The Forgotten Summer: Does the Offer of College Counseling After High School Mitigate Summer Melt Among College‐Intending,Low‐Income High School Graduates?

Despite decades of policy intervention to increase college entry and success among low‐income students, considerable gaps by socioeconomic status remain. To date, policymakers have overlooked the summer after high school as an important time period in students’ transition to college, yet recent research documents high rates of summer attrition from the college pipeline among college‐intending high school graduates, a phenomenon we refer to as “summer melt.” We report on two randomized trials investigating efforts to mitigate summer melt. Offering college‐intending graduates two to three hours of summer support increased enrollment by 3 percentage points overall, and by 8 to 12 percentage points among low‐income students, at a cost of $100 to $200 per student. Further, summer support has lasting impacts on persistence several semesters into college.     

Using Appreciative Inquiry to Engage the Citizenry: Four Potential Challenges for Public Administrators

In the United States, calls for new citizen engagement strategies have continued to grow at the local government level. One answer is Appreciative Inquiry. As part of a larger study conducted in 2007, the question was posed to public administrators, “What challenges do you see regarding using an Appreciative Inquiry approach to increase citizen participation in local government?” Findings based on a content analysis of the data identified four challenges in particular. Discussion suggests public managers need to be aware of these challenges but depending on local conditions they can be mitigated or overcome.