Reaching Out to Underserved High School Students: An Experiential Approach to Higher Education

Abstract

Research indicates that underserved students are at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to entering and succeeding at college. However, with sufficient support, they can turn those disadvantages around. To address the persistent challenges of the underserved college-bound students, institutions of higher education created special pre-college outreach initiatives.

This study provides finding regarding how an outreach program can apply experiential learning approach to motivate students through an experiential summer pre-business program that targets specifically targeted underserved high school juniors from various school districts in Southern California. This study also presents eleven years’ outcome assessment of this private university program.

Using information from a survey and a lexical analysis of a sample of 574 students over 11-year period, this study finds that the experiential college outreach program increased underserved students’ drive for attending college and may be one promising practice to help close the gap in accessibility to higher education. The results illustrate the value of outreach programs provided by an institution of higher education to support underserved students through the fusion of business education and experiential learning.