—
There’s a widely-held notion around resilience — the idea that it’s a personal attribute held solely by one person who is up against an insurmountable challenge. Although there is some truth to this, resilience is a much broader concept that applies to not only the individual but the people around them in the various communities they belong to. The COVID pandemic, in particular, has brought the importance of community in building resilience into the limelight, revealing just how interconnected we are as we approach each new variant and subsequent wave: we suffer together; we grieve together; we will recover together. With this in mind, it becomes clear — resilience isn’t just a personal attribute, it’s a team sport.
Some individuals, however, face more challenges than others, pandemic or not. Often referred to using the blanket term, ‘The Underserved,’ these groups include people from communities of color, low-income families, those from rural locations, and the families in which previous generations did not have the opportunity or economic means to pursue higher education. It’s these people who especially benefit from a community-focused approach to building resilience. A critical source for this community, as well as one of the foundations of resilience, is education. It not only imparts skills and knowledge useful for gaining employment but also empowers individuals to think critically and look at problems in new ways, while building confidence that improving and evolving is possible.
In addition to helping forge resilience, education is also the foundation of a free, just, and equitable society. Because of this, Western Governors University, or WGU, is laser-focused on the needs of all learners, regardless of their background, today and into the future. So how exactly are we providing equitable access to those historically not well-served by higher education?
Equity in higher education means ensuring people, no matter their socioeconomic background, have access to the education they can afford, the debt they can manage, and post-graduation outcomes that enable them to pay down their loans and realize a strong return on investment. Throughout history until now, access to education has been blocked primarily by both direct and indirect financial burdens with increasing course prices and reduced government support for individuals made more cogent by stagnant wages. Things are more difficult for underserved populations, too, with many who manage to gain access to education struggling to pay off their debts. According to a report from EducationData.org, the average Black American with a Bachelor’s degree currently owes an average of $25,000 more in student loan debt than their white counterparts. Because of this stark disparity, 12-year default rates vary dramatically by race: 5.2 percent for white graduates, 13.3 percent for Hispanic and Latine graduates, and 28 percent for Black graduates.
That’s why WGU has placed focus on expanding access to learners through flexible course structures, accessible pricing, the provision of resources to learn about and access financing, and a range of needs-based scholarships designed to not only help with the cost of education itself, but the outside expenses — housing, healthcare, bills — that don’t stop just because an individual has enrolled.
Through these measures, we have managed to bring down yearly costs for undergraduate programs to nearly half of the national average — $12,705. Because of this, WGU has not only come very close to tripling our total enrolments year-over-year since 2013, but has managed to ensure the majority of these students come from underserved populations. Out of the current 129,169 students enrolled at WGU, 69 percent come from at least one of the aforementioned underserved populations. Additionally, debt disparity for underserved students at WGU is substantially better than the national average — our first-generation college graduates, on average, owe less at graduation than our graduates whose parents attended college do.
While looking at enrolments provides evidence of increasing access to higher education, it doesn’t provide evidence of the support provided throughout their journey, nor the number of students who successfully graduate. If you learn anything through higher education, it’s that accountability is important. Not only does WGU have a compound graduation rate of 30.5 percent, but our 6-year undergraduate graduation rate of 50 percent is well above the national average of 40 percent in comparable non-profit, open-admission institutions. Out of those graduates, 64 percent belonged to one or more groups of underserved populations.
Although the world may feel as though it’s in disarray and that everything has a negative bent to it, the spotlight being directed towards inequality and inequity present institutions with an opportunity to rise up, foster an environment of resilience, and meet the challenge. By breaking down barriers to not only access, but also the outside circumstances that hold many back from pursuing higher education, we can ensure more underserved people are not only able to start studying, but complete it without a high amount of debt.
—