...The Effect of African-American Students Socioeconomic Status on how it Affects College Retention and Graduation Rates at Historically Black Colleges and Universities Abstract With Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) graduation rates at the lowest they have been in the last decade I have become concerned. It makes me wonder what is causing this and what needs to be done in order to change this. While reading an article from The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education (JBHE) I found out that out of the thirty-seven of the four year HBCUs only four of them have a graduation rate over fifty percent. These institutions are Spelman College with a rate of seventy-nine percent, Howard University with a rate of sixty-four percent, Morehouse College with a rate of sixty-one percent, and Hampton University with a rate of fifty-four percent (JBHE, 2012). The purpose of paper is to find out what are some of the factors that are playing a major role in the graduation and retention rates of African-American students at HBCUs and what can be done to help increase these numbers. The Effect Students Socioeconomic Status on High it Affects College Retention and Graduation Rates The first thing that I wanted to look at was the family background of the average African-American student attending a HBCU. I wanted to know how their socioeconomic status directly affected their overall performance, and if the parental educational attainment affected the student’s success while...
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...not go back to college and further my education. I was on the road to success, after that idea. Choosing my program was not hard for me. I have a long line of family members that are in the health field. So why not I thought, I would be following in the footsteps of my elders so they can feel that they have set an example for me. I decided on becoming a Medical Assistant. This way I could still set my goal in pursuing me education and apply for better jobs upon graduating. I have always loved to help people. Communicating and meeting new people are my strong points. I was comfortable with this the whole way thru college. Since, it had been a while since I been back to school. When I started my Medical Assisting courses I was a little reluctant. How would the instructor be like? Would anyone make fun of me if I asked a stupid question? Or would I make any friends? These...
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...Graduation by Maya Angelou Summary In Maya Angelou’s essay Graduation, the author describes all of the emotions & experiences she has approaching, & during her middle school graduation in the 1930s at the segregated school Lafayette County Training School in Stamps, Arkansas. Pre-Graduation Students prepare to graduate from both the grammar & high schools in Stamps, Arkansas. While some families order new outfits for themselves & their children, Angelou wears a yellow pique dress like the majority of other eighth grade girls. Angelou feels a sense of excitement & anticipation, which lifts her spirits, as she says, “I had taken to smiling more often, & my jaws hurt from the unaccustomed activity.” Graduation Day The students file into their seats, singing the National Anthem & reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. However, straying from the usual assembly routine, they do not follow with the “Negro National Anthem,” the song “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” by James Weldon Johnson & J. Rosamond Johnson. This exemption gives Angelou an idea of how the rest of the ceremony will go. The principal welcomes & leads the group in a prayer with the Baptist priest, & introduces the guest speaker, white state representative Edward Donleavy. He gives a very uninspiring speech as he tells of the improvements set for the white high school’s sciences, arts & Training School’s sports facilities. Other than sports, Donleavy spoke very little of...
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...I cannot easily forget my memory about my graduation from Hamilton High School. It was not giving me the same impression as my brothers’ graduations. My most memorable moment is when I was handed my diploma. It was more marvelous than my brothers’ graduations. It was not the same theirs and my graduate. I understand they just graduate. That was all of my impression of their graduation. However, I cannot explain my feeling easily. That time, I think I was not sure I really got my diploma. I mean I could not realize that I really graduated from high school and I was not a high school student anymore. On the stage, my mouth was dry and I felt excited. I felt nervous too. Also, I shocked because I did not expect these feelings came from receiving...
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...mdrc Building Knowledge To improve Social policy Sustained positive effects on graduation rates PolICY BRIEF produced by new york city’s Small public High Schools of choice January 2012 D By Howard S. Bloom and Rebecca Unterman uring the past decade, New York City undertook a districtwide high school reform that is perhaps unprecedented in its scope, scale, and pace. Between fall 2002 and fall 2008, the school district closed 23 large failing high schools (with graduation rates below 45 percent),1 opened 216 new small high schools (with different missions, structures, and student selection criteria), and implemented a centralized high school admissions process that assigns over 90 percent of the roughly 80,000 incoming ninth-graders each year based on their school preferences. At the heart of this reform are 123 small, academically nonselective, public high schools. Each with approximately 100 students per grade in grades 9 through 12, these schools were created to serve some of the district’s most disadvantaged students and are located mainly in neighborhoods where large failing high schools had been closed.2 Hence, they provide a realistic choice for students with widely varying academic backgrounds. MDRC researchers call them “small schools of choice” (SSCs) because of their small size and the fact that they do not screen students based on their academic backgrounds.3 In June 2010, MDRC, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research...
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...Schools across the world have such an early start time and little do they know how it’s affecting their students. In my communities case, it’s waking up around 5 or 6 in the morning and being in class by 7:25. If you take the bus to school you are up before most students. Most students are up until late night or early morning completing school assignments. This also plays a part in the early starting times. School effects when you go to sleep, the number of hours you get when you sleep and when you have to wake up. And no, it’s not procrastination causing these late nights. Students are involved in afterschool activities, work, sports and other events. The first bell at school rings too early and should be pushed to later in the morning. If this happens, students will be getting the amount of sleep they need each night, better grades will appear and they will be much healthier. It’s been proven with science that lack of sleep makes learning difficult. When you don’t get enough sleep your thought process slows down and your memory gets impaired. School can be hard enough for students and the lack of sleep makes it even worse. If we started at a later time students would be able to sleep longer. More sleep means better...
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...Bridging the Gap A study in Graduation Rates between African-Americans and Caucasians May 18, 2010 Cross-Cultural Psychology Education and Racism are two problems facing our youth these days. While there have been enormous strides in both there seems to be a negative correlation between the two. As the education has gotten better in America for all students of all races, there seems to be a growing divide in graduation rates between the two of the primary races; Caucasians and African Americans. Can this be linked to a psychological feeling of inferiority in one race and the superior complex of another? Can it be an imbalance of support or funds toward one group as opposed to another? Or is it just a simple lack of intelligence for a specific group. I tend to believe that it is a combination of the former instead of the latter. Because of this I feel that in order to close the gap in African American/ Caucasian graduation we need to break the stigma of inferiority in the African American community and recognize troubles at and early stage to help prevent deviation from the learning process. I am an African American. male. I’m in my early thirties and currently am enrolled in some online classes trying to work toward my degree in Sociology. This is relevant because I have always been an avid fan of learning. Learning anything, it doesn’t matter. I had a great support system (parents, sister) that cared about my education and my well being. We weren’t rich but...
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...Motivation. Many people have their little tips and tricks to get motivated, from spoiling themselves with candy, to getting paid. But is paying kids for good grades an acceptable and effective dynamo? Schools should be willing to put in a little extra money for students to improve and do better. Rewarding students can result in many positive effects on their lives. This includes many kids getting better test scores, higher graduation rates, and helping their families with financial issues. From helping students with their families, to higher graduation rates and test scores, schools should be willing to pay students for superior grades. To begin, students should get paid for admirable grades on the grounds that it helps them get better test scores. Chan from John Hopkins University claimed, ”In Dallas, Texas, 10,000 students passed advanced placement tests for a reward of $400, compared to the year before when only about 6,000 students passed.” Consequently, 4,000 more students passed the tests due to the fact that they would be rewarded. This means that students would most likely study harder and pay more attention in class when a reward is in mind. The effect of this is kids getting better grades overall. Better grades will allow high schoolers to...
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...verge of graduation, I had endless possibilities ahead of me. I could go to college. I could take a year or two to travel; maybe backpack through Europe. Heck, I could spend the summer sleeping in late and hanging out with my friends before setting off on my next adventure. The point is, high school was about to end and I was the captain of my own ship for the first time. I was about to embark on an uncharted voyage to whatever destination I desired with nothing to keep me from fulfilling my dreams and desires. At least that’s what I thought. My whole world was about to change and I was totally unaware. The bomb dropped about a month before graduation, and my ship sank like a ton of bricks. My girlfriend Christy was pregnant. Instead of being a young man about to take on the world, I was going to be a father. I honestly don’t remember how I felt when she first told me. I think mostly I was just numb. I remember her sitting across from me in the passenger seat of my Volkswagen Beetle, tears streaming down her face, gasping for breath through her sobs. She was terrified. I was too, but I knew I had to get my act together and try to be strong for us both. I mean, I was the man, right? I stretched across to her seat and tried as best I could to hold her and comfort her. I didn’t know what to say, so I just kept telling her everything would be ok, we would figure things out together, and that I loved her. I guess that’s what she needed because she started to calm down a little after...
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...structure and economy. People are divided in different social hierarchy like the pyramid by their power,status, identity and so on. The economic system can be characterized by private or public ownership of means of production. The capitalism think anyone can be rich, but not every one can become rich. While the socialism takes the idea that everyone is economically secure, but no one can become extremely wealthy. No matter in what kind of economic system, there are always the rich and poor because of the competition and evolution. The college graduation is diverse under different culture. For example, students hardly get a decent job without college graduation in China, that is why we are encouraged to go to college since we are little. While the college graduation is not that essential for people in some countries. Though the Internet, I found that Russia has the highest percentage of college graduates in the world, with a little more than half of the Russian population holding an undergraduate degree or higher. Next are Canada, Israel and Japan, each of which have 40-50 percent of their population with undergraduate college degrees. The United States ranks 12th out of 36 industrialized nations in terms of college graduates, with less than 40...
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...Angelou “Graduation” Summary Graduation Graduation is an important transition time in every person’s life. It is about moving on to something better and more important and to use your knowledge to achieve life goals. This is what the children attending the grammar school believed as well, including Maya Angelou. Given from her point of view, the story Graduation has ethos because as an African American girl, she shared the same thoughts and feelings as everyone standing on the stage or in the auditorium when Mr. Edward Donleavy passively demeaned everything the students had worked so hard to achieve. This story is told by a women who had surpassed all of the difficulties in life to get to this day, and through her learned, and personal, figurative, and detailed writing, has been able to pass on both the ill feelings and the warm feelings of that experience from Mr. Donleavy’s speech, to that of Henry Reed. What Angelou does best is evoke feelings and empathy from her readers. By relating to them and broadcasting her emotions for everyone to see, she emphasizes her sense of being wronged. When she is describing the excitement and anxiety in the people around her, she is relating to what everyone feels when they are about to graduate. “The children in Stamps trembled visibly with anticipation...the whole young population had come down with graduation epidemic.” (22). This is the opening of the story. Immediately what does it make you think about? Graduation. Your...
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...who has made a difference in our lives. Even though changes become part of our lives it’s sometimes hard to get through. The person who has been so influential in my life is the person that birth me, my mother. She is a very helpful and generous person. She helped me prepare for elementary, middle, high, and now she getting me college ready. She really helped me throughout high school, that’s when she help me prepare for my for my graduation test. I’ll say a month or two before my graduation test. I told her that I think it’s going to be difficult for me to pass the Social Studies portion of the Georgia High School Graduation Test and I wasn’t sure of what was going to be on it, Her being a single mom, a college student, and a parent that works, put time side for me at least three times a week. She studied with me on nights she didn’t have school. Seeing her do the things she does to support herself and family made me realize that I need to focus on a lot more things in life and not the material things. My mother has always told me since I was a little girl that “I could be anything I want if I put my mind to it,” and I believed that. My mother, being my role model showed me right from wrong. Seeing her be successful and doing successful things, makes me want my life to be even better than what she is teaching me. Thanks to her I am working towards becoming that successful woman she is and always will...
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...All American Windows My Biggest Success - Scholarship Submission Miguel Ruiz 3200 Saint Juliet St. apt# 2124 Fort Worth, TX 76107 817-706-3555 The University of Texas at Arlington Graduation: May 2016 / Major: Business Administration - Marketing Submit to: frankie@randmarketing.com My name is Miguel Ruiz, a 22 year old first generation college senior from Fort Worth, TX who never imagined himself coming this far. I come from a family who values hard work but falls short of placing higher education on their priorities list; and being the son of a single 16 year old mother, it was easy to count me out of college at an early age. Nevertheless, over the years, I stood out in school and remained enrolled in honors and advanced placement courses. Following high school graduation I attended Tarleton State University in Stephenville, TX, stamping my place in my family’s history as the first ever to attend a university. There I rushed and joined a national men’s fraternity, another first for my family. From then on I remained active on and around campus in several organizations and in charity work; all the while developing myself into a better student and a better man. However, all did not go well in my first two years at Tarleton. Having no clue what to expect living on my own away from home and surrounded by distractions, my grades began to decline. My mother then forced me to come back home and continue my schooling in Fort Worth. I soon...
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...Sydni Craig 000108021 Professor Bailey T and TR April 6, 2016 The Fourth of July In the story, the Fourth of July, by Audre Lorde the little girl is telling the story of a graduation present of going to Washington D.C. As a graduation present from graduating from the eighth and older sister from graduating from high school. And it says that she received the best graduation present but I agree to disagree with the people, who would say she received the best graduation present. I agree with going to Washington D.C. was the best graduation gift the eighth grader could receive. I agree because at a young age especially since she will be going to high school, it is great for her to see everything at firsthand of what the world was like during that time. It gives her an idea of how the world looks like in 1947, were as she is always being hidden from it and not telling what has been going on. But I can also disagree because her parents should explain to her in detail of what was going on, and I also disagree with that being a graduation present and it being the best present she will ever receive. She went through the process of seeing how and what life really is at her age and how it will be for the next couple of years. The world at the year if 1947 was full of racism and discrimination in which it is bad in some states, but also horrible in others. The young girl in the story witnesses her family and not be treated right at firsthand. The thing that was messed up about the...
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...The Goals of the Educational Excellence for All Children Act Renata I. Gaddis SOC312: Child Family & Society Kara O’Brien June 11, 2012 America has been considered to several other societies as the “golden land” or “the cornerstone in which success and achievement is built. However, this has not always been the case. America has not always placed such a huge emphasis on educational equality for all children. The political climate shifted its attention to educational change from the late 1950s to the early 1970s (Berns, 2013). This change brought about different strategies by our lawmakers, to ensure that the very best education was offered to all children—no matter their race, demographics, income, or social status. The lawmakers showed us this by introducing the passage of legislation that provided federal money for new educational programs. Due to the novelty of it all, several programs were developed. When one didn’t seem to meet all requirements, another one was developed to better the previous one. Like any other journey, this one was met with several challenges along the way. Although programs were being designed for the schools and community, many felt that even with the additional assistance the schools still weren’t functioning at its full capabilities. Thus, this caused these same lawmakers to develop six national educational goals that would ensure that all of America’s...
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