Program assists at-risk college students

Maizy Brown was invisible.

That's how she thought of herself at school. How she made it through each day. Just "a backpack in a seat."

If she didn't talk, no one would taunt her about her awkward speech or the way her teeth jutted out. Speaking up in the past had landed her in special-education classes with severely disabled students. It was better to sit silently in the back of the classroom and go unnoticed.

At age 15, she disappeared entirely from school. College wasn't even a dream.

Now Brown holds an associate's degree from Edmonds Community College and offers encouragement and inspiration to students with similar stories. She has a desk in a spacious new office at the college and a little plastic holder for her business cards.

She's a familiar face around campus, speaking in adult basic-education classes and to students trying to earn GED certificates.

She tells them: "This is a place where you can speak up and feel safe. We're here to support you."

Brown, now 28, is part of a four-person team that last fall launched a college support program for low-income, first-generation students and for disabled students. Known as Trio, the national program is funded at Edmonds CC by a four-year, $880,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Education and will be renewable if it shows results.

Students accepted into the program get academic advising, help seeking financial aid, tutoring, personal counseling and assistance applying to four-year colleges.

Statistics indicate that students from disadvantaged backgrounds are more at risk than others of leaving college without degrees.

"If your parents haven't gone to college, if there's no one in high school encouraging you, it can be overwhelming," said Heather McKnight, the director of the Trio Student Support Services program.

At Edmonds CC, just 18 percent of students with disabilities and 30 percent of low-income and first-generation college students stay in school the following year, compared with 54 percent of students overall.

According to the Council for Opportunity in Education, a national advocacy group for low-income students, those enrolled in Trio — there were 866,000 last year nationally — are more than twice as likely to remain in college than students from similar backgrounds who did not participate.

Though Trio is new this year at Edmonds CC, the program has existed nationally since 1965 and at Everett Community College since 1980.

Students in Everett's Trio program have shown success. In the 2003-04 school year, compared with similar students not in the program, their graduation rate was four percentage points higher, and their rate of transferring to four-year colleges was six points higher, said George Deitz, the program director at Everett.

One feature of the Everett CC program is excursions to Western Washington University and the University of Washington. Deitz said students in the program often wonder whether they could be successful at four-year colleges.

After the college visits, he said, "they come back excited."

Trio students are often older than the average college student. Many have found themselves locked out of higher-paying jobs because of their limited educations.

Keith Bigham, 47, one of the first Trio participants at Edmonds, said he had supervised 110 janitorial workers but couldn't advance because he lacked computer skills. He had dropped out of high school almost 30 years earlier, and before he could enroll at Edmonds he needed to take basic-education courses to earn a GED certificate.

Money also was an obstacle. Years of relatively low-paying jobs and spending beyond his means had left Bigham with a poor credit rating. He didn't know, until college counselors told him, that he qualified for financial aid.

What he learned about himself surprised him.

"I was more capable than I thought," he said.

Bigham has done well at most of his course work. In math, in which he said fractions had "terrified" him, he has gotten tutoring through the program.

Instead of no future, Bigham is trying to decide among four career possibilities, including radiology, college administration and counseling. He is such a regular in the Trio office that he's been given application forms to pass out on campus.

Joseé Perez, 58, enrolled in the Trio program after Maizy Brown spoke to her class. Brown had talked about returning to the college without a high-school diploma, about taking courses even below the level of basic and about, after having never used a computer, learning the office skills she needed to land a job at the college.

And Brown had told them how, in preparing for a job interview, she got past her fear of speaking by practicing — for 40 hours.

Perez had attended college and worked in schools for 30 years, but she was searching for a way to better use her "natural-born caregiver skills." Now she is working toward a degree in human services and grateful to Brown and the Trio program.

"It's hard to come in and say, 'I lack these skills,' " Brown said. "They give people permission to expose their vulnerabilities. It's a launching pad for me."

Lynn Thompson: 425-745-7807 or lthompson@seattletimes.com