Giving Compass' Take:

· Writing for EdSource, Omar Butler talks about the struggles with back-to-school time and explains that a large number of college students fail to return to college due to poor social-emotional wellness and other feelings of isolation and a lack of belonging.

· What support programs should be available for students who are struggling to adjust to the college life? 

· Learn how campus mental health groups are improving student well-being.

With all the optimism and high expectations “back to school” season brings, it’s easy to overlook the reality: on college campuses across the country, far too many students are not going back to school at all.

We need to talk about why this happens because if we want California to have a prosperous economic future we need more students — especially low-income and first-generation students — to keep going back to school until they graduate from college.

Researchers have been studying why college-going students don’t complete their degrees and their findings mirror what we at College Track have seen in our 20 years of working with thousands of low-income and first generation students to get to and through college. Undergraduates struggle when they are not academically prepared and when the cost of higher education becomes prohibitive.

But these are not the most common reasons why students leave college before graduation.

Instead, 70 percent of College Track’s non-completing students cite factors such as stress, isolation and feeling a lack of social belonging as the reasons they withdraw from school.

Said another way, even with developed academic skills and financial support, poor social-emotional wellness adversely affects academic performance and the ability to graduate.

These challenges often begin as soon as a new freshman steps on campus. We know many of our students arrive at college feeling they don’t belong and that they’re not worthy of the experience. It is a completely foreign environment. Imagine entering a lecture as a freshman and noticing you are the only person of color. This is a reality for many students. I see it all the time.

Read the full article about back-to-school time by Omar Butler at EdSource.