A Chicago-based student support program for community college students is set to drastically expand its reach and the number of students it serves. Matters surrounding this expansion and scalability were discussed in sessions at a a one-day symposium, Building Towards Equity in Higher Education.
Aneesh Sohoni
The symposium – held Tuesday at the Malcolm X College Conference Center– was hosted by low-income community college student support organization One Million Degrees (OMD), City Colleges of Chicago (CCC), and The Inclusive Economy Lab at University of Chicago (IEL).
OMD assists students by offering personal, academic, professional, and financial support, pairing them with a program coordinator who manages their case, said Aneesh Sohoni, chief executive officer of OMD. Founded in 2006, the program now serves almost 900 students.
One of the sessions focused on IEL’s recent study – a randomized controlled trial of students – of the OMD program, a study that indicated that participating in OMD affected and increased enrollment in post-secondary institutions, persistence, and degree-attainment. Notably, the enrollment finding had been unexpected, said Dr. Kelly Hallberg, IEL scientific director and session panelist.
"OMD has always thought of itself as a college support program, not a college access program,” Hallberg said. “But we were actually seeing that the program was moving the needle in terms of students enrolling in college in the first place.”
The study also found that the program was most effective for students who applied to OMD before they'd even stepped on campus at City Colleges, Hallberg said.
"Most of these students were applying during their senior year of high school when they were figuring out what was next for them,” Hallberg said. “And that offer of a spot in the OMD program close to doubled their enrollment in post-secondary, their persistence, and ultimately their degree attainment."
