Thrifty Thinking: American Honors Program for College Education

From 2002 to 2012, the average college tuition and fees rose 89%. Student debt has tripled since 2004, and has now surpassed the amount of credit debt and is only second to mortgages. As high school students finish up college applications, there is help for parents to make education more affordable.

American Honors is building a network of community colleges that are offering what they call a 2-year “honors programs” and partnering with 4 year institutions. 

I had a chance to ask David Finegold, Chief Academic Officer for American Honors and former Rutgers University Senior Vice President questions to learn more about the American Honors Program

What led to the creation of the American Honors program?

We're passionate about helping address the biggest challenges in higher education: the exploding level of student loan debt, access to high-quality institutions for low-income and first generation college students, and the difficulties students are having completing a degree in four years.

Research shows that academically able high-school seniors who would be the first in their families to graduate from college are far less likely to apply to top college and universities than their peers from wealthier families who have college degrees. American Honors set out to develop a program in partnership with community colleges to prepare highly-motivated young people to get into and succeed at the top 100 public and private colleges and universities.  We do so by working with community college faculty and leadership to develop high-quality honors courses, and we support that coursework through intense academic advising, extracurricular and service learning activities that develop students' leadership capabilities, and a national network of top colleges and universities that are interested in accepting American Honors graduates.

What are the advantages to the community and 4-year colleges that participate?

We build honors programs in partnership with leading community colleges, and work to make sure that the community college program are benchmarked against the best public and private colleges and universities. We have a growing national network of 27 partners who are eager to consider American Honors graduates, and will allow them to transfer their credits in order to complete their bachelor's degree in 4 years.  For community colleges, we're providing a new, dependable pathway for their students to successfully transfer and complete their degree at leading schools across the country and helping them to recruit local and international students for both the regular and honors programs to offset the enrollment decline many are experiencing. For universities, we are providing access to a well-prepared and motivated group of students who are ready to succeed in a 4-year program.

How much can this save students?

American Honors can help students save between 30% and 90% of the costs of the first two years of college. Today, most community college students take at least three years to graduate with their Associate's degree, and most 4-year students take at least six years to complete their degree. A number of factors impact a student's time to degree completion, including difficulty transferring courses from community college to a 4-year university, misguided academic planning, and financial constraints. American Honors helps to limit those hurdles, and provides students with a clear pathway to attaining a degree in just four years.

Do students find that they enter 4-year programs fully prepared?

One of the key parts of the American Honors program is that every student is matched with an academic advisor for those first two years. Those advisors provide students with personal support in selecting courses and applying for transfer and scholarships.  Typically, many colleges have one advisor for everyone 1,000 students. The American Honors program makes sure that each advisor is only responsible for up to 150 students, allowing advisors to give students the highly-personalized academic advising and transfer support needed to be successful in 4 year programs.

In addition, the rigorous honors curriculum is designed by community college faculty to meet the standards of the top 4-year institutions.  And unlike large public universities, where students may spend their first two years mostly in large lecture halls with classes of up to 1,000 students, the honors seminars are never more than 20 students.  Thus, the students get to know and interact frequently with all their professors.

We've seen exciting success in our first class of graduating students. Last spring, that first class was accepted to leading institutions such as Stanford, Vanderbilt, Emory and Georgetown. 80 percent of the students were accepted to their first-choice college, and they received scholarships covered as much as 83% of their tuition and fees for their last two years of college.