Impact of School-Based Advising on College Readiness
Basis worked with the College advising Corps (CAC) to evaluate whether their school-based advising program was setting high schoolers up for college success.
The Importance of College Advising
Sharing ‘College Knowledge’
The CAC starts with the simple idea that “college knowledge” should be accessible to all students, regardless of socioeconomic status. Program initiatives adopt a near-peer mentoring strategy, pairing recent college grads with high school students with the ultimate goal of sustaining students through the college application process. Ultimately, the program’s goal is to increase college enrollment, providing equal opportunity for all students.
Statistics
Impact in Action
Schools Analyzed
Basis’ analytic sample included 109 North Carolina public schools.
Long-Term Analysis
The evaluation encompassed all available data from 2011-2012 to the 2019-2020 school year, representing a decade of data.
FAFSA Completion
Program results indicated that FAFSA completions increased by 11 to 20 percent during the span of the evaluation. In other words, 8 to 14 additional FAFSAs were completed per high school.
Rethinking College Advising
The CAC’s approach is novel and potentially transformative, focusing on three core tenants:
By recognizing intermediate milestones strongly predictive of college success, the CAC takes on an iterative and proactive approach, helping struggling students by starting with key milestones. More specifically, the CAC emphasizes the very first and most foundational steps: family engagement, application completion, and general discussions about college.
The CAC recognizes that each student comes from a different set of assumptions, knowledge, and experiences. As a result, individualized advising has the potential to address barriers that cannot be overcome through universal interventions.
By picking mentors that are closer in age to students, the CAC is able to better connect with struggling students and meet them where they’re at. Near-peer mentoring strengthens students’ confidence, sense of belonging, and persistence in navigating the transition to college.
Data That Drives Decisions
Although prior evaluations established that CAC can improve college enrollment, little attention has been paid to two simple questions:
How, and Why?
Basis’ evaluation is unique: by understanding the intermediate factors that contribute to enrollment, the CAC is able to better understand what’s working- and what isn’t. More broadly, the analysis is one of the most comprehensive evaluations of CAC to date.