Motivated high school students have long used summer curriculums as a way to get ahead. Now colleges and universities in the United States are taking some summer school concepts and using them as a way to smooth the entry to higher education for incoming undergraduates.
These so-called “bridge” programs typically run for six weeks. Many are invitation-only and aimed at first-generation college students from racial or ethnic minorities. Colleges bill them as a way to ease the transition for incoming freshmen to campus life, and they typically focus on both academic and social components.
Successful Bridges Help Underserved Students
Queens University in Charlotte, N.C. calls its program “Thrive Institute” and notes that “its purpose is to support historically underserved student populations in their transition to college life.” In this program, “students live on campus for a week and participate in academic, social and team-building exercises and workshops. With the guidance of peer and faculty mentors, they develop an academic success plan and become familiar with the many resources and activities available to them at Queens.”
At the University of Texas, the Summer Bridge Program “provides incoming freshmen with tools and resources to jumpstart their first year in college.” That can include becoming familiar with campus resources, meeting professors and making friends with fellow students.
At Eastern Kentucky University, “students report that the summer program helps ease their transition into college and makes it far easier to adjust in the fall.” Like they do in Texas, many schools offer financial incentives to bridge students who succeed. In Austin, high-GPA students can receive a $1,000 merit-based scholarship.
Programs Can Pay for Themselves
Colleges getting on the bridge program bandwagon may actually have inner city schools to thank for their inspiration. For nearly 10 years, many public schools in economically depressed areas have created special summer school programs and some actually paid students to attend.
A Washington, D.C. initiative aimed at raising high school graduation rates paid students $5.25 an hour to attend summer school. The goal? Raise the city’s dismal 53-percent graduation rate. The program was met with some skepticism from taxpayers concerned that students were being rewarded for what should be normal behavior, although five years later, the district now notes that graduation rates are up to 69 percent.
More modern iterations, however, have paired extracurricular learning with programs aimed at preventing students from forgetting what they learned the previous school year. “Summer bridge is important because we think of our model as a year-round school,” Rashid Davis, principal of Brooklyn’s Pathways in Technology Early College High School, said. “That way we’re not dealing with that summer learning loss than can go from two to four months of material, especially for high-poverty students. We can’t expect them to magically come in here with the skills they need.”
On campus, bridge funding sources are as diverse the schools themselves. Some money comes from states, some comes from the federal government, and other money comes from the colleges themselves.
Bridge Programs Won’t Always Work
But no matter how hard some colleges try, there will always be students who underperform or simply drop out. “Realizing that some students will continue to withdraw or leave college regardless of the programs we create is humbling,” wrote one scholar. “This fact should, however, prompt us to consider how the courses we teach serve all the students: the ones who stay and graduate and the ones who leave.”
Indeed, measuring success in bridge programs is not necessarily easy. While there are plenty of success stories, researchers note that empirical evidence can be hard to find. “Future assessments on Summer Bridge programs should examine quantitative student data on a longitudinal scale,” summarized one report. “Future studies should focus on grade point averages, attrition rates, and four-year graduation rates of Summer Bridge participants.”
Will a Bridge Program Work for You?
Bridge-building pro Dr. Paz Maya Oliverez walks through the nuances of these programs in an audio conference for Eli Education, “Developing and Assessing a Summer Bridge Program to Support Student Success.” Dr. Oliverez defines program components, explains assessment strategies, shows how to build institutional capacity, and identifies campus empowerment opportunities. The conference is aimed student deans, advisers, counselors, and those in the student success, life, services, and affairs fields.
