Helping Diminish the College Knowledge and Access Divide: Development of a College Outreach Camp to Serve Community Needs

Abstract

This descriptive case study examined the development of a college outreach summer camp at a university in Texas. The camp aims to diminish the college knowledge and access divide that exists between first generation college-going, lower-income, and underrepresented students and their counterparts in the region in which the university is located. Drawing on one year of survey data, interviews with program personnel, program documents, and newspaper articles about the camp, this study highlights some of the camp’s early successes, as well as growing pains of starting such an effort to serve community needs.