Colleges work to help adults who have postsecondary experience, but no bachelor’s
The year was 1989, and Randal Houle had just graduated from R.A. Long High School in Longview. He enrolled in Lower Columbia College, but about a year later, dropped out.
“I got really depressed and kind of quit,” said Houle, who now lives in Vancouver.
He gave college another try in the mid-1990s, but he had children at that point, a job, and again, he stopped.
Houle is 48 now, and on track to graduate in May with a bachelor’s degree in English literature from Washington State University Vancouver.
“This is what I should have done all along,” Houle said.
Houle isn’t alone in his stop-and-go experience when it comes to higher education. Data released in October by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center shows that 36 million Americans obtained some postsecondary education, but have not completed their degrees. Census data suggests that 27.5 percent of Clark County residents aged 25 or older have some college, but no degree, according to the latest American Community Survey five-year estimates, compared with 23.7 percent statewide. Nationwide, 20.6 percent of adults have some college but no degree.
1,098,345
Washingtonians report having some college but no degree.
The achievement council this month will unveil its College and Career Compass, a tool prospective students can use to explore campuses throughout the state. Colleges can create profiles of the programs and benefits they offer to adult learners, such as emergency grants for housing, evening hours for tutoring and advising offices, or clear information about degree programs.
Students can also share their contact information with colleges that have completed those profiles, allowing enrollment advisers to reach out to offer information and support.
“The stronger our retention and student success and adult-learner focus supports are, the less likely we are to have those students return and run into the same issues and have to leave again without completing their goals,” Sharpe said.
Both Clark College and Washington State University Vancouver are participating in the Compass program. During the 2016-2017 school year at Clark College, of the 11,888 degree-seeking students enrolled, 9,329 completed a degree or certificate, transferred to another college or re-enrolled for the following academic year. That means 2,559, or 22 percent, left Clark College without completing a degree.
The data is more difficult to pinpoint at Washington State University Vancouver, but the Office of Institutional Research suggests that of the 216 new full-time freshmen who started in fall of 2013, 62.5 percent, or 135, graduated within six years. Of the 493 students who transferred from another college to WSU Vancouver that year, 370, or 75.1 percent, graduated in six years.
Navigating options
It can be difficult to determine what exactly prompts college students to drop out, and in turn, what might motivate them to return.
There are some consistent threads: the cost of college, for one. According to U.S. Department of Education data, those who withdraw from Clark College do so with median debt of $5,500. Data is not available for Washington State University Vancouver specifically, but students who drop out of the Washington State University system do so with median debt of $8,750.
“If you don’t earn your credential, you’re not in a position to pay off that debt,” Sharpe said.
State legislators approved the Washington College Grant program during the 2019 legislative session, promising to help cover tuition and fees for students from low- and middle-income families. A student from a family of four with a household income of $50,000 a year, for example, would be eligible for full coverage starting in the 2020-2021 school year. The program covers anyone who does not have a degree, including adult learners.
Sharpe said students may also be struggling to balance obtaining a college degree with working full time or supporting their families.
“If you have 100 adult learners you have 100 different stories,” Sharpe said.
William Belden, vice president of student affairs at Clark College, sits on the College and Career Compass steering committee. Belden noted that programs like the Penguin Pantry, a campus food bank specifically for students, and its health clinic, one of the few at Washington community colleges, are small ways the campus can serve all students’ needs. He also pointed to the college’s guided pathways initiative, a nationally recognized education model that explicitly spells out what classes and programs students need to participate in so they can graduate on time.
“The college needs to be student ready,” he said. “Students don’t need to be college ready.”
‘Ecosystem of a city’
Hadass Sheffer, co-founder and president of nonprofit organization The Graduate! Network, said supporting students is not just about colleges, but the entire “ecosystem of a city.” Are policymakers creating programs that support adult learners? Are colleges making campus resources accessible? Are potential employers helping develop training programs?
“There are all these roadblocks to going back,” Sheffer said.
The Graduate! Network launched in Philadelphia to address the issue of noncompleters, and has since opened offices around the country, including Spokane. Sheffer noted that The Graduate! Network disproportionately serves people of color and low-income students, who traditionally face additional barriers to accessing higher education.
“They’re low-income, have family issues, child care issues,” she said. “We’re talking about race, gender, inequity.”
Houle spent decades working in commissioned sales and commercial debt collection. He struggled, however, to earn promotions and raises, seeing advancement go to people with college degrees.
“If you think school is expensive, try doing life without it,” he said.
In the meantime, Houle was writing short stories and novels in his spare time. Writing professionally was a career he’d considered, but before he did that, he wanted to “make a clean break from that treadmill of commissioned sales.” In 2017, he went to Clark College to pencil out what a transfer degree might look like, and then in turn, a bachelor’s degree.
“I had to see the road first before I could see the finish line,” he said.
Ironically, Houle’s college career won’t end with his upcoming graduation.
Houle recently applied to graduate school. He hopes, someday, to become a college professor.
