Though the economic and non-pecuniary benefits of postsecondary education continue to grow, disparities in college access and success by family income, race/ethnicity, and gender have only widened over time. Responding to these inequalities has emerged as a top policy priority at both the state and federal level (Executive Office of the President, 2014). Many recent policy efforts have focused on the role of information and access to advising in whether academically-accomplished students matriculate at well-matched colleges and universities. Recent research finds that a substantial share of academically-accomplished high school graduates either do not enroll anywhere or do not attend the quality of institution at which they have the academic credentials to be admitted (Castleman & Page, 2013; Hoxby & Avery, 2013; Smith, Pender, & Howell, 2012). Related research finds that providing students with personalized college information and/or the offer of additional advising can generate substantial improvements in college outcomes (Castleman & Page, 2013; Castleman, Page, & Schooley, 2014; Hoxby & Turner, 2013).

While the summer melt and academic mismatch literature has focused largely on college-ready low-income students, there are various reasons why under-represented students more broadly may struggle to follow through on their colleges intentions. For instance, students of color—and particularly male students of color—may not feel that they belong at colleges and universities if they perceive these institutions to be the domain of affluent, White students (Walton & Cohen, 2007). Finally, the college access literature has also emphasized the importance of increasing high school-college coordination, both to improve curricular alignment and to ensure a smooth transition as students move from high school to college (Kirst & Venezia, 2004).

We unite these research strands by investigating the impact of a unique high school – university partnership designed to support under-represented, college-intending students to follow through on their college intentions. In summer 2012 we facilitated a collaboration between Albuquerque Public Schools (APS) and the University of New Mexico (UNM), the higher education institution most frequently attended by APS graduates. We randomly assigned the 1,600 APS graduates who had been accepted to UNM to one of three experimental groups: (1) outreach from a counselor stationed at an APS high school, (2) outreach from a counselor stationed on the UNM campus, or (3) to a control group. This experimental design allowed us to assess whether students are more responsive to the offer of support from the college- or the high-school side. 

We find that over ninety percent of APS students who are well-represented on the UNM campus—Whites and Females—successfully matriculate in the year following high school, and that the offer of additional assistance does not increase the probability they enroll. By contrast, summer melt rates for Latino males, who are substantially under-represented at UNM relative to APS, exceed 15 percent in the control group. For these students the offer of additional counseling substantially increases college entry. Outreach from the college side appears to be particularly effective, generating over a ten percentage point increase in enrollment to the control group.