Assessment of a Summer Bridge Program: Seven Years and Counting.

Analyses of new university engineering degree programs at an HBCU (Jackson State University) revealed that graduation rates (15%) were considerably lower than desired. An aggressive amelioration strategy centered around a ten week (expenses paid) resident summer bridge program for the student population of first time freshman (ftf) engineering majors with ACT Math scores from 17-25 (70% of ftf) was developed and started in summer 2009. Program assessment was accomplished using a control group of all other ftf engineering majors that began the same fall semester with identical ACT Math scores (17-25). The data indicate that there are two distinct populations (relative to graduation performance) within the 17-25 ACT Math score group. They are groups with ACT Math scores of 17-19 and 20-25. Analyses are made using these two subgroups. Summer bridge students (20-25) have a 4 year engineering graduation rate of 41% relative to 17% for the control group (71 and 107 students respectively). Summer bridge students (17-19) have a 4 year engineering graduation rate of 12% relative to 4% for the control group (50 and 119 students respectively). The six year engineering graduation rate for the 20-25 bridge students was 50% relative to 37% for the control group (32 and 54 students respectively). The six year engineering graduation rate for the 17-19 bridge students was 14% relative to 24% for the control group (29 and 49 students respectively). The paper contains comprehensive analyses of the seven summer cohorts (2009 through 2015) of ftf engineering majors including engineering, STEM and university graduation rates, times to graduate and retention rates. The unique parts of this summer bridge program are its 10 week resident length, enrolling students for six semester hours of mathematics college credit, making it cost free for the students and sustainment for eight summers. This paper clearly demonstrates that the program can more than double the engineering graduation rate for the student population with 17-25 ACT Math scores and the majority graduate in four years. To date, 100% of the 232 students in the bridge program are African Americans (not required). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]