A Survey of School/College Partnerships for Minority and Disadvantaged Students

This study focuses on comprehensive partnerships between K–12 schools and postsecondary institutions which were created to improve the precollege academic preparation, college enrollment, and postsecondary success of minority and disadvantaged students. The study identified those partnerships that had been in existence in the United States for more than five years and surveyed them utilizing a 12-item questionnaire designed to determine the following: (1) structural characteristics; (2) funding; (3) success in achieving their goals and objectives; and (4) data collected to measure success.During the course of study, key informants from each partnership were surveyed. Partnership research has been scant, in part due to the fact that school-college partnerships of this type are a fairly new development in education. The results of the surveys have contributed new information to the field on the characteristics of partnerships. Findings also indicated that a majority of these partnerships incorporated some of the important characteristics for success recommended in the available literature. The partnerships consider themselves to be at least somewhat successful in achieving their goals of improving high school preparation and college enrollments for minority and disadvantaged students. They are, however, less informed about the success of their participants in college, especially college retention and graduation. They are also less informed about the availability of financial resources for their college aspirants and appear only marginally committed to creating institutional change.