MVCAP follows up on its advisees

A frequent request made of nonprofit organizations, particularly by funders and prospective funders, remains “How effective is your

program?” As it relates to college access programs in Ohio, results can be expressed as the percentage of advisees who matriculates to postsecondary education and the percentage that graduates (with either

a 2- or 4-year degree.)

To determine the effects of advising by our Mahoning Valley College Access Program (MVCAP), we submitted names from our electronic

database (in the software Prep HQ) of former advisees in the Class of 2004—the first we had loaded online—to the Ohio College Access

Network (OCAN) to check matriculation and graduation rates with the National College Clearinghouse data. Dan Valerian, computer consultant for OCAN, facilitated this analysis. Of the 568 advisees in that class, 389

(68.49%) matriculated. (This figure is consistent with the approximately 70% of students who indicated a desire to pursue higher education in their self-reported Senior Survey on Prep HQ we have collected from

advisees in graduating classes over the last three years.)

Of the total number of advisees, 78 (13.73%) had already graduated from college in 4 years: 73 had earned 4-year degrees, while 5

completed two-year degrees. Furthermore, of the 17 students who received an MVCAP Last-Dollar Scholarship of $1,000 on August 11,

2004, 7 (41.17%) had graduated four years later. The largest number of our advisees had graduated from Youngstown State University (20), with 14 other receiving degrees from The Ohio State University and 8 from

Kent State.

Additional colleges from which multiple Class of 2004 MVCAP advisees had graduated included the following: Miami University (4); BGSU (3); Hiram College (3); U. of Toledo (3); Mount Union (2); Walsh

University (2); Westminster College (2); and the U. of Northwest Ohio (2). In addition, one former MVCAP advisee graduated from each of these

colleges: Davis and Elkins; Elgin Community College; Howard University; ITT; John Carroll University; Morehouse; Ohio Dominican U.; Ohio University; Point Park U.; Stark State College of Technology; U. of

Akron; U. of Kentucky; and the U. of Phoenix.

Importantly, many of the other matriculants continue working toward their degree. Indeed, another 190 MVCAP advisees from the

Class of 2004 were enrolled during the most recent, completed calendar year (2008). Therefore, the sum of 2004 advisees who had already received degrees (78) plus those still enrolled in 2008 (190) was 268,

(47.18%) of the total number of 568 advisees. Therefore, the likelihood that MVCAP advisees from the high school graduating class of 2004

would have graduated or still be in college four years later approached 1 in 2—pretty fair results.