Giving Compass' Take:

• Summer melt happens when young people plan to go to college and are accepted but do not end up going due to last minute details that do not get taken care of. The author takes a deeper dive as to how parents, counselors, and schools can all ensure that 100 percent of students accepted into universities will attend on time. 

• How schools streamline any of the administrative processes before attending college to make it easier for students? 

• Read about the need for improvement in academic advising in college. 

In the phenomenon known as summer melt, as many as 20 percent of students who are accepted to college and fully plan to attend don’t start classes in the fall — because either the student fails to complete a required task over the summer and loses his or her spot, or simply doesn’t show up on campus.

The number is estimated to double for low-income students, who are especially vulnerable because they lack the essential support that their wealthier peers have.

Even if caseloads are reasonable, many counselors don’t work during the summer, when a myriad of tasks need to be completed: submitting final transcripts, taking placement tests, signing up for housing, verifying financial aid information, and logging into their institution’s online portal to register for orientation and complete other tasks.

As executive director of CAP, a program that helps more than 500 students graduate college as quickly and with as little debt as possible, I’ve learned that the challenges to summer melt are varied but not unbeatable. Here’s how to address a few of the obstacles.

To reduce summer melt, high school counselors can support students during the summer, even if they won’t be on campus, with a to-do list. There’s also an opportunity for counselors to support students in building key skills such as organization, time management, and motivation.

To address summer melt, colleges must invest in developing resources to support low-income students. Georgia State, for example, has created a chatbot called Pounce (named after the university’s mascot) to answer students’ enrollment questions via text. Other schools are crowdsourcing advice for low-income students. The University of Michigan has created a Google doc titled “Being Not-Rich,” which aggregates advice from students and faculty on navigating campus life — everything from housing to employment to mentors to social life.

Read the full article about summer melt by Melissa Fries at The 74