A college degree can change the trajectory of a student’s life. I should know. I grew up in a working-class community. I was the first in my family to attend college, thanks in large part to financial aid and access to a public university.
While in college, a voice in my head sometimes questioned if I really belonged, but I had mentors and family members who encouraged me. And on graduation day, my diploma felt weightier than a rolled-up piece of paper. It was as if all the sacrifices of my parents and grandparents were wrapped inside it — especially my grandfather, who moved with my grandmother to Connecticut from Puerto Rico, where he had cut sugar cane, to seek better opportunities for future generations of Cardonas.
Ultimately, even though I never would have envisioned it during college, my degree prepared me to be the leader I am today, serving in President Biden’s cabinet.
I recognize that stories like mine are too often the exception, not the rule.
A college degree remains one of America’s surest paths to well-paying, rewarding careers. But too many underserved students — especially students of color — are left behind.
Historical funding inequities, state budget cuts, and decades of lagging federal support for Pell Grants have shifted college costs to students and deprived our most inclusive institutions of resources to invest in student success.
The consequences are heartbreaking.
At our four-year institutions, 60 percent of Black undergraduates and nearly half of Latino undergrads never make it to commencement day. They wind up with the worst of both worlds: student debt and no degree.
Some of the most important innovations in higher education are being driven by institutions that get little glory.
Meanwhile, too many institutions spend enormous resources to climb college rankings and compete for the most affluent, highest-scoring students.
Yet some of the most important innovations in higher education today are being driven by institutions that get little glory but that are narrowing gaps in access to college opportunity and accelerating their graduates’ economic mobility.
Historically Black colleges and universities, Hispanic-, Asian American-, Native American-, Pacific Islander-, and other minority-serving institutions, community colleges, and state and tribal colleges and universities enroll more than three-quarters of undergraduates nationwide, despite chronic underfunding. Many are making real strides on college-completion rates and inclusive student success.
We can realize a new vision for college excellence — one defined not by privilege, legacy, and selectivity, but by equity, inclusivity, and real upward mobility for students of color, immigrants, working parents, adult learners, and rural and first-generation college students.
Today, dozens of college presidents and higher-education leaders will attend a summit hosted by the U.S. Department of Education, where they will tell their stories and share promising practices to achieve more-equitable outcomes for students.
We’ll hear from California State University at Fullerton about how it is improving the credit-transfer process, which too often makes the path to graduation a longer, more expensive journey for transfer students.
We’ll learn from Georgia State University about how it helps advisers use data to get the right support to students who are at risk of dropping out. In just over a decade, those efforts have helped increase graduation rates by more than 20 percent.
We’ll gain insights from the City University of New York’s Accelerated Study in Associate Programs, which offer students academic support, textbook subsidies, Metrocards, and other resources. Students in the programs are graduating at double the rate of their peers not in the programs.
Those examples are not just lightning in a bottle. They can be replicated elsewhere. In fact, three Ohio community colleges already have adopted CUNY’s model.
And thanks to the American Rescue Plan, which was enacted last year, institutions across the country are innovating.
At Amarillo College, in Texas, ARP dollars have expanded the reach of its services, connecting students to government benefits, mental-health support, and other programs to help them overcome personal and financial challenges to graduation. At North Carolina A&T State University, administrators used funding from the rescue plan to provide affordable housing to students who struggled the most during the pandemic.
Bold investments in college completion can level up our entire system of higher education.
The Biden-Harris administration is helping to accelerate that progress. Today we’re announcing a new $5-million College Completion Fund. Grants from the fund will help underresourced colleges invest in completion and retention — and help us make the case to Congress for more funding for this vital work. And this week, the Department of Education announced that it would renew Project Success for another three years. That program helps HBCUs and other underserved institutions use evidence-based strategies to improve student outcomes.
Our team believes that bold investments in college completion can level up our entire system of higher education, helping students who often face enormous challenges make it to graduation day.
I can think of no work more worthy of prestige than putting higher education within the reach of more Americans, and helping our students attain degrees that change their lives — just as mine did for me.
