College Ambition Program (CAP)

Every year, 150,000 disadvantaged students do not attend college, even though their aspirations, grades, and test scores would predict otherwise. Census data indicates that the percentage of students from low-income families enrolling in higher education immediately after graduating has declined by 10 percentage points since 2008. The College Ambition Program (CAP) was created to change the college trajectory of these high needs populations in fourteen public urban and rural high schools. In the first phase of study, CAP provides an integrated program of academic, social, and financial resources designed to build a college-going culture within a school by shaping adolescents’ aspirations and knowledge of corresponding educational requirements for a given career path, with a particular emphasis on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The CAP has four major components in the intervention design: (1) mentoring and tutoring; (2) course counseling and college advising; (3) financial aid guidance; and (4) college visits. <br> <br>Data were collected employing surveys, interviews, site-coordinator contact log, and student sign-in sheet. The surveys were verified with administrative data from Michigan and allowed us to examine treatment effect of CAP school compared to control schools. This study applied a difference-in-difference method with propensity matching to evaluate the impact of the CAP on two-year, four year and overall college enrollment from 2013-14 to 2016-17. Our results suggest that a 6.8 percent increase in the overall college enrollment, a 9.4 percent increase in the two-year college enrollment and a 2.01 percent increase in the four-year college enrollment. <br> <br>The second phase of the CAP is developing a digitized platform that monitors personalized learning in various in-and out-of-school experiences. By offering over 3,000 students opportunities to participate in the randomized control trials of personalized learning in college application, and STEM preparation, the anticipate outcome is to increase college enrollment in STEM fields of low-income and minority students.