By Watson Scott Swail, President/CEO & Senior Research Scholar, Educational Policy Institute
Over the past 40 years, I have researched and written about college-preparation, access, and scholarship programs. I have evaluated dozens of them. My book, Retaining Minority Students in Higher Education, along with the many journal articles and reports we have produced at EPI and elsewhere, reflects that work. The experience dates me, but it also means I have seen nearly every variation on the theme. From TRIO and GEAR UP to I Have a Dream and countless federally, state, locally, and internationally-funded initiatives, these programs share a goal: removing barriers to postsecondary access and completion for students historically underrepresented in higher education. That population includes students of color, students from low-income families, students with disabilities, and first-generation college students.
This morning, I read about MacKenzie Scott’s $42 million gift to 10,000 Degrees, a California nonprofit seeking to expand college completion. On its face, the gift is admirable. Yet my reaction was surprisingly muted. I have read about many of Scott’s large gifts, and almost every time I have wondered: Will this make a lasting difference? I have the same question about this one.
This pattern has played out many times before: a large sum directed at an enormous problem. Students will benefit now; that is not in dispute. The difficulty is scale and duration. Even a program serving approximately 20,000 students is small beside a postsecondary system enrolling roughly 20 million students annually, and beside the far larger number who leave college without a credential. And, to be fair, 10,000 Degrees operates in California only (not sure if the Scott grant will expand it; that information is not on their website). In a country where millions graduate from high school and enter college each year, helping several thousand students matters deeply to those students—but it does not by itself alter national outcomes. Nor are there enough similarly-funded private programs to close the gap.
Only public, taxpayer-funded programs have the reach and recurring appropriations to operate at national scale. Some states support initiatives large enough to matter within their borders, but not across the country. Beyond Pell Grants and other forms of financial aid, the principal federal access programs are TRIO, which dates to the mid-1960s, and GEAR UP, created in 1998. Both provide valuable services; both also have limited effects relative to the size of the problem. I say that with direct experience. I served as vice president for research at the Council for Opportunity in Education and as the founding director of the Pell Institute. COE is the membership association for TRIO professionals. I also participated in the negotiated rulemaking process for GEAR UP in the late 1990s and conducted its first national study for the National Council for Community and Education Partnerships in the early 2000s. TRIO serves more than 800,000 students annually, and GEAR UP about 600,000. Millions more participate in after-school initiatives such as the 21st Century Community Learning Centers. Those numbers put 10,000 students in perspective.
Scale is not the only distinction. Private gifts are eventually spent. Federal programs, by contrast, resemble endowed commitments: because they are written into law, they can continue as long as Congress funds them. A donor cannot be expected to replenish every grant indefinitely. Unless a gift builds an endowment or a durable revenue stream, it remains a one-time infusion.
That still leaves a more fundamental concern: the effectiveness of these “bandaid” programs. Nearly 30 years ago, Larry Gladieux and I wrote Financial Aid Is Not Enough. We described TRIO, GEAR UP, and similar programs as a “wheel of fortune,” in which “a youngster must be lucky enough to be in the right city, the right school, and the right classroom at the right time.” The description still fits. Programs are scattered across the country according to where organizations can assemble winning proposals for six- or seven-year federal grants, not according to a coherent national system of need. In TRIO, Prior Experience Points also give incumbent grantees a substantial advantage, making the distribution of programs unusually durable. Evidence of TRIO’s effects remains limited, with few rigorous studies over the years.
GEAR UP differs in design but faces a related problem. Its grants typically follow cohorts beginning around sixth grade and continue through the first year of college. Programs may span districts, schools, or classrooms. When services are spread too thinly across those settings, however, the intervention can lose the intensity required to change outcomes. As with TRIO, rigorous studies of GEAR UP are scarce, and the available evidence raises questions about efficacy.
A private initiative we evaluated about a decade ago illustrates the challenge. EPI studied a $142 million effort to support students in Wards 7 and 8 of Washington, D.C., among the city’s poorest neighborhoods. The program provided valuable services, and we were impressed by the dedication of its staff and participants. However, our evaluation found that the investment translated into tens of thousands of dollars for each student who ultimately earned a degree. At the same time, nearly as much scholarship funding was spent on students who left college without graduating, resulting in a completion rate of roughly 50 percent. An extensive benefit-cost analysis further suggested that, despite positive impacts for individual students, the program’s overall economic returns were modest and did not clearly justify the scale of the investment.
The example shows how difficult it is for private money to solve—or even substantially alter—a complex social problem. As Laura Rendón said many years ago, dropping out of college starts in third grade. The point is not that every student who falls behind early is destined to remain behind, but NAEP studies clearly show that students who are behind by that point never truly catch up. It is that academic gaps established in the elementary grades are difficult to overcome and shape the pathways students encounter years later.
If we want to improve college access and completion, we must begin much earlier rather than applying bandages at high school graduation or after students reach college. That does not mean abandoning scholarships, advising, or access programs. They serve a purpose. But it does mean embedding effective supports in the daily work of elementary, secondary, and postsecondary institutions so they reach enough students with sufficient intensity and continuity. Private philanthropy can seed ideas, improve individual lives, and test new approaches. It cannot substitute for durable public systems.
That is why I remain blasé about the Scott gift. This is not a criticism of her generosity or of the students who will benefit. What she is doing, in her bigger picture, is brilliant and we hope it will reshape how the uber-affluent deal with their mass wealth. And the same distinction applies to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which is spending down its endowment over the next two decades after giving away more than $100 billion. These philanthropies can address important issues at meaningful scale, including global health and development. But generosity, even extraordinary generosity, is not the same as systemic change.
My point is narrower: this $42 million gift, like many others, operates within a wheel of fortune. It will help some students (only California students, to note), miss many more, and exert limited influence after the initial funding is gone (if the funds were used as an endowed fund, it would provide about $2-3M of capital per year; not much; not enough). But if we want to produce substantially more college graduates from first-generation and other underserved populations, we need supports that are early, sustained, embedded, and financed at public scale.
