College-Church Partnerships and Precollege Programs: College Entry and Urban At-Risk Youth

With interest in university-college partnerships increasing, this paper presents an example of an effective college-church partnership. A Christian college partnered with 19 urban churches to offer precollege activities for urban youth in grades 7 through 12. As expected, the level of poverty associated with young people's neighborhoods (i.e., census tract) is related to eventual college entry and type of postsecondary institution entered (two-year or four-year). This study demonstrates that a precollege program offered in partnership with urban churches is able to help at-risk young people persist in middle and high school and eventually enter some form of postsecondary education. Moreover, the ethnicity of the urban churches—African-American or predominantly white—is seemingly unrelated to ultimate college entry of a group of predominantly African-American students.

The work reported in this paper was supported by grants from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Meijers Corporation. We thank students and colleagues at Calvin College and partners in the many churches whose work contributed to the project.