Long piece in the NYT, here. Very interesting stuff:
The University of California is struggling with budget woes that have deeply affected campus life. Yet the system’s nine colleges still lead the nation in providing top-flight college education to the masses.
At many other colleges, poor and truly middle-class students remain a distinct minority. Affluent students predominate at liberal-arts colleges like Oberlin and Bates, private universities like Cornell and Texas Christian and even many public universities, including Wisconsin, Penn State and Georgia Tech. The University of California, by contrast, enrolls large number of high-performing students of all economic backgrounds.
UO’s largest effort to help with this problem is SAIL, run by faculty volunteers. This summer we had 12 camps with over 200 low-SES HS students and more than 100 faculty and staff volunteers, from more than half of UO’s academic departments. Nearly 40 SAIL students have gone on to UO, including 14 incoming freshmen this year. We’ve got two more camps coming next year. Follow the link for info on how you can help.
UO does not show up in the NYT’s national database of colleges that are successfully educating low SES students, I think because our graduation rate is too low. Nor do any other Oregon publics. President Schill made clear at the September BOT meeting that increasing UO’s graduation rate is a priority for him, and Trustee Connie Ballmer has already made a very large donation to the Pathway Oregon program, that helps low-SES students pay UO tuition.
And thanks to a reader for pointing out that one of the students on video is Thomas Hiura, from North Eugene High School, now at Carleton. He explains why he is pursing a liberal arts education, instead of something vocational, to the consternation and lack of understanding of his buds:
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