Alarmed by the high drop-out rate of Boston high school graduates, 25 Massachusetts colleges and universities are collaborating on strategies to ease the college transition for Boston students, reports the Boston Globe. Success Boston, a citywide initiative that hopes to double the number of local students who earn degrees, provides counselors to work with students at risk of dropping out.
The colleges — both public and private — found many Boston graduates at community colleges and less-selective four-year institutions are poorly prepared for college classes.
Many of the students arrive on campus with little experience writing papers or with poor study habits. Some 75 percent of those at Bunker Hill Community College and 70 percent at Roxbury Community College need to take two to five remedial classes before they can start courses counting toward a diploma.
Students who need help may lack “the confidence to ask for it or the ability to use it well,’’ said Joan Becker, associate vice provost at UMass Boston and co-author of a new report, “Getting Through.’’
The report suggests starting transitional classes in high school, offering summer sessions before students start college and teaching time-management skills in college.
Four of the 25 schools are also piloting “learning communities,’’ in which students interested in specific topics all take the same classes, and in some cases live together. Jan Bonanno, dean of student affairs at Bunker Hill, said there are already early signs that students enrolled in its learning communities are more likely to graduate on time.
Becker is working on a simplified financial aid form that would help students compare the cost of attending different colleges.
