A recent study by the Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs at Ohio University shows that while Appalachian Ohio is improving in educational attainment, work remains to achieve parity with the rest of the state.

The two-year study was conducted as a follow-up to 1992 Appalachian access and success research that determined the college-going rate of recent high-school graduates.

A release from the Ohio Appalachian Center for Higher Education said that the estimated 51 percent college-going rate of Appalachian Ohioans in 2006 was up considerably from the 1992 estimate of between 31 and 43 percent.

“However, since Appalachian Ohio has a population with lower educational attainment than Ohio as a whole, increased progress is needed for this region to achieve parity with the rest of the state,” the release stated.

Researchers also reportedly found that participation in a program that helps high-school students prepare for college increases the likelihood that students will plan to attend college right after graduation.

Voinovich School researcher Marsha Lewis said the study was conducted to get an updated look at the scenario involving Appalachian Ohio and higher education. The study conducted surveys with high-school seniors once in the fall and once in the spring at 25 high schools throughout 14 of the Appalachian counties. This totaled about 1,200 respondents.

The survey found that overall, high-school seniors ranked lack of finances as their biggest problem or difficulty regarding college. Lack of information in terms of college programs and financial aid was also found to be high on the students’ list of major problems or difficulties. One in four high-school seniors who planned to go on to college immediately after high school had not completed the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) as of May their senior year. Over 80 percent of parents surveyed reported lack of finances as a major barrier, while school counselors emphasized that many parents were unsure about how to navigate college financing and were often overwhelmed by the process.

Lewis said several results from the study are notable.

“One was the self-confidence and self-efficacy of the high school students had really improved since the 1992 survey,” Lewis said. “More students felt that they were prepared for college. More students felt like they were intelligent enough to go to college than they did in 1992.”

Lewis said that was a big barrier identified in the original study where inroads had been made.

“The bad piece was that finances as a barrier had increased since 1992, pretty significantly,” Lewis said. “Same population, same geographic are, and we weren’t rich here in 1992. But in 2008, a much higher percentage of students indicated the finances was one of their top three barriers to going on to college than had done so in 1992.”

The financial barrier, Lewis said, is complex.

“It’s both a real and a perceived barrier, we think,” Lewis said. “It’s very difficult to even navigate the financial aid process for a lot of students. And so they may think they don’t have the finances to go, and we know that a large percentage of them, close to 30 percent, hadn’t even completed the [FAFSFA] by the time they were just about ready to graduate from high school.”

She said these students didn’t really even have the full information about whether or not college would be affordable for them.

“That’s such an important piece,” Lewis said. “It tells you what you qualify for. And so there’s both that real and perceived barrier. I’m not saying that the students who said they couldn’t afford college really couldn’t afford college, that’s very true. But maybe they didn’t have all the information. Financing college is a very complex issue because it’s both information and action.”

She said that completing the financial aid documents isn’t that simple, especially if the parent doesn’t have any experience in the process.

“High schools and colleges do their best to help lead through that process, but still I think that’s one of the key findings,” Lewis said. “Figuring out how to help students navigate that financial aid process is really key. And that’s difficult because it’s more individualized. Everybody has a different set of issues around financing college.”

Among other things, the study found that students were more likely to plan to attend college if at least one parent had attended college. Also, the percentage of first-generation college students is higher for Appalachian Ohio than for the rest of the state. In 2006, 51 percent of first-time Ohio college freshmen from Appalachian Ohio counties were first-generation students as compared to 40 percent of the freshmen from non-Appalachian counties.

The survey states that Ohio’s future economic growth is seen as heavily dependent on an educated workforce with a focus on science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Medical-services fields are also predicted as a high job-growth area for the state.

“Based on both the primary and the secondary data sources… it appears that Appalachian Ohio students are increasingly seeking degrees in some fields that support the state’s current and emerging growth sectors, especially the medical field,” the report stated.

Lewis said the study showed a relatively high number of students planning to go into the nursing and allied-health fields. She said it’s important to make sure that they are entering the right fields in these sectors, and that students are getting the right information about growth potential as opposed to fields that are already saturated in terms of need.