A substantial share of students admitted to college who intend to enrol in the autumn never arrive, lost over the summer to paperwork, costs and the absence of support.
Castleman and Page, in Summer Melt (2014), put the loss at between a tenth and two-fifths of college-intending school leavers in the districts they studied, concentrated among low-income students. The summer is the one stretch when a school counsellor is no longer responsible for a student and a college is not yet. Their text-message reminders raised enrolment modestly in several districts.
In practice
- A high school counts its leavers' college acceptances in June and never learns how many enrolled in September.
- A first-generation student misses a housing deposit deadline in July, takes a job instead, and tells herself she will start next year.
- Standing
- Reminder campaigns that helped in pilots have shown little effect when run at national scale, which suggests reminders are not the whole problem.
- Subject
- Learning & Education
- Essay
- What works in learning, and what schools can and cannot change