Vol. 38, No. 18

1-4-2007
By: Melinda Sadar

Office to focus on access for low-income students

The state of Ohio is in dire need of more college-educated citizens if it is to stay afloat in today’s competitive global economy, according to Tally Hart, senior advisor in the newly established Office of Economic Access.

The new office will seek out and implement ways to encourage low-income students to not only consider the possibility of higher education, but also become aware of ways to achieve that goal.

“According to the Lumina Foundation for Education, Ohio needs more than 450,000 new college graduates in the next few decades to participate in a better economic future for our state and our nation as it rises to the economic level of top nations. These future graduates need to be cultivated right now from high-achieving children in low-income families who traditionally haven’t considered college, largely due to the cost,” Hart told the university’s Board of Trustees on Dec. 8.

“Educating all Ohioans is crucial to the sound economic future for our state, our nation and especially for our children. It’s the right thing to do, but it’s also the smart thing to do,” Hart said. “We need to get them while they’re young to let them know that college can be affordable.”

Established during autumn quarter, the new office is already into plans designed to guarantee access for high-achieving, low-income students and ensure success once they enroll. New initiatives include working with Ohio State Extension to get the word out about accessibility to rural and urban areas throughout the state.
Other efforts will showcase faculty and staff who were the first in their families to go to college, and will connect current students with younger children to talk about the college experience.

Barbara Snyder, Ohio State’s executive vice president and provost, emphasized to trustees the impact of Ohio’s — and America’s — lack of college-educated citizens, pointing to recent research by the World Economic Forum indicating that the U.S. is losing ground in readying new leaders for the global economy.

“According to the forum’s survey of education in 125 countries, our system ranked a dismal 15th, just one notch ahead of Barbados and well behind the top three — Finland, Singapore and Iceland,” said Snyder.

“It is essential that we rewrite today’s higher education scenario in which students with the highest ability and lowest income are less likely to go to college than students with the lowest ability and highest income,” she said.

Snyder told trustees that Ohio State was cited in a recent report by the Education Trust, an arm of the American Association for Higher Education, for its work in closing the university’s aggressive recruitment of low-income students, noting that 26 percent of the student body qualifies for Pell Grants, considered the backbone of federal financial aid for the neediest students.

“We hope to halt today’s intellectual waste and turn it into tomorrow’s intellectual capital by opening the university’s doors ever wider to the academically talented, irrespective of their financial need,” Snyder concluded.

onCampus Home