Recovering Higher Education During and After the Pandemic

This chapter discusses the economic, academic, and socioemotional effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on low-income students and the institutes of higher education that serve them. Income-based inequities among students have been amplified significantly by the economic recession and the shift to remote learning. This chapter examines the federal and state-level plans that aim to address these inequities by providing/redistributing aid to universities. Additionally, updated pedagogies that are attuned to the needs of remote/hybrid learning are proposed, since keeping student motivation (and graduation rates) high will be a priority for universities as they recover from this pandemic. Universities must therefore provide their students with the sufficient monetary, academic, and emotional support needed to ensure both their students' and their own success.

Counter-hegemonic Computing: Toward Computer Science Education for Value Generation and Emancipation

Students’ lives, both in and out of school, are full of different forms of value. Wealthy students enjoy value in the form of financial capital; their fit to hegemonic social practices; excellent health care and so on. Low-income students, especially those from African American, Native American, and Latinx communities, often lack access to those resources. But there are other forms of value that low-income students do possess. Most examples of what we will call Counter-Hegemonic Practice (CHP) in the African American community involve some mixture of Indigenous African heritage, contemporary innovation in the Black community, and other influences. Moving between these value forms and the computing classroom is a non-trivial task, especially if we are to avoid merely using the appearance of culture to attract students. Our objective in this paper is to provide a framework for deeper investigations into the computational potentials for CHP; its potential as a link between education and community development; and a more dignified role for its utilization in the CS classroom. We report on a series of collaborative engagements with CHP, largely focused on African American communities.

A Mediation Analysis of Spirituality: Wellbeing and Academic Performance in first-Generation and Low-income College Students

Mental health and attainment gaps comprise crises on university campuses, especially for first-generation and low-income students. Despite the heritage of spirituality and religious foundations of America’s colleges, current norms have rendered candid discussions of spirituality to be mostly nonexistent. Despite literature linking spirituality with psychological wellbeing, known is little as to what relationship spirituality has with psychological wellbeing and academic performance, particularly among first-generation and low-income students. This study uses a cross-sectional survey design and occurred a public, regional, Midwestern institution. Quantitative analysis found a relationship between psychological wellbeing and academic performance in specific circumstances, and an indirect effect between spirituality and academic performance in the presence of psychological wellbeing. These data presents implications for practitioners.

Historically Underrepresented Students Redefining College Success in Higher Education

Extant definitions of college success largely focus on macro-level academic outcomes including academic achievement, retention, and persistence, which are linked to a limited set of indicators achievable by students including high grade averages, extra-curricular involvement, and leadership that denote a successful college student. These normative ideas of college success sustain ideologies that dismiss the multiplicity of ways students experience success in college and most importantly, they define who can and cannot be characterized as a successful college student. Relatedly, the dominant narrative of college success frames historically underrepresented college students (e.g. first-generation, low-income, students of color) as deficient and as less likely to be successful, even though these students consistently have to overcome greater adversity during their college trajectories and consequently experience many victories that are not legitimized as a success. Therefore, the purpose of this manuscript is to propose a more inclusive definition of the term college success that accounts for the diverse realities of students historically underrepresented and reveals the direct connection between student success and institutional success. Authors draw evidence from two research studies to illustrate their proposed definition of college success and provide implications for research, practice, and policy.

Understanding the Effects of COVID-19 on the Education of Low-Income Students in Khamariya, Nepal

This paper addresses the impacts COVID-19 is having on the learning of upper-primary students in a remote community in Nepal. These findings are based on interviews with 15 students in Khamariya— a small village with limited infrastructure and minimal access to technology. In this paper, the education system in Nepal before COVID-19 is discussed and compared with the current learning that is happening throughout the pandemic. The shortcomings of government solutions are discussed, the benefits of the pandemic on students' learning are evaluated, and the implications of changes in students’ learning due to the pandemic are analyzed. Overall, through the interviews, it has been determined that the education system in remote communities in Nepal before the pandemic was below standard. However, COVID-19 is exacerbating these negative aspects of the education system even further. The pandemic is specifically targeting impoverished students’ education. As well, it is increasing the gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students, which is contributing to the cycle of poverty.

College Attendance among Low-Income Youth: Explaining Differences across Wisconsin High Schools

Bolstering low-income students’ postsecondary participation is important to remediate these students’ disadvantages and to improve society’s overall level of education. Recent research has demonstrated that secondary schools vary considerably in their tendencies to send students to postsecondary education, but existing research has not systematically identified the school characteristics that explain this variation. Identifying these characteristics can help improve low-income students’ postsecondary outcomes. We identify relevant characteristics using population-level data from Wisconsin, a mid-size state in the United States. We first show that Wisconsin’s income-based disparities in postsecondary participation are wide, even net of academic achievement. Next, we show that several geographic characteristics of schools help explain between-secondary school variation in low-income students’ postsecondary outcomes. Finally, we test whether a dense set of school organisational features explain any remaining variation. We find that these features explain virtually no variation in secondary schools’ tendencies to send low-income students to postsecondary education.

What If We Leave It Up to Chance? Admissions Lotteries and Equitable Access at Selective Colleges

Many prominent social scientists have advocated for random-draw lotteries as a solution to the “problem” of elite college admissions. They argue that lotteries will be fair, equitable, eliminate corruption, reduce student anxiety, restore democratic ideals, and end debates over race-conscious admissions. In response, we simulate potential lottery effects on student enrollment by race, gender, and income, using robust simulation methods and multiple minimum thresholds for grades and standardized tests. In the overwhelming majority of lottery simulations, the proportions of low-income students and students of color drop precipitously. With a GPA minimum, we find the proportion of men could drop as low as one third. Admissions lotteries with minimum bars for GPA and/or standardized tests do not appear to produce more equitable outcomes.

COVID-19 and Digital Learning in The Dominican Republic: Implications For Marginalized Communities

With COVID-19 placing a strain on its public institutions, the Dominican Republic is attempting to ensure a streamlined digital education process by extending Digital Republic, a past initiative that provides online frameworks and platforms for its students and teachers. However, already existing issues are exacerbating access to education for vulnerable communities. While past policies included special needs services, the following initiative has yet to provide information on access for disabled students. Low-income students face financial challenges to gain the resources necessary to thrive during remote learning. Likewise, migrants from Haiti and those of Haitian descent continue to be left out of the conversation. The following case study explores the country’s education system, how its policies benefit certain groups and negatively impact others. By conducting in-depth policy analysis and interviews with local officials, the study analyzes the impact of digital learning during the pandemic among vulnerable communities in the country.