Educational opportunity programs for culturally-disadvantaged college students
Date
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
Youth from culturally-disadvantaged environments leave high school unprepared to use their talents to benefit themselves and society. They lack preparation for and information about education after high school, whether it is college or training for skilled occupations. Moreover they are often handicapped in other ways, for studies show that deprivation and segregation often affect the ability, attitude, and personality of youth. The 1960's have seen the development of many types of educational opportunity programs which focus on the needs of the disadvantaged. Educational opportunity programs in colleges and universities are studied in this paper. College programs are total programs: they recruit promising, but disadvantaged students: they offer pre-enrollment summer sessions: they modify admission criteria; they furnish financial assistance; and after the students are enrolled, they provide intensive academic assistance. The alm of compensatory programs is to seek out promising students, make it possible for them to enroll in college, and then to help them with the life and work of college. Compensatory programs are new; therefore there is a paucity of hard data. However it appears that many disadvantaged students are succeeding in college. Until more data can be obtained, the programs are valuable as research experiments and also for stimulating new interest in education.