[House Hearing, 113 Congress] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office] KEEPING COLLEGE WITHIN REACH: SHARING BEST PRACTICES FOR SERVICING LOW INCOME AND FIRST GENERATION STUDENTS ======================================================================= HEARING before the SUBCOMMITTEE ON HIGHER EDUCATION AND WORKFORCE TRAINING COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE U.S. House of Representatives ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION __________ HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, JANUARY 28, 2014 __________ Serial No. 113-42 __________ Printed for the use of the Committee on Education and the Workforce Available via the World Wide Web:www.gpo.gov/fdsys/browse/ committee.action?chamber=house&committee=education or ____ Committee address: http://edworkforce.house.gov U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 86-370 PDF WASHINGTON : 2015 _________________________________________________________________________________ For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Publishing Office, Internet:bookstore.gpo.gov. Phone:toll free (866)512-1800;DC area (202)512-1800 Fax:(202) 512-2104 Mail:Stop IDCC,Washington,DC 20402-001 COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE JOHN KLINE, Minnesota, Chairman Thomas E. Petri, Wisconsin George Miller, California, Howard P. ``Buck'' McKeon, Senior Democratic Member California Robert E. Andrews, New Jersey Joe Wilson, South Carolina Robert C. ``Bobby'' Scott, Virginia Foxx, North Carolina Virginia Tom Price, Georgia Ruben Hinojosa, Texas Kenny Marchant, Texas Carolyn McCarthy, New York Duncan Hunter, California John F. Tierney, Massachusetts David P. Roe, Tennessee Rush Holt, New Jersey Glenn Thompson, Pennsylvania Susan A. Davis, California Tim Walberg, Michigan Raul M. Grijalva, Arizona Matt Salmon, Arizona Timothy H. Bishop, New York Brett Guthrie, Kentucky David Loebsack, Iowa Scott DesJarlais, Tennessee Joe Courtney, Connecticut Todd Rokita, Indiana Marcia L. Fudge, Ohio Larry Bucshon, Indiana Jared Polis, Colorado Trey Gowdy, South Carolina Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan, Lou Barletta, Pennsylvania Northern Mariana Islands Martha Roby, Alabama Frederica S. Wilson, Florida Joseph J. Heck, Nevada Suzanne Bonamici, Oregon Richard Hudson, North Carolina Mark Pocan, Wisconsin Luke Messer, Indiana Juliane Sullivan, Staff Director Jody Calemine, Minority Staff Director ------ SUBCOMMITTEE ON HIGHER EDUCATION AND WORKFORCE TRAINING VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina, Chairwoman Thomas E. Petri, Wisconsin Ruben Hinojosa, Texas Howard P. ``Buck'' McKeon, Ranking Minority Member California John F. Tierney, Massachusetts Glenn Thompson, Pennsylvania Timothy H. Bishop, New York Tim Walberg, Michigan Suzanne Bonamici, Oregon Matt Salmon, Arizona Carolyn McCarthy, New York Brett Guthrie, Kentucky Rush Holt, New Jersey Lou Barletta, Pennsylvania Susan A. Davis, California Joseph J. Heck, Nevada David Loebsack, Iowa Susan W. Brooks, Indiana Frederica S. Wilson, Florida Richard Hudson, North Carolina Luke Messer, Indiana C O N T E N T S ---------- Page Hearing held on January 28, 2014................................. 1 Statement of Members: Foxx, Hon. Virginia, Chairwoman, Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Training........................... 1 Prepared statement of.................................... 3 Hinojosa, Hon. Ruben, Ranking Minority Member, Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Training................. 9 Prepared statement of.................................... 25 Statement of Witnesses: Anderson, James, A., Dr., Chancellor, Fayetteville State University, North Carolina................................. 27 Prepared statement of.................................... 29 Del Balzo, Mary, B., Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, The College of Westchester, White Plains, New York........................................... 41 Prepared statement of.................................... 43 Garrido, Josse, A., graduate student, University of Texas-Pan American, Edinburg, Texas.................................. 50 Prepared statement of.................................... 52 Holtschneider, Dennis H., Rev., President, Depaul University, Chicago, Illinois.......................................... 54 Prepared statement of.................................... 56 Additional Submissions: Chairwoman Foxx: 5000 Role Models is 20 years old, still stepping......... 5 Prepared statement of Ron Haskins........................ 80 Mr. Hinojosa: The National HEP CAMP Association........................ 11 The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund MALDEF................................................. 17 Hon Jared Polis, a Representative in Congress from the State of from the state of Colorado: Prepared statement of.................................... 91 KEEPING COLLEGE WITHIN REACH: SHARING BEST PRACTICES FOR SERVING LOW-INCOME AND FIRST GENERATION STUDENTS ---------- Tuesday, January 28, 2014 House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Training, Committee on Education and the Workforce, Washington, D.C. ---------- The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:04 a.m., in Room 2175, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Virginia Foxx [chairwoman of the subcommittee] presiding. Present: Representatives Foxx, Petri, Thompson, Walberg, Salmon, Brooks, Messer, Hinojosa, Tierney, Bishop, Bonamici, Davis, and Wilson. Also present: Representatives Kline and Miller. Staff present: Janelle Belland, Coalitions and Member Services Coordinator; James Bergeron, Director of Education and Human Services Policy; Amy Raaf Jones, Deputy Director of Education and Human Services Policy; Nancy Locke, Chief Clerk; Brian Melnyk, Professional Staff Member; Daniel Murner, Press Assistant; Krisann Pearce, General Counsel; Nicole Sizemore, Deputy Press Secretary; Emily Slack, Professional Staff Member; Alissa Strawcutter, Deputy Clerk; Tylease Alli, Minority Clerk/ Intern and Fellow Coordinator; Jody Calemine, Minority Staff Director; Eamonn Collins, Minority Fellow, Education; Eunice Ikene, Minority Staff Assistant; Brian Levin, Minority Deputy Press Secretary/New Media Coordinator; Megan O'Reilly, Minority General Counsel; Rich Williams, Minority Education Policy Advisor; and Michael Zola, Minority Deputy Staff Director. Chairwoman Foxx. Good morning. A quorum being present, the subcommittee will come to order. Tim Bishop asked if I am responsible for the cold in here, and I am really not. In the country we would say, ``This is cold enough to hang meat,'' so I don't know--that means it is cold. Welcome. I thank our witnesses for joining us today to discuss ways postsecondary institutions are working better to serve low-income and first-generation students. This is the 12th hearing the committee has held examining a wide range of issues facing the higher education community. From simplifying federal student aid programs to increasing transparency, each hearing has provided a forum to discuss ways we can strengthen the nation's postsecondary education system to meet the evolving needs of students and the workforce. One of the committee's top priorities for the upcoming reauthorization of the Higher Education Act is improving postsecondary access and affordability. To achieve that goal, we must take steps to close the education achievement gap and to increase postsecondary opportunity for low-income and first- generation students. Children from disadvantaged families often struggle to access important mentoring, tutoring, and other hands-on services designed to help encourage high school completion and the pursuit of postsecondary education. Sadly, these students are often unprepared for college academics and require remedial courses that add to the challenges of completing a program. Too many disadvantaged students simply give up on even applying to college because they are confused by the application process, overwhelmed by the cost, or unaware of the available financial aid options despite our best efforts to ensure the information is available and understandable. Recognizing these challenges, the federal government has created several programs to help disadvantaged students access the support necessary to realize the dream of a college degree. For example, college preparation and retention programs such as TRIO, Upward Bound, Talent Search, and Student Support Services provide a pipeline of support services that encourage low-income students to graduate high school and earn a postsecondary degree. Additionally, the GEAR UP program helps the middle and high schools with high numbers of at-risk students offer academic support, mentoring, career counseling, college visits, and other services designed to better prepare students for success in postsecondary education. Taxpayers dedicate nearly 1 billion each year to support the TRIO and GEAR UP programs, but despite the expenditures of significant federal resources in these important initiatives, more must be done at the state and institutional level to prepare disadvantaged students effectively for college and the workforce. Additionally, it is important that we examine the current programs to ensure they are working as intended and meeting the goal of helping students make the best choices. Fortunately postsecondary institutions are already rising to the challenge. In my home state of North Carolina, for example, Fayetteville State University is pursuing strategies to assess students' skill levels before they begin attending classes and use academic analytics to track students' progress throughout their curriculum. In New York, the College of Westchester provides students with a variety of support services such as success coaches to mentor freshmen and predictive tool kits that allow students to prepare for academic shortfalls and track their progress. Chicago's DePaul University has taken steps to coordinate with local high schools to ensure students are on the right track for college while also offering remedial education services. We have with us today representatives from each of these institutions who can share more information about the ways they are working to help disadvantaged students realize the dream of a college degree, and we look forward to their testimony. We want all Americans to have the opportunity to earn a postsecondary credential if they choose to do so. At this hearing today, we will discuss additional steps which can be taken at the institutional, state, and federal levels to improve college access and completion for all seeking postsecondary education. A number of this subcommittee's members have hands-on experience in higher education and mentoring programs. Recently I met with Representative Frederica Wilson about the 5,000 Role Models of Excellence Projects she started during her tenure as a high school principal in Miami. I was pleased to learn about this program that pairs disadvantaged high school students with mentors to encourage them to graduate and pursue further education. Members have received a short synopsis of this program in their folders, and I encourage all to speak to Representative Wilson about her efforts. I ask unanimous consent to submit this summary to the official hearing record. [The statement of Chairwoman Foxx follows:] Prepared Statement of Hon. Virginia Foxx, Chairwoman, Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Training Good morning and welcome. I thank our witnesses for joining us today to discuss ways postsecondary institutions are working better to serve low-income and first generation students. This is the 12th hearing the committee has held examining a wide range of issues facing the higher education community. From simplifying federal student aid programs to increasing transparency, each hearing has provided a forum to discuss ways we can strengthen the nation's postsecondary education system to meet the evolving needs of students and the workforce. One of this committee's top priorities for the upcoming reauthorization of the Higher Education Act is improving postsecondary access and affordability. To achieve that goal, we must take steps to close the education achievement gap and increase postsecondary opportunity for low-income and first generation students. Children from disadvantaged families often struggle to access important mentoring, tutoring, and other hands-on services designed to help encourage high school completion and the pursuit of postsecondary education. Sadly, these students are often unprepared for college academics, and require remedial courses that add to the challenges of completing a program. Too many disadvantaged students simply give up on even applying to college because they are confused by the application process, overwhelmed by the costs, or unaware of the available financial aid options, despite our best efforts to ensure the information is available and understandable. Recognizing these challenges, the federal government has created several programs to help disadvantaged students access the support necessary to realize the dream of a college degree. For example, college preparation and retention programs such as TRIO's Upward Bound, Talent Search, and Student Support Services provide a pipeline of support services that encourage low-income students to graduate high school and earn a postsecondary degree. Additionally, the GEAR UP program helps middle and high schools with high numbers of at-risk students offer academic support, mentoring, career counseling, college visits, and other services designed to better prepare students for success in postsecondary education. Taxpayers dedicate nearly 1 billion each year to support the TRIO and GEAR UP programs. But despite the expenditure of significant federal resources in these important initiatives, more must be done at the state and institutional level to prepare disadvantaged students effectively for college and the workforce. Additionally, it is important that we examine the current programs to ensure they are working as intended and meeting the goal of helping students make the best choices. Fortunately, postsecondary institutions are already rising to the challenge. In my home state of North Carolina, for example, Fayetteville State University is pursuing strategies to assess students' skill levels before they begin attending classes and use academic analytics to track students' progress throughout their curriculum. In New York, the College of Westchester provides students with a variety of support services, such as success coaches to mentor freshman and predictive toolkits that allow students to prepare for academic shortfalls and track their progress. Chicago's DePaul University has taken steps to coordinate with local high schools to ensure students are on the right track for college, while also offering remedial education services. We have with us today representatives from each of these institutions who can share more information about the ways they are working to help disadvantaged students realize the dream of a college degree, and we look forward to their testimony. We want all Americans to have the opportunity to earn a postsecondary credential, if they choose to do so. At this hearing today we'll discuss additional steps which can be taken at the institutional, state, and federal levels to improve college access and completion for all seeking postsecondary education. A number of this subcommittee's members have hands-on experience in higher education and mentoring programs. Recently, I met with Rep. Frederica Wilson about the 5000 Role Models of Excellence Project she started during her tenure as a high school principal in Miami. I was pleased to learn about this program that pairs disadvantaged high school students with mentors to encourage them to graduate and pursue further education. Members have received a short synopsis of this program in their folders and I encourage them to speak to Rep. Wilson about her efforts. I ask unanimous consent to submit this summary to the official hearing record. I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle as we begin work on the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. With that, I yield to my colleague, Mr. Ruben Hinojosa, the senior Democrat member of the subcommittee, for his opening remarks. [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] ______ Chairwoman Foxx. I look forward to continued work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle as we begin work on the reauthorization of the Higher Ed Act. With that, I yield to my colleague, Mr. Ruben Hinojosa, the senior democrat member of the subcommittee, for his opening remarks. Mr. Hinojosa. Thank you, Chairwoman Foxx. Today's hearing will focus on how our nation can best eliminate barriers to college access for low-income and first- generation college students; students who strive to achieve the American dream, contribute to the nation's prosperity, and work to improve lives of others. In just a few minutes you will hear from Alex Garrido, an exceptional young man from my congressional district who is a low-income, first-generation student earning a Master's degree in information technology at the University of Texas, Pan- American, a Hispanic-serving institution in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. Importantly, Alex is also an immigrant who was able to afford the cost of a college degree due to the passage of the Texas Dream Act in 2001. To be sure, without the Texas Dream Act, college would have been clearly out of reach for this exemplary individual. Each year approximately 65,000 undocumented students graduate from high school but cannot go to college. Unfortunately, only 5 to 10 percent of undocumented high school graduates go to college because most are not eligible for in- state tuition. As a native Texan, I am especially pleased that more than a decade ago Texas became the first state in the nation to pass an in-state tuition law which made college more affordable for immigrant students. Today, 16 states have tuition equity laws allowing undocumented students to pay in-state tuition at public colleges and universities and some boards and regions have adopted policies that allow undocumented students to access in- state tuition. Furthermore, a handful of states allow undocumented students to access state financial aid. While I applaud these states for taking bold steps to support immigrant students, Congress must act now and provide much-needed relief to our nation's dreamers through the passage of commonsense immigration reform. In fact, a 2010 UCLA study estimated that the total earnings of Dream Act beneficiaries would be between $1.4 trillion and $3.6 trillion, and almost 1.8 million individuals in the United States would benefit from the Federal Dream Act. Preparing all students for good family-sustaining jobs and careers and a bright future must be a guiding principle for HEA reauthorization, which is badly needed here in Congress. A highly skilled at 21--or rather, a highly skilled 21st century workforce is key to strengthening our nation's economy and reducing income inequality and poverty particularly among our most vulnerable student populations. More to the point, the Georgetown center on Washington-- rather, the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce found that 63 percent of all jobs will require workers with at least some postsecondary education by the year 2018. Along the same lines, a study by the College Board revealed that over the course of their working lives the average college graduate earns in excess of 60 percent more than a high school graduate. Finally, federal investments and Pell grants, GEAR UP, HEP CAMP, TRIO programs, historically black colleges and universities, tribal colleges and universities, and minority- serving institutions are transforming the lives of millions of disadvantaged students by making college more affordable and by providing students with the academic support and services they need to succeed in school. More than ever, Congress, states, and institutions must build on the successes of these Federal programs and do more to encourage greater numbers of low-income, first-generation college students to pursue a college degree. For these reasons, I ask my colleagues from both sides of the aisle to work together to make a college education accessible and affordable to our nation's dreamers and to greater numbers of low-income, first-generation college students in this reauthorization of Higher Education Act. At this time, I ask for unanimous consent to enter the letters from the national HEP CAMP association as well as from the Mexican-American Legal Defense and the Educational Fund into the hearing record. [The information follows:] [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Chairwoman Foxx. Without objection. Mr. Hinojosa. With that, I yield back. Prepared Statement of Hon. Ruben Hinojosa, Ranking Miniority Member, Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Training Thank you, Chairwoman Foxx. Today's hearing will focus on how our nation can best eliminate barriers to college access for low-income and first generation college students--students who strive to achieve the American Dream, contribute to the nation's prosperity, and work to improve the lives of others. In just a few minutes, you will hear from Alex Garrido, an exceptional young man from my congressional district who is a low- income, first generation student, earning a master's degree in information technology at the University of Texas-Pan American (UTPA), a Hispanic Serving Institution in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. Importantly, Alex is also an immigrant who was able to afford the cost of a college degree due to the passage of the Texas DREAM Act in 2001. To be sure, without the Texas DREAM Act, college would have been clearly out of reach for this exemplary individual. Each year approximately 65,000 undocumented students graduate from high school but cannot go to college. Unfortunately, only 5 to 10 percent of undocumented high school graduates go to college because most are not eligible for in-state tuition. As a Native Texan, I am especially pleased that more than a decade ago, Texas became the first state in the nation to pass an in-state tuition law, which made college more affordable for immigrant students. Today, 16 states have tuition equity laws allowing undocumented students to pay in-state tuition at public colleges and universities, and some boards of regents have adopted policies that allow undocumented students to access in-state tuition. In addition, a handful of states allow undocumented students to access state financial aid. While I applaud these states for taking bold steps to support immigrant students, Congress must act now and provide much needed relief to our nation's dreamers through the passage of common-sense immigration reform. In fact, a 2010 UCLA study estimated that the total earnings of DREAM Act beneficiaries would be between $1.4 and $3.6 trillion, and almost 1.8 million individuals in the United States would benefit from the federal DREAM Act. Preparing all students for good family sustaining jobs and careers and a bright future must be a guiding principle for HEA reauthorization. A highly skilled 21st century workforce is key to strengthening our nation's economy and to reducing income inequality and poverty, particulary among our most vulnerable student populations. More to the point, the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce found that 63 percent of all jobs will require workers with at least some postsecondary education by 2018. Along the same lines, a study by the College Board revealed that over the course of their working lives, the average college graduate earns in excess of 60 percent more than a high school graduate. Finally, federal investments in Pell Grants, GEAR-UP, HEP-CAMP, TRIO programs, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Tribal Colleges and Universities and Minority Serving Institutions are transforming the lives of millions of disadvantaged students by making college more affordable and by providing students with the academic support and services they need to succeed in school. More than ever, Congress, states and institutions must build on the successes of these federal programs and do more to encourage greater numbers of low-income, first generation college students to pursue a college degree. For these reasons, I ask my colleagues from both sides of the aisle to work together to make a college education accessible and affordable to our nation's dreamers and to greater numbers of low income, first generation college students, in this reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. At this time, I ask for unanimous consent to enter letters from the National HEP-CAMP Association and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund into the hearing record. With that, I yield back. ______ Chairwoman Foxx. Thank you, Mr. Hinojosa. Pursuant to Committee Rule 7-C, all subcommittee members will be permitted to submit written statements to be included in the permanent hearing record. Without objection, the hearing record will remain open for 14 days to allow statements, questions for the record, and other extraneous material referenced during the hearing to be submitted in the official hearing record. It is now my pleasure to introduce our distinguished panel of witnesses. Dr. James Anderson serves as chancellor and professor of psychology at Fayetteville State University, North Carolina's second oldest public institution. Mrs. Mary Beth Del Balzo serves as the senior executive vice president and chief operating officer at the College of Westchester. I believe Mr. Hinojosa would like to introduce Mr. Garrido. Mr. Hinojosa. Thank you, Chairwoman. Alex Garrido is an impressive young man with a long list of accomplishments. Like many low-income, first-generation students, Alex is hard-working, entrepreneurial, and determined to succeed and, most importantly, to contribute to this nation. Alex graduated with honors from his high school and the University of Texas, Pan-American with a bachelor of science in psychology, and today he is pursuing a Master's degree in information technology at UTPA. Alex is also an entrepreneur. After earning his degree and working for one of the best Web site design firms in Houston, Alex started his own web design firm and now has over 90 clients. Due to his unique talents, he was recruited away by UTPA to assist with their online and international marketing efforts. Alex is also working on an application involving Google Glass. Alex knows America as his home and is a proud beneficiary of President Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals known as DACA. I would like to note that without the leadership of Governor Perry and the passage of the Texas Dream Act, Alex would not have been able to afford the cost of a college education. As ranking member of this committee, it is a pleasure for me to extend a warm welcome to this outstanding young man. Chairwoman Foxx.. Thank you, Mr. Hinojosa. Father Dennis Holtschneider serves as president of DePaul University, the nation's largest Catholic university and the largest private university in the Midwest. Before I recognize you to provide your testimony, let me briefly explain our lighting system. You will have five minutes to present your testimony. When you begin, the light in front of you will turn green. When one minute is left, the light will turn yellow. When your time has expired, the light will turn red. At that point, I ask that you wrap up your remarks as best as you are able. After you have testified, members will each have five minutes to ask questions of the panel members. I now recognize Dr. James Anderson for five minutes. STATEMENT OF DR. JAMES ANDERSON, CHANCELLOR, FAYETTEVILLE STATE UNIVERSITY, FAYETTEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA Mr. Anderson. Madam Chair, Ranking Member Hinojosa, and distinguished members of the panel, on behalf of the students, staff, and faculty at Fayetteville State University in North Carolina, thank you for this opportunity. We are a constituent institution of the University of North Carolina system. We are approximately 66 percent African- American, 27 percent white, 5 percent Hispanic, 75 percent Pell eligible, 20 percent military affiliated, which is the highest in the system. Half of our students are adult learners and 95 percent of our students are in-state, mostly from rural regions, so we are one of the most diverse historically black institutions. I came on board in 2008, and at that point we needed to make the leadership and financial commitment to creating the kinds of support programs and faculty development programs that would move our students forward successfully. I would like to mention two of our support programs for underrepresented students, especially since they won an award in December at the Press Club for high-impact practices. The first of those programs is called the CHEER program, and CHEER stands for Creating Higher Expectations for Educational Readiness. Many of our applicants, because of their standardized test scores, are not eligible to enroll in Fayetteville State University, and so the CHEER program represents a summer bridge program during which students take two courses of math and an English course, both of which are the traditional courses you would take in your freshman year. They are not remedial courses. They also receive counseling, advising, et cetera in the summer. If they pass those two courses, than the students are allowed to enroll in Fayetteville State University. Tracking CHEER students over the last several years shows that they are retained at a higher rate than the general student population that was already admitted and they have 11 percent higher graduation rate. The second program for which we won that award in--by the way only four schools received the HIP, High Impact Practice awards. The second program focuses on underrepresented males. Nationally underrepresented males, especially minority males, have some of the poorest success rates. We wanted to make sure that did not happen to students who enter in that category and so one of the programs that we created really focused on bringing those students in, operating in a learning community, receiving strong mentoring and peer advising. One program was created for freshman, and there is a second program that carries them from sophomore through senior year. The students in those programs are highly successful. If we compare them to other males who entered who did not go through these programs, our students are retained at an 84 percent rate versus students who were not in that program who are retained at a 66 percent rate. The students--when you hear their testimonies--are probably as powerful as Alex's because they came in, they know they are under-skilled, they performed poorly in their first year, and then ultimately they recognized that they have to do much better. We also have made a major investment in financial aid counseling. Financial aid counseling should begin as early as possible, so our First Steps program begins in the spring and the summer before students enroll. Students and their parents come to the university and, besides doing the placement testing and the advisement and registration, the rigorous financial aid counseling has been very successful. For example, Fayetteville State University was one of the few HBCUs that was not affected by the Parent Plus Loan program, as many other institutions were in North Carolina who saw a drop in enrollment when the criteria were changed. We were not because we actually counsel our students and parents not to--especially the parents--not to take on the debt burden when their students are taking on a debt burden also. We try to find other means to support students rather than do that. We have, as you know, a strong military population because of the presence of Fort Bragg and the military children of those veterans and active military are very important to our enrollment. We have two early college high schools or traditional early college and an international early college high school, and increasingly we are seeing more of the children of the military enter these early college high schools. Our top graduates now come from early college high schools. It is a major investment financially; however, it is probably the best group of students that we bring from a high school pipeline into the university and ultimately who graduate. By the way, our early college high schools and all of them in North Carolina focus on minority and underrepresented students, so roughly 80 percent of our students come from those categories, and I strongly recommend that. Well--wow, that is fast. Let me close by saying in terms of Title III, I think we really need to look at the areas of Title III that can strengthen HBCUs and many of the other underrepresented institutions. [The statement of Dr. Anderson follows:] [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Chairwoman Foxx.. Thank you very much, Dr. Anderson. Ms. Del Balzo? STATEMENT OF MRS. MARY BETH DEL BALZO, SENIOR EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT AND CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER, THE COLLEGE OF WESTCHESTER, WHITE PLAINS, NEW YORK Mrs. Del Balzo. Chairwoman Foxx, Ranking Member Hinojosa, and distinguished members of the committee, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today about the College of Westchester. I am honored to represent CW because I am particularly proud of how we serve our students and our community. CW celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2015. We are a privately- owned, single-campus college in White Plains, New York with a steady enrollment of about 1,000 students. Curriculum includes campus-based and fully-online courses in business, allied health, digital media, and technology-- associate and baccalaureate degrees. We maintain vibrant relationships with the local and regional corporate community. A professional network of over 300 businesses regularly hire our grads. We sit on boards of local businesses, community, and education associations. The New York State Board of Regents and the Middle States Commission on Higher Education oversee our excellence. The College of Westchester is a proprietary college. We pay local property taxes and corporate income taxes in the state of New York and federally. Our graduates secure good jobs and become contributing taxpayers. CW serves both traditional students who just graduated from high school and nontraditional students, adults who may be coming back to college. Most come from families with need; many first-generation. Seventy-five percent of our students are Pell eligible and the vast majority receive assistance from New York State's Tuition Assistance Program known as TAP. As you know, Pell and TAP are awarded to students, not institutions, and we are honored that they select CW. Our students come from our community and continue to reside at their homes. CW does not offer dormitories. Our traditional students work an average of 10 to 30 hours per week, and our nontraditional students work at least full- time. CW does not have an open enrollment policy. We personally interview each prospective student, review their transcripts, and accept only qualified students who we feel can succeed. Here are some methods we employ to help low-income students graduate. All incoming students who test into noncredit basics of math may participate in a cost-free CW Summer Bridge program to help them improve their math skills and retest into higher- level credit bearing math classes. Out of 122 students, 117 were able to successfully do so this past summer. Another version of this program is called a CW Boot Camp, offered at intervals convenient to working people. CW's success coaching program assigns each student to a success coach who tracks the student's strengths and stressors through CW's campus toolkit. This comprehensive evaluation identifies students who will benefit from academic, financial, or employment counseling necessary for continued resilience. CW faculty and staff constantly evaluate students to identify those at risk through classwork, student interaction, attendance, resilience, and persistence, and refer appropriately. Adult students may have completed course work or obtained experience that should be considered as credits earned. CW's prior learning assessment program allows students to enter CW with credits from other colleges through standardized exams, high school and VOC E articulations for holding technology certifications, for military experience through our portfolio evaluation of life and career experiences. CW students do not study abroad; however, we recently began partnering with SUNY's collaborative online international learning initiative. Our recent program utilized class videoconferencing with students in Panama, and soon we will have a future group from Coventry, England. CW is working with the NewsActivist, a writing-based partnership that provides classes and students with opportunities for text-based international collaborations. In 2012, CW was selected to partner with Carnegie Mellon University and a small group of other colleges across the country in Carnegie Mellon's Open Learning Initiative to improve the success of college students in certain gateway courses. Five faculty and over 100 students participated. For 2 years, CW students have been accepted into the prestigious University of Pittsburgh's i3 Scholars Program. CW has become proactive in reducing textbook costs. Twenty-two courses replaced commercial textbooks in 2013. In my written comments, I offer several areas I would respectfully like the committee to consider during deliberations of the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, specifically year-round PELL and accurate data reporting and analysis through IPEDs reporting. We believe strongly that Congress and the Department of Education should judge institutions on the basis of how well they serve students and not on other considerations such as their tax status. As you know, the Department of Education is dictating a new regulation called Gainful Employment, which will result in the closure of programs that don't meet an arbitrary metric that measures student debt versus income. If enacted as proposed, the Gainful Employment regulation would introduce a complicated regulatory formula that is hard to understand and does not accomplish its goals. There is a lot of work to be done. Thank you so much for this opportunity to testify before you this morning, and I welcome any questions you may have. [The statement of Mrs. Del Balzo follows:] [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Chairwoman Foxx.. Thank you very much. Mr. Garrido, you are recognized for five minutes. STATEMENT OF MR. JOSSE ALEX GARRIDO, GRADUATE STUDENT, UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS-PAN AMERICAN, EDINBURG, TEXAS Mr. Garrido. Chairwoman Foxx, ranking member Hinojosa, and members of the subcommittee, I want to thank you very much for being here. This is a very exciting moment for me. This is the first time I am testifying before you, and I am very nervous, but I am very happy. My parents brought me here to the United States hoping for a better life. Unfortunately, they were basically cheated away by a bad immigration attorney and the whole law firm disappeared just a few weeks after they gave this immigration attorney all the things they had. I attended high school here in the United States, and thanks to my counselor, my high school counselor, I was able to take advantage of several afterschool programs and several education tracks. I was able to basically take several advanced placement classes, and I was able to enroll in a community college just to take some basic credits. It was very sad when I realized that I wasn't going to be able to go to college. Thanks to my counselor--she told me about the Texas law, which thanks to Rick Perry allows students without status to basically attend the university paying in- state tuition. Working part-time, working several small odd jobs I was able to graduate with honors without a debt, of course. I didn't have a Social Security back then, so I was not able to get any loans or any kinds of scholarships. I started my non-profit back when I was in my undergrad. I was very active in the effort to pass the Dream Act back in 2010. Unfortunately back then it didn't pass. Actually, the day it failed in the Senate was the very day of my graduation. It failed in the Senate on Monday--it failed in the Senate on December 18 and it was in the morning. In the afternoon it was my graduation. Thanks to the Morton memos and an extraordinary immigration attorney, I was able to move to Houston, finish a certification in web design, and learn on my own HTML5, CSS3, Ruby, Javascript, PHP, and WordPress application development. Thanks to that, I started working for one of the best web design firms in Houston. After that I started my own company with the help of my best friend. Today, my web design firm, alexwebmaster.com, has two employees and a manager and a portfolio of over 90 clients in plastic surgery, real estate, e-commerce, psychology, and many other markets. We provide strategic social media marketing and search engine optimization along with innovative web design and mobile-friendly design. My background caught the attention of the UTPA director of continuing education, and she invited me to teach digital marketing and web design classes at the University of Texas-Pan American. Today, I could not be happier. I live with an extraordinary woman in a beautiful 5-room house, I proudly pay my taxes, and I love my country. I am currently working on my masters in information technology. I do not manage my own company right now because I essentially got recruited away from it because right now I am helping the Office of Graduate Studies at the University of Texas Pan American with their online and international marketing efforts. Along with some friends in the MSIT program and the computer science program, I am working on an application to document your life using Google Glass. Hopefully we can submit it to Google and get it approved. I was one of the first people to be selected by Google to have this kind of technology. I am very fortunate to live in Texas because of the help of all the college preparation programs that I was able to take. Because of all of the help of my counselor and family members and friends and the Texas Dream Act and the leadership from our President, and the benefits of attending one of the most affordable universities in the United States, I am who I am today. I think that there is a lot of hidden talent in minority and low-income students; all it takes for many of them to shine is an opportunity. So today I am asking you to please provide us an opportunity, increase funding. It is really hard when you are a first-generation student to attend college. For example, my parents didn't see the value of going to college, so I guess--I just want to thank you so much. This is a wonderful opportunity, and I guess I yield my time. [The statement of Mr. Garrido follows:] [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Chairwoman Foxx.. Thank you very much. I now recognize father Dennis Holtschneider for five minutes. STATEMENT OF REV. DENNIS H. HOLTSCHNEIDER, PRESIDENT, DEPAUL UNIVERSITY, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS Rev Holtschneider. Thank you. Chairwoman Foxx, Ranking Member Hinojosa, and distinguished members of this subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to appear today. In respect for our limited time, you will find more detail and additional suggestions for reauthorization of the Higher Education Act in my written testimony. With 25,000 students, DePaul University is the largest private university in the Midwest. We serve a broad swath of society, but we direct all of our financial aid towards undergraduates who are from first-generation families, low- income qualifying for the Pell Grant, or students of color for underrepresented groups. They are 53 percent of this year's freshman class, and they graduate in impressive numbers. To serve them well we keep our class sizes small. We are constantly trying new approaches. We recently shifted all of our remedial coursework to the summer before college and made it free of charge if the students shifted with it, but we charged them if they waited until the fall in order to keep them on track with their colleagues so they moved toward graduation. That has worked beautifully. We implemented a mentoring program for men of color, which now has a higher graduation rate than the student body at large. We completely redesigned gateway courses. Those are the courses like organic chemistry and calculus where students take the course, fail, and they drop out of college. We literally redesigned those courses based on what the students told us. We added supplemental instruction. We substantially upgraded advising, changing how it works. We have now become the top private transfer institution in the United States to enable students to spend two years before they come to DePaul and to be able to have a less expensive education. We are also among the top 10 providers in the United States for professional internships. All in service of helping them succeed not only in college but helping them succeed in life. Our focus on educational opportunity also finds expression in our TRIO programs. We host two TRIO programs at DePaul, Student Support Services and McNair Scholars, and we supplement them extensively with our own funds. These programs work. Our latest graduation rate for Student Support Services students was over 80 percent, 10 percentage points above the institutional average, 80 percent of our McNair students are going to graduate school within 3 years to some of the finest graduate schools in America. TRIO programs in our experience have an outsize effect, and we know firsthand their value. That said, my colleagues and I also believe that TRIO could be improved in the next reauthorization cycle. First, we ask that TRIO eligibility regulations be simplified. Rather than making every university in the country independently review the net taxable income for each TRIO student or their families of origin, TRIO eligibility should simply follow Pell eligibility. If a student has already been certified as sufficiently poor to be eligible for Pell funding, it would greatly simplify the administration of these programs if that designation also made them eligible for TRIO programs. That would allow us to apply the TRIO funds to student support rather than cause us to assign lengthy staff hours toward needless administrative work. Second, while TRIO program regulations technically permit collaboration between TRIO programs and other educational opportunity programs inside our institutions, it is our experience at least with respect to student support services that the regulation prohibiting comingling of funds discourages institutions from any significant collaboration internally. Moreover, extensive reporting requirements deter institutions from creating programs that would serve larger numbers of students. There is simply so much paperwork in the reporting requirements that universities have created standalone programs that serve small, discrete numbers of students and they can be more easily reported according to the requirements. Third, there appears to be little incentive for TRIO programs to collaborate their activities across institutions. There are 50 or so TRIO programs in the Chicago region alone, community agencies, colleges, schools . . . I have no doubt they are doing good work individually, but working together, Chicago universities could partner more easily with high school Upward Bound and Talent Search programs offering students real pathway programs that ease their transition to college. Just as importantly, we could create ways to assess the collective impact of TRIO. For now, however, we work independently. That is a shame. All that said, TRIO works beautifully at DePaul. I pray it remains at the heart of our national commitments to every student, and I thank you for your time. [The statement of Rev. Holtschneider follows:] [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Chairwoman Foxx. Thank you very much. I would now like to recognize our members for five minutes of questioning. Mrs. Brooks, I recognize you as our first member. Mrs. Brooks. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Hello to the panel. Thank you so very much for being here. I actually, before coming to Congress, was a part of our state's community college system and Ivy Tech Community College in Indiana. Just last week when we were home, I convened a higher ed listening session of a huge number of institutions within our state. We had quite a discussion about higher ed reauthorization. An overarching theme that I heard from the administrators, including college presidents who attended, was that we need to have much more focus on the success of the students once they enroll. It was their belief that there has been a huge amount of progress in access, but yet once they get to the doors of the institution there are all of these impediments, and we have not had a very high success rate in this country on graduation and on completion. And so I just thank you all particularly for highlighting the programs that have been so effective in your institutions. Actually, Dr. Anderson, you brought up something that came up in my discussion last week and if you could talk a little bit more about the problem in this country, because we now have about 57 percent of all people going to college are females, which is a fabulous thing, but we are not focusing enough on the male students. Could you just talk a little bit more about the issue of males continuing on in college and their success? I would like to also ask you a bit about TRIO, Reverend Holtschneider, in a moment. If you could talk about your program, Dr. Anderson, with respect to the focus, the under-representation of males on our college campuses. Mr. Anderson. Sure. In identifying that group as a targeted population, we recognized that there had to be a significant commitment to both access and success for that group. All of the data nationally indicates that, and there are many good programs. As you heard, DePaul has one, and we have one also. The students have to learn to understand the culture of college when they first get there. Many are under-skilled, and so you have to put them into courses where faculty understand the level of readiness that they have and often that means that you have to train faculty and have a faculty development component to deal with these students. You must make sure that your best tutors, your best advisors, your best mentors are associated with the program, and by the way, they don't have to be males. Some of the most significant advisors and mentors on our campus are females; staff, faculty, and upper-class students. The students themselves have to be held to very high standards, and so the progression standards that we have created as a university as students move from semester to semester apply to them because if you don't hold them to high academic standards, they won't aspire to those standards. You must have a good assessment component to make sure that you can track how well these students are doing and where you draw the students from. I mentioned early college high schools, for example. Some of our students come from early college high schools. Some students come from the CHEER program. So they enter the university already having come from a pipeline that is very strong, and if you can have that strong pipeline--we have a very strong GEAR UP program, for example. Our GEAR UP program is one of the most successful in the country and sending students to the university as under- represented males but coming from a strong pipeline strengthens their chance of successes as opposed to just coming in as entering freshmen and having to start anew. Mrs. Brooks. Have you found that all of the different funding streams that are available cause the incredible amount of compliance work that we have heard about, and can you address that with respect to this population of students? Mr. Anderson. Sure. One of the hindrances has been the fact that when the reauthorization occurred in 2008, the institutions that got the designation of being PBI, Predominantly Black Institutions and who were not historically black institutions, they have been afforded the chance to use Title III funds for certain things that we can't, and many of the things that we would like to use Title III funds for would benefit this population. So one of our requests representing all HBCUs is that we go back and look at that 2008 reauthorization. You have, for example, PBIs that used to be historically black institutions, now are predominately white but may have a significant number of African-American or Hispanic students. They are allowed to utilize Title III in ways that historically black institutions can't, so we can do more with our minority males in our under-represented male program if we were allowed, for example, to utilize some of those funds. Mrs. Brooks. Thank you. And I have a very short period of time, but Reverend Holtschneider--yes, I am sorry. My time is up. I yield back. Mr. Anderson. I am sorry. Chairwoman Foxx.. You can always speak to Father Holtschneider and get something from him after the hearing. Mrs. Brooks. Thank you. Chairwoman Foxx.. Thank you. Mr. Hinojosa, I recognize you for five minutes. Mr. Hinojosa. Thank you. It is wonderful to have such great panelists here on this subject that is so important to us here in Congress and help us prepare for reauthorization of Higher Education Act. I will start my first question for Alex Garrido. Briefly, could you describe your experience as a first- generation college student within your family and in college? Mr. Garrido. Well, basically it was very hard, very hard because my parents didn't recognize the value of attending college, and I couldn't have done it without the help of my school counselor, and she guided me through all of these programs through the GEAR UP program, through personal coaching, through personal guidance. I think it was essential that I got that help from her. Mr. Hinojosa. What did GEAR UP teach you that made you college ready? Mr. Garrido. It inspired me to go to college. It opened a window of opportunity. It just made me dream of a better life. Mr. Hinojosa. Thank you. Briefly how did Texas Dream Act make it possible for you to attend college? Mr. Garrido. I couldn't have gone to college without the Texas Dream Act. Back then I didn't have status, and for undocumented students, usually they have to pay as international students, which the tuition rate is usually as you may know sometimes twice or three times higher than regular tuition. So the Texas Dream Act allowed me to pay in-state tuition, and Rick Perry is my hero for passing the Texas Dream Act. Mr. Hinojosa. Could you talk about your job perspectives coming out of graduate school and the financial impact that the Dream Act has had on your life? Mr. Garrido. Basically because I have such a large portfolio, and I work for so many different companies, I get job offers I think at least twice per week. Vice presidents from companies, IT companies in Houston, in Dallas, they are constantly calling me and they are constantly trying to recruit me, but my main goal is to finish my Masters in Information Technology and hopefully work for a large corporation such as Google or Microsoft. Mr. Hinojosa. A 2010 UCLA study that we saw estimated that the total earnings of all Dream Act beneficiaries would be between $1.4 trillion and $3.6 trillion. Do you agree with that, and how many students are there at your university who would fall into this group? Mr. Garrido. Back in 2010, we had 603 students. I don't know the specific number right now at my university, but yes. We are used to dealing with hardships. We are used to dealing with difficult circumstances. We are used to having to overcome a lot of obstacles. We know we are not entitled to anything, and we risk it. We go and take chances because we already have nothing, so anything that we can get, anything that we can do, we do it. Dreamers usually have an entrepreneurial spirit. I started my own non-profit even back when I didn't have a status, so I think that shows what we can do in terms of contributing to this country. Mr. Hinojosa. Thank you. Dr. Anderson, I agree with my colleague from Indiana, Susan Brooks, in the need to address the falling percentage of males going to the University. I think that today 60 percent of all of the students attending universities are female. How did GEAR UP and TRIO help you move those numbers up and graduation rate as was pointed out? Mr. Anderson. Well, one of the things that we, when we talk to GEAR UP, we talk to them about really defining their outcome so that they were measurable. Some of the TRIO programs, while they serve a great mission, aren't as focused on measurable outcomes. We wanted to be able to say that the impact of GEAR UP is X or Y or Z. So as we talked to the leaders of the GEAR UP program, we made sure that they aligned their outcomes with the university's outcomes and expectations. Therefore, it was a seamless transition for the students because they were in a program where all of the activities were built around things that were measurable, good metrics. In fact, the assessment plan for our GEAR UP program is often held up to other GEAR UP programs when they apply, and they are told to look at our assessment model. Mr. Hinojosa. Did you include the importance of financial literacy at the GEAR UP programs so that they could make good choices and good decisions as to how they were going to get financing? Mr. Anderson. Absolutely. And not just in GEAR UP but all of the TRIO programs you will find that one of the significant weaknesses is the students and the parents understanding of what the debt to go to college really entails, so financial literacy training and all related training is important, is critical. Mr. Hinojosa. Thank you. I yield back. Chairwoman Foxx.. Thank you, Mr. Hinojosa. Mr. Walberg, you are recognized for five minutes. Mr. Walberg. I thank the chairwoman. I thank the panel for being here today. Ms. Del Balzo, I know from my background, having been in my field of endeavor for a number of years and then going back to Wheaton College Graduate School, the experience that I had was taken into consideration by Wheaton at the time and allowed me as a husband and a father of two at that time to have some efficiency built into my graduate school studies and be given credit for experience. At Westchester, how do you account for the experience of a person who comes not necessarily in a graduate study but coming to a bachelor's degree program from a field of endeavor for some time, experience in what they are doing, and now coming back for some training to allow them to progress further? What does the College of Westchester do? Mrs. Del Balzo. We do a number of things as most colleges do, I think. Our prior learning assessment encompasses a lot of different areas. One of them is obviously through credits earned possibly at another college. We assess those if they are pertinent to their degree at the College of Westchester through standardized exams such as CLEP, UExcel, ECE, international baccalaureate exams, sometimes early college high school credits, and VOC E articulations. Those are students who study career-specific coursework in their high schools, for holding technology certifications such as A+, CCNA, Adobe, Microsoft office specialists that would correspond to courses that we offer at the college. Also-- Mr. Walberg. If I could just jump in there-- Mrs. Del Balzo. Sure. Mr. Walberg.--With that list, extensive list, how do you communicate that to students, potential students, how do you communicate that this is a school that will take into consideration life experience, past courses, you name it? Mrs. Del Balzo. It starts in the admissions counseling prior to a student making a decision about whether they should attend, especially an adult because their time is so limited. I was an adult student as well, and I understand that. We explain all of those things. We have materials that we can review with them in the personal interview that we do with each student, and make it super clear. And then we also guide them through the process of taking those standardized exams or reviewing their life experience credits or their military experience through our listing. Mr. Walberg. I understand as well that you give no-cost remedial courses for students who come to the College of Westchester. How many new students participate in some of these courses, and how does it affect their financial aid? Mrs. Del Balzo. Yes. It affects their financial aid significantly because--well, this past summer we identified 122 students in the incoming freshman class, and 117 of them didn't have to take the basics of math course. They were able to test into the higher level. If they had taken the basics, they would have had to pay out-of-pocket for that because it is not covered through their financial aid. We do that with adult students as well. I don't have the statistics on it, but we offer, to them, to adult students at times that are convenient for them to take what is called ``Boot Camp'' for adults. Mr. Walberg. Thank you. Reverend Holtschneider, can you tell me about the remedial courses that DePaul offers to new students prior to the start of their academic career? Rev Holtschneider. We took our lead from the research done by Cliff Adelman here at the Department of Education and realized that if we could keep students tracked with their freshman classmates they had a better chance of succeeding going through. So we basically took all of the remedial classes, put them the summer before, and made them free if they took them the summer before. That is actually financially a wise move as well because they will stay with you longer as students and you will make it up later, frankly, as a business model. But frankly, it creates a higher graduation rate as a humane model and helps students stay on track. So we try to push them into the summer where we put the courses for free, but if they wait until the fall we charge them. And that is the incentive so that they get on track and then they stay on track going forward. It is working beautifully. Their graduation rates are much higher than they used to be. Mr. Walberg. I suppose it also shows their drive of wanting to compete on a college campus like yours. Thank you so much. I know my time is about up. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Chairwoman Foxx.. Thank you very much. Mr. Bishop, you are recognized for five minutes. Mr. Bishop. Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thank you for holding this hearing. To the panel, thank you for the work that you are engaged in. It is very impressive. Mr. Garrido, your story is an inspiration. I thank you very much for being here with us today. I guess my first question is an idea that is gaining a fair amount of currency around here is the idea of simplifying the student financial aid program such that we would have one grant and one loan program. The grant presumably would be the Pell grant, the loan presumably would be the direct loan program and by implication that would eliminate the campus-based programs that are operated under Title IV for a great many years. My question is what impact, if any, would a simplification of the student financial aid program such that we were down to one grant and one loan have on your ability to both attract and retain low-income students? Dr. Anderson, may I start with you? Mr. Anderson. Yes. First of all, it would streamline the process. So at the university level we would be able to respond faster. We would probably have more applicants to the institution and for financial aid. I am going to say that sometimes financial aid application fatigue occurs among certain parents and student groups simply because it is such a complicated process to them. I constantly am responding to letters and phone calls about people who have difficulty with that process. So streamlining the process, increasing the number of applicants, and encouraging in an incentive-based way parents and students to understand it is easier to get into the educational pipeline than they had thought all would be very critical. Mr. Bishop. At the risk of being argumentative, there is not now a separate application for SEOG. There is not now a separate application for college work-study or for Perkins. The student files the FAFSA, and that is it. I thank you for your assessment. Father Holtschneider, could you comment on this? Rev Holtschneider. The same question? Mr. Bishop. What impact would this have on your students? Rev Holtschneider. Well, the simplification of course is always attractive in its own right. Many of my students rely on Work Study greatly. A number of my students rely on SEOG. A number of my students rely on Perkins. I didn't come prepared today to give you an exact analysis about it-- Mr. Bishop. I am not asking for one. Rev Holtschneider.--but I can tell you I certainly have a number of students that have relied and that has been a reason for their success along the way. These have been programs that have been very helpful. Mr. Bishop. Thank you. If I could just stay with DePaul for a second, what is your institutional discount rate? Rev Holtschneider. The institution discount rate would be somewhere--it depends of course if you are--what you put in that, so different schools report that differently, but we would be in the mid-20s, somewhere along there. Mr. Bishop. And I hear you correctly that all of your institutional aid is granted on the basis of demonstrated need? That you don't engage in merit-based student financial aid? Is that correct? Rev Holtschneider. That is correct although we do have talent aid for our school of music for students studying opera, et cetera and our school theater. There would be talent aid in those cases, but generally, for the institution, we put our aid towards need. Mr. Bishop. Just one more question. Mrs. Del Balzo, you made a comment about gainful employment, and we all understand how very contentious and controversial gainful employment is. I guess my question is the federal government spends about $145 billion a year on student financial aid programs. And what gainful employment is, imperfect to be sure, is an effort on the part of the federal government to make some assessment of whether that money is being properly allocated and whether there is a return on investment, if you will. So I guess my question to you is if gainful employment isn't it, and by the way, perfectly reasonable position if gainful employment isn't it, what metrics would be best used to determine whether the federal government is in fact getting a return on its investments? Mrs. Del Balzo. Yes, thank you, Mr. Bishop. There is a metric already in place--the student default measurement that has been in place for many years--and we found this one to be a good measurement of student success. We also internally measure our student job placement in the field, so that is the other metric that we use, but from a federal perspective, I think the default rate measurement is a sound one. Mr. Bishop. Thank you very much. Mrs. Del Balzo. Thank you. Chairwoman Foxx.. Thank you, Mr. Bishop. Ms. Bonamici, I recognize you for five minutes. Ms. Bonamici. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman. Thank you to our panel. I want to join Congresswoman Brooks and the statement about the importance of retention as well as getting students into the school. Later this week or soon I plan to introduce the Pay It Forward College Affordability Act. This is a new college financing model. It sets up a framework to cover students' college tuition and mandatory fees upfront and then students, once they graduate, will pay back to the fund a percentage of their income for a set period of time. So current students will draw from the program fund while they are in school and then of course contribute into or pay forward once they graduate. My home state of Oregon is studying this model. We will be hearing from the stakeholders as they examine the proposal to address the rising costs of higher education. So I want to ask Dr. Anderson and Father Holtschneider, do you see potential in this sort of a departure from the traditional way of thinking? And also, can these ideas be explored without some state and federal funding to get them going? Dr. Anderson? And I do want to save time for another question. Mr. Anderson. Absolutely, and I would support it. However, I would say we would have to make sure that we have very select and stringent criteria. For example, we want to make sure that time-to-degree--that students and parents understand that if you are getting the support upfront--that we expect that time- to-degree will be cut off at a certain point. We also expect that progression standards be applied, that students have to meet the progression standards implemented by the institution to move from semester to semester and that these be held to higher expectations. Again, that is an incentive-based model. It is an entrepreneurial model. And I think it has validity especially at a time in North Carolina where we have declining state support and we expect to see it--we have had it for four years, we expect to see it for another two years perhaps. So it would be critical to have another option like that. Ms. Bonamici. Thank you. Father Holtschneider? Rev Holtschneider. I would welcome it as a model to be tested because I watch--as I am sure you have seen--students choose career paths based on whether they can pay back the loans that they have taken on, and so I have watched students choose not to go into teaching. I have watched them choose more highly remunerated law careers than perhaps public service law careers. You watch those choices being made all the time and if they could do something that created a way to pay back that with respect to that, it might have a nice effect. Ms. Bonamici. Thank you. I appreciate that. That is one of the benefits. Thank you very much. Recently, the administration identified four key areas to address if we are really to increase college opportunities for low-income students. And one of those key areas is to reduce inequalities in college advising and test preparation, which is a welcome change. I want to mention a couple of models. Oregon Institute of Technology, Oregon Tech, is partnering with local high schools to provide mentoring and advising and they actually are using a personalized text messaging system to encourage students especially to get them involved in STEM. They got a little shout-out at the White House recently for that program. And also the Oregon Student Access Commission runs a program called ASPIRE, which is Access to Student Assistance Programs in Reach of Everyone. So they go into school sites, they have about 145 sites now and about 1,500 trained volunteers. It is available to all students and it is a mentoring program that works one-on-one with the students to provide them with college and career options, admission and financial aid information. That is a great program but sustainability and scaling up is really important, so can you discuss the importance of this type of mentoring and the potential there to provide students with--and if you have any other ideas-to provide them with that one-on-one counseling that they need, especially as K-12 budgets have been cut and high school counselors are really overworked. I would like to hear maybe from Mrs. Del Balzo and Mr. Garrido first and then the others if there is time. Mrs. Del Balzo. Thank you, Ms. Bonamici. At the College of Westchester we don't have a formal program besides the Success Coaching in place and that is really because each student does have an academic advisor. That is their first point, and from there they are referred out to appropriate places whether it is financial aid counseling, mental health counseling. In addition to that, the success coaching program that is in their first semester is there to really help students get through those gateway courses that we have all been mentioning this morning that are the most critical. Ms. Bonamici. And can you address--we need to get to the students while they are in high school to make sure that they are getting information they need to apply. Mrs. Del Balzo. We have--I am sorry-- Ms. Bonamici. I just want to hear from Mr. Garrido. Do you have ideas about how to reach students while they are in high school to get them all of the information they need? Mr. Garrido. Peer mentoring could be very, very beneficial. My counselor actually connected me to a student who was already in a program that I wanted to be in, so that was very beneficial. Ms. Bonamici. I see my time has expired. I would like to hear from the others perhaps in writing after. Thank you. I yield back. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Chairwoman Foxx.. I would now like to recognize Ms. Wilson for five minutes. Ms. Wilson. Thank you, Madam Chair, for this opportunity. I founded a program in Miami-Dade County, the fourth largest school district in the nation, 20 years ago, and the purpose of the project was to make sure that African-American boys got the opportunity to go to college because too many of them grow up believing that they do not deserve the rewards of life. For others, they feel beaten down by low expectations and an onslaught of degrading stereotypes. They learn to see themselves as society sees them, not as real men, but as caricatures of men whose only chance for success lies in violence and crime. Many of us will say, ``Well, that is the responsibility of the parents.'' I agree that parents should be responsible for their children, but what happens to the children who have no parents or who have not even a grandpa or an uncle to show them the way? So the 5,000 Role Models of Excellence Project is a group of men from the community, thousands of them, who are trained in how to raise and train young boys how to become men. Our main goal is to send them to college, so they are on a college track from elementary school through middle school through high school. It is a huge bonding where all of them wear the same uniform. People know who they are. We have a strong partnership with our community college. They are trained. They visit the college campuses. They are in school every summer leading up to college, so they understand what college is all about. They receive scholarships from our HBCUs, Florida Memorial, Bathune-Cookman. We train them and teach them how to apply for the Bill Gates Scholarships, STEM scholarships, so all of them are ready. We work with our state attorney, our public defender, every hospital, every police department, colleges and universities, our jails, our prisons, our school counselors, our judges. We even work with inmates to help them and parole officers and parole boards. We work with all of our philanthropists and the business community, and our community believes when you lift up these boys you lift everyone up. As so we engage them in all kinds of activities. They have been to Washington, D.C. They go to Tallahassee every year, which is our state capital. We expose them to museums and to art and to ballet. We take them everywhere. Remember, there are 8,000 of them. They start in elementary school and they are in the program as a result of either a parent or a principal or a counselor recommends them for the program. We have a waiting list of course. We have different counties who want this program. We have another one in Pinellas County. These children are trained through a specific curriculum. We teach them how to solve a conflict without resorting to violence. We teach them etiquette and leadership training. We teach them how to react to the police. There is a common thread that there is this tension between African-American boys and the police. We teach them how they are to respond if stopped by the police. The police officers are all involved in it. I want you to see the list. This is a copy of the last class that received their scholarships on Martin Luther King's birthday. They will be going to college. This is not all of them. These are the ones that our foundation will be sending. Many of them will be going by way of the Bill Gates Scholarships, STEM Scholarships, Florida A&M, Bathune-Cookman, and of course our community colleges are waiting for them. Everyone is begging. How do we get more African-American boys, men into teaching? How do we get them into the classrooms? How do we get them so that they can help these little boys who are going astray stay on the right track? I believe my time is up, and I don't want to-- Chairwoman Foxx.. Thank you, Ms. Wilson, for talking about that extraordinary program. We appreciate it. I am now going to use my time to ask some questions of the panel members. Mrs. Del Balzo, tell us a little bit about how the College of Westchester uses its partnerships with local businesses to improve course and program offerings for your students. Mrs. Del Balzo. Thank you, Dr. Foxx. We do that in a number of ways. We have been around for such a long time in the local community that we have many, many partnerships with companies. They hire our graduates upon graduation. We have a very robust internship program with a number of our course work and programs at the college. They mentor our students. They come in and they review classwork in particular courses that are appropriate, so those are the major ways. Chairwoman Foxx.. Thank you. Father Holtschneider, can you talk a little bit about the career counseling services that DePaul offers to its students? How do you coordinate with local businesses to address their workforce needs? Rev Holtschneider. Well, a couple of ways. Number one, we are surrounded by Chicago. We are in the middle of Chicago. We also, as you just heard a moment ago, have been there well over 100 years. We partner very closely. We also turn to our alumni in all of those businesses to give students a shot in internships. You heard a few moments ago that we are top 10 in the nation now for internships. At any given moment, we have 4,000 students in an internship, and we use Chicago to do that. And that is a powerful way to get them employed. You don't want them to wait until after they graduate to start building the Rolodex or to be looking out there when people, they could already be building those early. That is first and foremost. Secondly, we have all of the traditional counselors to help people and assist them as they pull together resumes, practice their skills in interviewing, all of the things that no one has actually taught them and that they can learn in those things. So there is a great deal of mentoring that goes on with the various groups and the university at large. That is also somewhat college-specific. We create offices that are very specialized for some of the colleges to help them in their search as well. Chairwoman Foxx.. Thank you very much. I want to do a quick follow up. What was the impetus for DePaul supplementing the TRIO programs with initiatives of your own? What brought you-- Rev Holtschneider. The name St. Vincent de Paul over our door. Our brand is poverty. That is what he gave his life to, and as an institution we wouldn't be honoring that name, frankly, if we weren't caring about students who need these opportunities. Frankly, being true to the name over the door. But also, frankly, the need of the students who present themselves to us. We have far more students that can be accommodated with the allotment we have through the TRIO programs and so we try to put our own money towards them. Sometimes it is because the TRIO programs are somewhat narrowly construed and we want to be a little bit broader. So, with regard to McNair, McNair is designed so that we can get students of color, under-represented students into the classroom as professors, to move them all the way to their Ph.D. But it doesn't enable students from those backgrounds to go into medicine or into law, so we created wraparound programs that would work beyond the structures of McNair so that we can serve a broader number of students. Chairwoman Foxx.. Dr. Anderson, I was very appreciative of your emphasis on the need for measurable outcomes in these programs. I have known about Fayetteville State's Upward Bound Special Services Programs since I was an Upward Bound Special Services director at Appalachian State. Would you talk a little bit about the extensive data analysis initiative that you have and how you use that data to increase student achievement? Mr. Anderson. Sure. I am an assessment, evidence-based driven person, and one of the things that I instituted when I came to the institution was that anyone who submits a request for funding at the institution must have an accompanying assessment plan, or we won't even read your application. So it is pretty understood that if you create the mindset at the institution that assessment is important, that measurable outcomes and especially learning outcomes if you are talking about learning, are what is critical, people will understand that and in and of itself it becomes an incentive- driven model. So we have tried to make that university-wide. So in the case of support programs, one of the things I like to really mention is that it behooves the leadership at HBCUs to identify external revenue streams to fund these support programs to underrepresented groups when they don't have state-or grant- related funding, and both are declining. So we have to go out and find more support for these programs, but to get that support, we must say to the programs and to the program directors, ``You must demonstrate to us that you really understand how to measure impact and that you must show an assessment plan.'' Chairwoman Foxx.. Thank you very much. Again, I hope your message gets through to a lot of other programs. Mr. Miller? Mr. Miller. Mrs. Davis? Chairwoman Foxx.. Mrs. Davis? Mrs. Davis, you are recognized for five minutes. I am sorry. I got a different message. Mrs. Davis. Mr. Miller has graciously-- Mr. Miller. [Off mike.] Mrs. Davis. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Miller. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Garrido, I want to thank you for being here and for the role that you play really in showing everybody what the possibilities are. That is very important. One of the things that we know though is in California where we have the Dream Act as well as Texas is that many students either don't learn about it or even if they do they don't apply and therefore we have scholarships really going wanting or opportunities going wanting I think for students. How do you react to that? Did you have a lot of outreach? You obviously were a self-starter and you were able to reach out and get some of that information, but what do you see is the issue and the problem with trying to really connect young people who are eligible with the program? Mr. Garrido. Unfortunately, we dreamers usually have to live in fear, and it is that fear, that fear is the barrier that stops many dreamers from actually reaching out to counselors and opening up to counselors. I think one of the reasons why I was able to go to college and find out about the Texas Dream Act was because I was very open with my counselor. She already knew my situation, but she was very quiet. She was waiting for me to approach her and explain my circumstances back then. So I think dissipating myths will be something very important to do, something that we really need to focus on if we want more dreamers to become success stories. Mrs. Davis. Are you suggesting that perhaps the education for counselors, for teachers, for individuals significant to the students somehow suggest to them to be careful about identifying students--they obviously need to be able to play a role here. Tell us a little bit more about what you think--as a student, perhaps--you were comfortable being approached, but a lot of students are not and some of those lines that people worry about crossing. Mr. Garrido. Perhaps providing additional training for school counselors on how to deal with these kinds of circumstances and these situations. In my honest opinion, lowering down the anger, rhetoric, and hateful comments at the national level will help a great deal. It will help us feel a little bit more comfortable approaching other people about our circumstances because it is something--we didn't choose to violate laws. We got caught up in the situation. Mrs. Davis. Do you think a new immigration reform bill that addressed some of these concerns would be helpful? Would that make a difference in terms of students, and how do you think that would make a difference? Mr. Garrido. Of course. That is the ultimate goal. That is the ultimate dream of everybody. Comprehensive immigration reform will definitely solve all of these issues and will kick start, in my opinion, the economy. As the congressional budget office reported back in 2010, if comprehensive immigration reform is passed, especially in the section for dreamers, we can contribute significantly to the U.S. economy. Mrs. Davis. Yes. Thank you very much. One of the programs that we are aware of certainly in the San Diego area and I think in California is GEAR UP and the opportunity for students to be connected early in the middle school years. We have seen a pretty dramatic gain in terms of Latino graduation particularly from 31 percent to 58 percent. I don't know if you all want to comment. I think one of the things we are aware of is that programs work when people in that community are committed to that program. There may be all kinds of gradations of how they do it, but the commitment is what is critical. There was a program actually I think it was on 60 Minutes this weekend, about students working within companies early-- well, the preparation for that was strong and then they could move in and they could see the relevance. Are there other programs? Is GEAR UP one? Are there other programs where you think trying to help young people see that relevance of the work that they are doing and really how tremendously capable they are even if they have gotten a different message? Father? Rev Holtschneider. The great insight of course with the TRIO programs that grew from their initial three to now eight was that money wasn't enough, that money was key for many students, that the Pell was absolutely key, but it wasn't enough and that there had to be interventions along the way. That is why it became an across-the-aisle set of agreements over the years when it first started to think about what are the interventions that are key in these young people's lives. There are certainly far more students that take advantage of it. Certainly there are best practices along the way. There are programs that you can always point to that are perhaps not living their potential. I think that the initial inspiration is still valid, that throwing money at the problem is not enough for many of these young people because they are first-generation, because they don't have the resources around them to succeed, that there needs to be some targeted interventions at moments that make all the difference. Mrs. Davis. Thank you. My time is up. Thank you, Madam Chair. Chairwoman Foxx.. Thank you. I recognize the chairman of the committee, Mr. Kline, for five minutes. Mr. Kline. Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to thank the witnesses for being here, for your testimony. I apologize. You have noticed, we come and go here, and I am sure that sometimes that is upsetting as we have other hearings or perhaps we are on the floor making impassioned speeches and so forth. Thank you for being here, for your testimony. Father Holtschneider, I want to talk a little bit more about TRIO if I could. You have made suggestion that the TRIO regulations be simplified as I understand it. How would that improve the student support services on campus if we were to do that? Rev Holtschneider. I have talked about it very specifically in terms of eligibility, to begin. Right now I have staff that are just dedicated to determining the eligibility first on family and individual tax status for that program. It is in my opinion a duplication of work that could easily already be covered by the work that was done, whether they were Pell-eligible in the first place. So why couldn't we be taking the funds that are just being used to determine eligibility at each university across the nation for each student individually and put that to better use either in the support services that are provided to themselves rather than I think needless administration? Mr. Kline. We are very much in favor, at least some of us, of simplification of rules and regulations and trying to get actual outcomes and not just be caught up in paperwork. We have addressed that issue a number of times in different pieces of legislation here, so I am interested in trying to make that work better. The TRIO program is one of those that has had pretty good bipartisan support. It reaches a student body that needs the help, and it has been pretty well-recognized, but as in anything it can get sort of complicated. What are the specific services that your TRIO staff is connecting students with? What does that mean to you? What are these services? Rev Holtschneider. The challenge of course is there are eight TRIO programs, one of which is just a training program, so it is really seven, and they would have individual answers to your question. The ones that are true at my university are the Student Support Services program and then McNair. McNair, I spoke about a moment ago, is for training people to go into and become professors and Ph.D.-level qualified. Student Support Services is much larger. That is everything from getting people mentoring because they really need someone around them to show them how this all works and to encourage them along some of the initial challenges. These are programs for selective tutoring when a student is finding something that is a challenge. These are programs that introduce people to college itself and how it works and how you succeed and build those kind of short-term training pieces into it. There are a number of pieces to help people who might be defeated by the complexity of the college system or some of the challenges for which they weren't prepared in their schooling to actually succeed when they suddenly have to rise to this level. It is a large panoply of different programs. Mr. Kline. You can see the excitement when you go and you visit a campus--I haven't visited yours, but in my district when you talk with people who work in the TRIO program and you talk to students. We would like to see it succeed. We are going to continue to pursue this idea of making it simpler. Madam Chair, I yield back. Thank you. Chairwoman Foxx.. Thank you very much. I now recognize the ranking member of the committee, Mr. Miller. Mr. Miller. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman. Thank you for holding this hearing, and for the witnesses, for your time and your expertise. Reverend Holtschneider, let me thank you very much. Every time I meet with people from DePaul it sort of lightens the day up, your commitment to students from low-income families is just remarkable and how you have managed to patch together this system so that they can complete their education and the support that you provide them. I deeply appreciate it. Rev Holtschneider. Thank you. Mr. Miller. I want to ask a question, and it may not apply to the private university but if you have thoughts on it--I want to begin first of all with Alex Garrido. Alex, you started at the University of Texas and finished at the University of Texas, or did you transfer? Mr. Garrido. No. I started and finished. Mr. Miller. You started and finished there, but let me ask you, one of my concerns has been through this process as we keep thinking about the cost of education and how we move students through this in the proper sense of time is this question of articulation agreements with in-state systems. I don't know if it flows over to the private university or not, but Fayette is part of the public system, correct? Mr. Anderson. Yes. Mr. Miller. And so this question, and maybe, Mr. Garrido, you know your friends that take classes in community college and then find out those classes aren't transferable, they have got to repeat the classes, they have got to borrow more money to repeat the classes--I just wondered if you might talk about that experience a little bit, but this really applies more--it is easier to do within the state system from community college, state college, the university system to do this. A lot of states don't do this. Some states have done it very well, but it is a real drag on the efficiency--on the efficiency of the use of money that families and students are borrowing to go to college. Mr. Garrido. In my region, the South Texas College, which is the community college where I got some credits from, they actually go to the high school and they teach the classes in the high school in high school classrooms. That credit is--they understand then you are not going to South Texas College, so they know in advance that those classes are going to be transferred to the University of Texas-Pan American, which is the only big University in that particular region. I guess that partnership really helps, but I definitely see an issue if that partnership is broken or it is not that solid. Of course that will be a huge issue with transferring credit hours and all that. Mr. Miller. Dr. Anderson? Mr. Anderson. Yes. North Carolina has a significant number of articulation agreements. The UNC system with the community college system, and for us it has been an absolute blessing. It has helped increase our enrollment obviously, but of the two highest categories of graduating students are early college high students and students who have transferred from community colleges with associate degrees. Those who transfer without associates don't get-- Mr. Miller. They have completed their units for an A.A. degree. Mr. Anderson. Yes, so they must have associate degrees. But what has happened as a result of the articulation agreement is faculty from both groups, from community colleges and from our institution, talk about what is being taught at the community college so that the students will then be prepared when they come to us. We have recently gotten funding from a community foundation to support scholarships for students who are in the articulation agreement to come so that their education will be relatively debt-free when they get to us. So it has allowed us as an institution to think very broadly about the transfer of population, their success rate, their high persistence, et cetera, and if you really want to look for a true example of a return on investment, look at North Carolina's articulation agreements. Mr. Miller. Thank you. Reverend Holtschneider? Rev Holtschneider. This actually is possible for the privates, as well. Our transfer population is the same size as our freshman class each year. That is not by accident, we have well north of 100 of those agreements with different community colleges. We have also learned that we can create partnerships with community colleges that if they agree to abide by our standards for their courses we will accept them the same day, so the students are double enrolled in both institutions and we give them advisors so that they can be advised on what courses will transfer from the very, very beginning. This is also getting easier with technology. Illinois has a spectacular website that they put together several years ago where a student can simply type in what they have taken at the local community college, where they want to transfer, what degree they want, and instantly the computer will tell you what you have left to take. And private universities like ours and others can be part of that if we choose. It is a wonderful tool that is making this much easier for students. Mr. Miller. Thank you. Thank you also for mentioning the McNair program. I have had the opportunity to visit with residents in my district who come from the most difficult, dangerous neighborhoods in the state who graduated and brought their Ph.Ds back to work in our veterans hospitals, to work in our high schools. It is really a very exciting program for the young people. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Chairwoman Foxx.. Thank you very much, Mr. Miller. Mr. Messer, you are recognized for five minutes. Mr. Messer. Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the opportunity to be here. Thank you for your testimony on this very important topic. Our nation's Declaration of Independence declared that we are all endowed by our Creator with, among inalienable rights, the right to pursue our happiness. In modern life, a quality education is the key to having the opportunity to do that. I think it is important to point out in a hearing such as this that our modern federal financial aid system is one of the great success stories of the modern federal government, that it was a system based on providing access to students and providing access to higher education in a way that wasn't available before, and by that measure, it has been wildly successful. Of course, in modern life, or in today's world even different than the world just a few decades ago, you need more than just a little bit of college to do better economically. It used to be several decades ago if you went to college even for half a year or a year you were actuarially better off. In today's world, unless you graduate with a degree and a marketable skill that works in a modern economy, you are not better off. Of course, that is even more complicated by the fact--with the rising cost of school, students may leave school without a degree and with tens of thousands of dollars of debt and therefore be even worse off. So while these programs are important and we all want to share the goal of living in an America where anyone who wants to pursue an education, a quality education, has that opportunity, the results matter, too. And I would like to start with Dr. Anderson and invite others on the panel to share with me. The question I have is this: understanding that it matters that we get kids to completion, do you have any thoughts or ideas for holding schools more accountable for the federal dollars they receive to educate low-income and first-generation students? Mr. Anderson. Yes. I would like to see the introduction perhaps of some new metrics that could be used both in the selection criteria and in terms of whether or not students-- schools would be eligible. For example, if we look at the cost per degree--we have been able to reduce the cost per degree. In the North Carolina system--it is about $69,000--our peers it is $62,000--for us it is about $59,000. So showing that you can implement an efficiency such as that, the number of FTEs per 100 students, which is an efficiency metric. How are students doing relative to that? If we select a few criteria that I think are good examples of moving students through the pipeline, that your programs are working, et cetera and we add those, I think we would be much better off in terms. Mr. Messer. Yes, I appreciate that. I probably ought to add I am a product of Perkins loans and Pell loans and student loans--I mean Perkins grants, and Pell Grants and student loans. I wouldn't have been able to go to college without them, so I recognize how important these programs are. I think the key is we need to make sure that this money is well spent and we are actually providing better opportunities. Would anybody else comment on that topic? No? The second thing that I would ask, and Mrs. Del Balzo--I want to make sure that I pronounce it correctly, pardon me--I am intrigued by your success coaching program. Could you explain in more detail the role a coach plays, how he or she helps flag students who may be struggling, connects those students with support services? Mrs. Del Balzo. Thank you, Mr. Messer. Yes, it is an interesting program. Part of it is ours, and part of it is some software and particular coursework that you follow through. Students are able to log on to their student account that is sensitive just to them, password-protected, and weekly they take their own temperature--emotionally, resilience-based questions, and their coach has access to those answers. So the coach tracks them weekly through their whole first semester and they are able to speak with the student to refer them appropriately to academic counselors or to a mental health counselor or financial aid counselor or for tutoring at the learning center, and really helps them get through that first semester, which is so critical to student success. Mr. Messer. Well, thank you all again. Thanks for your hard work. Obviously a critical issue for our country. I think you have both addressed one of the most--one of the biggest challenges we face, which is in a world of scarce resources we have got to find answers that aren't always just more money but how can we spend that money better. So thank you all very much. I yield back. Chairwoman Foxx.. Thank you. Mr. Tierney, you are recognized for five minutes. Mr. Tierney. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I yield my time to the ranking member, Mr. Hinojosa. Mr. Hinojosa. Thank you, Congressman Tierney. I think that this has been very informative and I want to ask a question. I saw in California in the University of California system and I also saw in Arizona State University a parental involvement training program-- Rev Holtschneider. I am sorry? Mr. Hinojosa. A parental involvement training program which invited--these were by universities now--they invited the parents to go drop off the children at school and then come over to their campus. And two hours a week they would receive training that gave them so much information on how to follow their children's education program through elementary school, junior high, and get them to take courses that would make them college ready. It leads to an actual graduation ceremony with cap and gown so that the children can see their parents graduating from college. It is very innovative. But the reason that I am interested in this program if any one of Anderson, Del Balzo, or Holtschneider, if you all have these programs or thinking of starting them the importance because we see that where ever there is parental involvement with their children in elementary school and through high school that those are the students that are for sure going to enroll in a university and graduate. So I am interested in hearing if any of you have such a program. I will start with you, Doctor--Father. Rev Holtschneider. This is the first I am hearing of that exact model and I am going to look at it when we finish today. However, what we do have is, as part of our orientation, we have combined and separate orientations for students and their parents where we bring many of those topics to the fore. And we have also learned to create an online community of all of our parents that we monitor daily that parents can ask questions, parents can be fed ways that they can support their students. They can be fed ways that they can ask key questions to find out how their children are doing, and that online community has served us pretty well the past several years. Mr. Hinojosa. Thank you. Dr. Anderson? Mr. Anderson. Sure. One of the best models of what you just described is at South Mountain Community College in Arizona and that is a program where young Hispanic females began the program, got their mothers involved, and just as you said, the mothers in turn graduated. It is one that I hold up as a high- impact program. One of the difficulties for us in terms of doing that--I mentioned earlier that we go to great lengths to get parents involved in financial aid counseling, but one of the great difficulties is that the parents' work schedules often prohibits them from participating in such a program. Many have two jobs, in other words. So for us to do that, to draw them in, it would probably be best to do it online and have a very strong parental online program, but we don't have the dollars to finance that because, as I mentioned earlier, some of the money that could be used for distance education that is given to the predominantly black institutions, to PBIs, was taken out of the 2008 reauthorization Act, and HBCUs don't get it. If I had that money, I would start the program next week. Mr. Hinojosa. You may want to take a look at Arizona State University where the program was started 6 years ago by former ambassador, Raul Yzaguirre, who at one time was the administrator, the CEO of National Council of La Raza. When he stepped down from that position he started that program, and in the first 6 years they graduated 16,000 parents. You may want to look at that. Mrs. Del Balzo? Mrs. Del Balzo. I am taking notes because it is so inspirational to hear 16,000 parents in the first year. What we do currently, we visit a lot of Parents Nights at high schools. We invite parents to come in. We really do want parents to be very, very involved with their children's decision-making process and make them very aware of what is available out in their high schools where we partner. As far as parents themselves, we have a lot of parents who are graduates and they bring back their kids to come to the College of Westchester. We also have parent orientation. We always have parents involved with any financial aid counseling, especially with the younger students. We also encourage younger students to sign a release form so they can have their parents get regular information if it is necessary, and we are in development with an ESL program right now for the local community because many, many of our local community are Latino. Mr. Hinojosa. Madam Chair, I would like to ask Mr. Garrido, and I don't think it will take a more than a minute--can you give me another moment? Chairwoman Foxx.. Go ahead. Mr. Hinojosa. Thank you. Mr. Garrido, you spoke about parents not thinking that it was important that you go to college. Do you think that a parental program like the one that we are discussing now would be helpful in our region of South Texas? Mr. Garrido. Of course. Of course we need to educate the parents about the importance of their offspring attending college. It is essential that they understand that it is important and to get involved actively getting a degree and actively trying to improve their lives. I think then they will set an example and it could strengthen the community. Mr. Hinojosa. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Chairwoman Foxx.. You are welcome. I want to thank our distinguished panel of witnesses for taking the time to testify before the subcommittee today. I think you could tell by the questions there is a great deal of interest in the programs that you all are operating and in the dedication that you have to serving the students that you serve, and so we appreciate it very much. Mr. Hinojosa, do you have closing remarks? Mr. Hinojosa. Yes, thank you. I echo the remarks of the chairwoman. And I would like to also thank you, each one of you, as distinguished panelists to be witnesses and for joining us today and for sharing your expertise on these important issues. I especially want to thank Alex because you are one of the youngest panelists we have ever had here before our panel, before our committee, and we thank you for your courage and for sharing your personal story with this education committee. As ranking member, I strongly believe that our nation has a moral obligation to educate and prepare all students for good family-sustaining jobs and careers. As Congress considers the reauthorization of Higher Ed, I look forward to working with my colleagues on this committee to eliminate barriers for low-income, first-generation students, and for the nation's dreamers. Thank you. I yield back. Chairwoman Foxx.. Thank you, Mr. Hinojosa. I appreciate very much again the emphasis that has been placed here on metrics and measurable outcomes. I think again that there have been lots of good intentions with TRIO programs, and a lot of other government programs that are out there that simply don't meet the good intentions that are set out for them because we don't do a sufficient job of designing metrics and pointing to what works and what doesn't work. And in that way, we shortchange the people we are attempting to help. I think that is a real tragedy. I think the tragedy is going to be worse and worse in the future as funds become more and more scarce, so I think that it is up to us, as Mr. Bishop said, to make sure that the hard-working taxpayers of this country get a good return on their investment. Our country has always been a country that wants to give people a hand up and that is what I have always thought of the TRIO programs as doing. I am a former TRIO director myself. I was very committed to the programs when I worked in the programs and still committed to them, but I do think we need to show results. So I very much appreciate the emphasis that has been put on that today. Again, another comment that was made, and I can't remember who said it, money is not enough. I think we have also always seen that. You have to have the commitment from the people running these programs to see that there is some success, and you have to believe in the students and make sure that they can see a vision for where they can go. Before I adjourn the hearing, I want to note that in addition to excellent institutional initiatives to better support low-income or first-generation students, the higher education community has also been exploring proposals to strengthen federal efforts to help disadvantaged students access and complete a postsecondary education. At a Senate hearing just last week, Ron Haskins, a senior fellow and co-director of the Center on Children and Families and Budgeting for National Priorities Project, discussed opportunities to strengthen TRIO program evaluations and improve program efficiency. I am submitting Mr. Haskins' remarks and his recent report for the record and hope we can discuss his ideas further as we move forward with crafting legislation to reauthorize of the Higher Education Act. [The information follows:] [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] [Additional Submission by Mr. Polis follow:] [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Chairwoman Foxx.. There being no further business, this subcommittee stands adjourned. [Whereupon, at 11:47 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]