In Partnership to Build Institutional Resources: Informing Black and Latina/o/x Student Enrollments in Four-Year Colleges

• In Event: Confronting Injustices in an Era of Adapted Racism to Construct College Choice and Transitions for Black and Latina/o/x Students

Abstract

Objectives and Background
This presentation will focus on four-year colleges constructing opportunities to ensure that Black and Latina/o/x students in their local areas have access to college information and guidance with the college enrollment process. Although recently the state of California invested to increase the number of counselors in K-12, the average caseload is still over double the recommended number established by the American School Counselor Association, with 527 students to one counselor (Jones, 2022). Such unequal experiences with college guidance align with previous studies that find staff in high-poverty schools reproduce college choice attitudes that reduce the likelihood of students attending college, which “perpetuates social stratification” (Palardy, 2015, p. 346). The proposed presentation will discuss the role of developing school-university partnerships and share a case study of Select Satellite Campus (SCC) that is in a rural area in California.

In California, the minimum requirements to apply for a four-year public university are known as the A-G Requirements. There is a clear production of inequality occurring among graduating students in the high schools surrounding the SSC, when comparing the number of students completing A-G requirements and those enrolling in a four-year college. For example, at Willow High School, 40% met the A-G requirements to apply for a four-year college but only 17% of graduating students enrolled in a four-year college in 2021 (DataQuest, 2023). The major research questions guiding this grant proposal include: How do low-income Black and Latina/o/x students choose a postsecondary pathway?

Theoretical Framework
The five tenets of critical race theory in education (Solorzano, 1998) and college-conocimiento (Acevedo-Gil, 2017) will guide the presentation. While college-conocimiento centers the experiences of Latina/o/x students, the findings will provide an understanding of the college choice process that Black students navigated when preparing for and applying to college, particularly after meeting the A-G requirements.

Methods and Sources of Data
In direct partnership with SSC, the study is designed as a critical race feminista praxis project (Delgado Bernal & Aleman, 2017). The research sites included the four local high schools. I conducted non-participant observations (Ciesielska et al. 2018). Ten Black and 20 Latina/o/x alumni who met A-G requirements in 2021 or 2022 but did not enroll in a four-year college participated in semi-structured interviews. If alumni asked for additional guidance, I connected them with resources at the community college and SSC.

Findings
The findings shared in the presentation will focus on the experiences of students as they negotiated the college application and enrollment process. The presenter will focus on strategies to hold four-year colleges accountable for ensuring that students in their local area are receiving adequate outreach and guidance.

Scholarly Significance
A key contribution of this presentation is being able to examine the overlapping and contrasting experiences that Black and Latina/o/x students may have at the same high school. However, because this is a critical race feminista praxis project, the presentation will emphasize how four-year colleges can partner with local schools to facilitate college choice and transitions for Black and Latina/o/x students.

Author

• Nancy Acevedo, California State University - San Bernardino