want to share with you from the midterm report that came out in 2012 is that strategies that affect overall improvements in persistence and graduation for students in four, five and six years grad rates in higher education do not necessarily result in closing the achievement gap. my microphone is out of batteries, but i'm a loud person. closing the achievement gap oftentimes takes different strategies than improving the overall four, five, six year grad rates. in the access to success initiative institutions were able to do a lot of good in the

first five or six years of the initiative in moving the needle on four, five and six year grad rates. but when you move the overall by ten points and say african-american students were lagging by 15 points and everybody moves by ten points african-american students are still lagging by 15 points right? i think there is almost two conversations to be had. how to improve the overall ecosystem of higher education so that it supports student persistence and timely graduation, and then how to imbed identity conscience approaches to persistence retention and empowerment to students whose identity is at the crux of how they are experiencing higher education, right. these institutions have been able to move the needle at all on closing the achievement gap are doing both. they are trying to also work very specifically with higher risk student communities to make sure they are supported, mentored, engaged with faculty imbedded in high impact practices, all the good stuff, right, but that has to be done

with great intentionality around issues if you're talking about the achievement gap for students of color, around race. i just wanted to make sure that was stated for the record. >> dr. hamilton? >> is this on? i guess i want to add some questions. i'm hearing some -- i have concerns about diversion of resources into community colleges at the expense of four year colleges. the concerns i have is that a fear of taking away choice and creating apartheid like systems that lead to one strategy towards education success for one group of people, and another strategy for another group of people. we can talk about success. at harvard university, net tuition is the key. the plan that they have which allows all income qualifying students to get debt-free education is effective, so we can find effective programs, but

i want to ask that question then i want to end by talking about some new findings that me and some collaborators are looking at using the panel study of income dynamics. they have an indicator of family giving to adult children towards various activities, one of which is education. clearly, that is supporting their children in higher education. it is not a surprise white families are more likely to engage in that activity than black families for the resource differences i cited earlier. what we are finding that is perhaps surprising is when a black family -- that black families that do support their children, their resource positions are dramatically less than those of whites, which is suggestive there is not a lack of value for education within black families, but the other point is that when we look at outcomes for their children, that of the black families that give in comparison to the white

families that give to their adult children the adult children have similar graduation rates from high school and the black families are nearly twice -- i'm sorry, not twice as likely, nearly 33% more likely to get a degree school degree, et cetera. indeed, 55% of the black children, of the adult black children who receive help from their families supporting higher education actually do get a graduate education degree. of course those results have all kinds of selection and reverse causality, but what is noteworthy is that resources really are key and that there are families that are, even within, when we think about these deficit models, there are some families that have resources in these groups that are able to come up with great outcomes. i hope that's helpful. >> we do have a little extra time, if you are done, did you want to say something?

>> resources are key because when our students have the peace of mind to focus on their work we have the strategies to help them get the work done. strategies to help them get work done. the room wasn't built in the day that it was built. african-americans and others could not even enroll at the university until the late '50s. so we've got what it takes to do it. protect the resources and we'll get work done. >> commissioner, i'll have the commissioner ask a request and then might have time to get commissioner yaki in as well. >> thank you. i just want to first of all applaud uva for moving to the admissions and making a commitment of support to make

sure everyone who qualifies is able to i aattend. i think that's an amazing act of leadership among a very important plagship school. so i just want to note that. so it's not that we're all complaining about everything up here. so i have two quick questions. within is chester white, you noted that you thought an answer to commissioner eegs questions that it helps students spend more time studying and engaging in schools would be the most helpful. and you mentioned work study. i want to also ask about some work options. so one of the things we've had in our readings is the notion that the pell grants have fallen behind in terms of covering the full cost of college much less

providing a stipen. and then the second question i had was for those of you who talked about the trio programs. so there has been some recommendation that the myriad of different programs be merged into one different grant program, and i'm wondering what your thoughts are about what kind of reform in those programs might be helpful. >> so, thank you commissioner. yes, i think it's really the combination of the opportunities that are out there. so pell of course provides some resources. i am concerned, particularly for students of color and low income that, it's been at recent times excluded from summer session. that's an artificial barrier to students. if they fall behind they could get back quicker during the

summer. i think there's a policy issue that there that should be reconsidered. the model is interesting to try on a pilot basis. i actually come from the belief that we ought to be clear as a nation and as state and in my case as a system on goals but loose on the means to get there. so the campus can tailor their financial aid around the types of students we have, which differ from the students that we have at san luisob obispo. so meeting certain objectives, i this is important as well. but it's a combination of the avenues. education is so individualized and personalized. yet we're doing it at a big scale. virginia is a big place.

and so that's the challenge in front of us. how do we manage both the flexibility, hold people high on accountability but have outcomes that matter for america? >> well i would just like to echo what chancellor white is saying about the two pell in one year, the summer pell because we saw -- we have a limited amount of money that we can use to be able to assist students for summer school. which does allow them if they're not meeting story progress or they need to get ahead or they want to do a double major or something along those lines. # -- but also personal expenses books and supplies, traveling

home, and being able to get to school. the big issue for us is when we're meeting a student with a zero efc and we're able to refund some financial aid then it becomes a financial literacy issue. how do you take the refund? how do you budget it for the entire semester, and to make the money meet your need in the form? >> yeah i'm thinking about stipens. many of the panelists come from schools where the students are having to work full time. it's not just the cost of school but you have less time for school because you're working 40, 50 hours a week. >> i'm going to give you some time. >> thank you very much, mr. chair. we heard from yesterday other panelists that the federal government was investing in

higher education at the tune of two and a half times more money than the states were investing. and it was advocated by at least one of them that we do something, that we change that funding model. perhaps a model that would have the federal government match to some degree the moneys that the states were putting in. that they needed to have some skin in the game. i was wondering if representatives from a couple of the systems here will care to comment on whether that has any appeal to you at all. >> that would be a disaster for this state of virginia. because we don't pull in enough money in our system. >> and we're putting in less and

less. >> less and less. >> as time goes on. >> absolutely. i think there's some merit to the concert. we're in the final budget negotiations. if you would like to call governor brown for me i would be happy to give you his cell phone. i think, you know, it's always so difficult in this nation, and it will happen again some time in the not so distant future is the next recession. the state of california took one billion. one-third of the support of the the california state universities over the course of about two years. if there was some -- now everybody was suffering across the country, so it wasn't just a california specific thing. but a more refined partnership between the federal and the state governments on shared responsibility one of the points try to make is we're all in this together to buffer those

moments. maybe something that worth doing deeper thinking on. >> we are a state public university system. i mean, just by that definition that means the states should be investing in public ier education system. knock on wood. i've been fortunate to be in maryland, which has not cut higher education funding as dramatically as it has in many other states. but if i was in that situation, i would submit the federal money should have some type of effort to it. why should a state abandon its responsibility and effort to funding its pubic higher education system and let the federal government pick up the tab, or the student, or the parent, whoever is paying. absolutely it is a shared responsibility. >> thank you. did you want to say something? >> well really quick. history has shown us in multiple

dpengss that that shared responsibility is different based on race and race plays a huge role. so if we're interested in human rights, it's ethically rights that states should contribute. i guess i'm rambling on. but i can cite many examples. the gi bill, by having it administered at the state level even though the funding came from the federal level. if we were to come up with a program like this. we can look at examples of i imagine mississippi, which has a high concentration of blacks. may not contribute as much as california, which has been a leader. if the goal is to increase access for all groups, where we had more agency within states of how those funds were administered. >> thank you.

commissioner, you have a quick question? >> not too quick. but i'll try to do the best i can. i'm glad to hear what was said about the cal state system with regard to the community college program. i would also add there is a similar program that takes them into the curriculum to get them into a four-year college and it's showing dramatic success. to get people out of the swirl. what wasn't said but in a separate conversation i had, he was talking about the fact that you basically ran out of pell grant eligibility if you're caught in that swirl. and then you may go to the four-year institution, and then after the second semester x you know, you're off, and then you're in deep trouble. access has