Beyond Academic Preparation for College: The Role of High Schools in Shaping Postsecondary Plans for Underprepared Students

ABSTRACT

Most college readiness reforms in high school focus on academic preparation for college, while underprepared students who do not intend to enroll in college are often left underserved. Using a unique source of data from essays written by students, we examine the role that high schools play in supporting students who test below college-ready in developing their postsecondary plans. Our findings explore how helpful high schools are to these underprepared students, the characteristics of helpful high schools, the types of resources and supports that students find helpful, and students’ recommendations for improving the planning process.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. In Florida, 94% of public postsecondary students assigned to developmental education attended a community college (Florida Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability, 2007).

2. In one district there were two schools with the same high rating on the teacher survey. In this case, we selected the one geographically closest to the school with the lowest rating to facilitate the logistics for the site visits.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Institute of Education Sciences [R305E120010].