Editorial: Service program is a college ‘twofer’
Addressing two problems for the price of one should sound good to the Minnesota Legislature just now. For that reason, we direct lawmakers’ attention to a nifty “twofer” tucked into the House higher education funding bill.
Minnesota Campus Compact, a promoter of service learning in higher ed curricula, makes this claim: Give us a chance to train and dispatch more college students as mentors to at-risk middle- and high school students, and two things are likely. More college students will stay in school through graduation. And more of the younger students they work with will go to college.
Campus Compact bases that claim on a heap of evidence that shows that when college students engage in service projects as part of their academic program, their attendance improves. Their grades improve. Their persistence toward graduation and graduation rate improve. Those findings ought to be of particular interest to legislators in the wake of word last month that too few of the young Minnesotans who enroll in state colleges and universities graduate within four or even six years.
There’s also good evidence that when middle- and high school students come in regular contact with college students, their interest in continuing their own education increases. That’s why Campus Compact is sponsoring a conference on April 13 aimed at showing how college-student mentors can help put younger students on a college-bound path. The organization intends to make collegiate service learning an ally in state efforts to get a larger share of young learners educated to their fullest potential.
Minnesota will benefit from more linkages between college students and younger learners — provided Campus Compact gets the funding it needs to operate. Its programs have been placed in jeopardy by the loss of $140,000 a year in federal money. The House higher ed bill replaces that lost funding; budgets proposed by the Senate and Gov. Tim Pawlenty do not — yet. The governor and senators should look again at Campus Compact’s request. The House is on to a good deal.
