Dive Brief:

• In the months between high school graduation and the start of college, many students with plans to attend in the fall change their mind — a phenomenon known as “summer melt.”
• Nationwide, the percentage of students who don’t make it to campus in the fall is between 10% and 15%, but some urban areas have rates as high as 40%.
• The phenomenon is especially acute with first-generation college attendees and students from low-income families, who can become bogged down in the bureaucratic and logistical hurdles that students must clear to get financial aid, find housing, and enroll in classes.

Dive Insight:

To make the problem worse, many of the support systems that keep students on track during the year — encouraging teachers, peer pressure, college counseling — fade away during the summer. High school counselors have been aware of the issue, one professor of counseling and school psychology said. It’s a "crazy time" for the people students rely on to be unavailable, Laura Owen, an assistant professor at San Diego State University, told Education Week. Just having an connection with an adult can help usher students through the nerve-wracking months before they start college.

As a result, some counselors have begun contacting students over the summer and making sure they are on track to attend college.

"You have to keep encouraging them," said Lindsay K. Brown, a school counselor at John Hope College Preparatory High School in Chicago. "Take whatever steps that you can take within your power to make sure they are successful stepping on that campus in August." 

Most receive no payment for those services and districts are hard-pressed to find dollars for another program. So some nonprofits, with the sole mission of getting students through June, July, and August, have helped. For example, the College Connection Center in Kansas City, MO, coaches students through financial aid paperwork and provides emergency funding for unexpected expenses. Others provide one-on-one counseling outside of school, so students have someone to call.