More 4-year colleges offer 2-year degrees to reach new groups of students

Geoff Bennett:

About one in four college students are both first generation and from low-income backgrounds, making the path to a college degree especially challenging.

At Boston College's Messina College, a new two-year fully residential associate's degree program, a wide range of support is helping change that.

John Yang visited the Brookline, Massachusetts, campus to learn more as part of our ongoing series Rethinking College.

John Yang:

For a second-year Messina College student, Loukenscia Roberson, who goes by Lou, time with her mother, Eveline, and her older brother, Lucanse (ph), is the perfect way to celebrate the end of midterm exams.

While she misses home and her close-knit family, she says she felt comfortable the very first time she set foot on this campus when she was a high school senior.

Loukenscia Roberson, Undergraduate Student:

I came home to my mom and I was like: "Mom, this is where I want to be. This is where I feel like I belong."

John Yang:

And having seen her mother deal with health issues, she knew what she wanted to do, study to become a nurse.

Loukenscia Roberson:

That motivated me to want to be in the health care because I want others to know that they're not alone in the hospital.

John Yang:

Messina is the two-year associate degree program of Boston College, a nationally ranked private liberal arts school. If students finish Messina with a 3.4 grade point average or better, they're guaranteed a spot in B.C.'s bachelor's degree program. Messina enrolled its first class in 2024 and 96 percent return this year.

Messina College is tailored for low-income and first-generation students, the very students, research shows, who are least likely to finish college. The big reason for that is lack of familiarity with the unwritten rules of college life, things like office hours, networking and balancing work and academics, and they don't have anyone in their families they can turn to explain it.

Loukenscia Roberson:

At first, I was like, office hours? Mmm, is it an office? Like, it was an office with timing. And when my professors were explaining me what office hours were, I was like, I'm someone who needs that type of support.

So this had been a college campus before?

Father Erick Berrelleza, Founding Dean, Messina College:

It had been, yes.

John Yang:

Founding dean Father Erick Berrelleza was a low-income first-generation college student himself.

Father Erick Berrelleza:

It was a sink-or-swim model. You sort of figured it out or didn't. We know a whole lot more now 20 years later. And I think what we know is, there's scaffolding of support that we can offer.

John Yang:

It includes a generous need-based financial aid program that limits loans to $2,000 a year. All students get free housing, meals, textbooks, even laptops that are theirs to keep.

Father Erick Berrelleza:

In my college experience, the residential piece was critical, because there's so much that goes on after your class time that students can be part of, and that contributes to their formative experience at a Jesuit university, but any university, for that matter.

John Yang:

There are similar programs at a small but growing number of private four-year liberal arts universities, many of them religiously affiliated.

Anthony Jack, Professor, Boston University:

We need more strivers. We need more lower-income students, more first-generation college students, because that is what America is.

John Yang:

Professor Anthony Jack, also a first-generation graduate, studies higher education leadership at Boston University.

Anthony Jack:

My question is, have we extended the invitation without preparing for the occasion? We are extending invitations to eager, able, excited youth to become members of our community, but are we doing the necessary work to make them be able to be just that, full members?

John Yang:

Boston College spends about $40,000 a year per Messina student. Not every school can afford that kind of investment.

Anthony Jack:

And it's not just providing what people normally think of when it comes to like being on campus. It's like all the other support services that are needed to make sure that, again, you're not just meeting students where they are, what kind of services they need, but also when the services are offered, given the population of students have responsibilities that your traditional 18-to-21-year-old does not.

John Yang:

Messina enrolls only 100 new students a year. Small class sizes allow professors to foster students' confidence and academic success. Attendance is closely monitored.

A missed class triggers a check-in call. The academic year runs from July to May. That gives first-year students the summer to adjust to campus life. It also reduces the number of classes students take each semester.

Brianna Diaz, Professor, Messina College:

It doesn't matter who gets first, second, or third.

John Yang:

Brianna Diaz is a psychology professor and student adviser. She too was a first-generation college student.

Brianna Diaz:

We go through these hidden curriculum things. How should you advocate for yourself to your professor? How should you study? What do you do if you fail? Like, that's probably going to happen in college. And how can you bounce back in a productive way?

John Yang:

Associate director of student success Genevieve Green knows that every student has individual strengths and challenges.

Genevieve Green, Associate Director of Student Success, Messina College: A lot of them have worked, they're helping out at home, they have got a lot of responsibilities. So they're not necessarily used to asking for help. So our primary goal is really just to get to know every student.

They joke with us that we know their blood type or get to know them really, really well, so that we can tailor a plan that really works for them.

John Yang:

Second year-student Michael Melo is majoring in applied psychology and human development.

Michael Melo, Undergraduate Student:

To be honest, college wasn't something that was in my mind.

John Yang:

His mother died in the summer before his freshman year in high school, leaving him and his older sister on their own. He worked as many as 30 hours a week to help support them. His grades suffered. But instead of defeating him, he says the hardships motivated him.

Michael Melo:

It ruined me, but it made me into a better person, because the reconstruction that it built, where I realized that I need to be present, I need to also be there, I need to do as much as I can to kind of get to that next step, get to that next milestone to become my own legacy.

John Yang:

With his anticipated B.C. bachelor's degree, Melo wants to be a therapist.

Michael Melo:

Just interacting with people that either already went through college or people that have aspirations to be something, it's almost inspiring to listen to.

John Yang:

This semester, Lou Roberson is taking nursing classes at B.C.'s main campus. At first, she was intimidated.

Loukenscia Roberson:

I have classes with both Messina and Boston College students. We're both struggling the same way.

John Yang:

At Messina, she's tutoring first-year students who also want to be in the medical field.

Loukenscia Roberson:

Making sure that they understand it kind of gives them a clear understanding what they want to do for the future.

John Yang:

Sort of passing it along.

Loukenscia Roberson:

Yes, passing it, yes.

John Yang:

Faculty say they see that sense of purpose in many students.

Brianna Diaz:

There is a lot of intention behind why they're here. There is a lot of richness that the identity, I think, first gen carries with them.

John Yang:

And they're changing the broader B.C. community.

Genevieve Green:

Boston College needs you in your perspective and your identity, and your lived experience is really important.

John Yang:

Do you think or do you hope things that you do here will also influence B.C.?

Father Erick Berrelleza:

Absolutely. These students are already enriching that campus. Time will tell the impact of that overall, but these students have the ability to create a lot of impact for their families. And the generations of potential college students will follow them because of their example.

John Yang:

Growing up in Haiti, Lou Roberson's mom didn't have the chance to go to college, so seeing her daughter as a college student is a dream come true.

Do you think she's going to make a good one? She will be a good nurse?

Eveline Roberson Montas, Mother of Loukenscia Roberson: Yes, good nurse. When I come here, everybody tell me, Loukenscia is a good student. She's wonderful.

John Yang:

And just the sort of student whose life Messina College has the potential to change.

For the "PBS News Hour," I'm John Yang in Brookline, Massachusetts.