Ohio is serving as a test state for a two-year national ad campaign that informs students from low-income families about higher education opportunities, a need still prevalent in Appalachian Ohio.
The campaign, Know How 2 Go
is headed by the Lumina Foundation for Education, the Ad Council and the American Council on Education. It will include televised public service announcements and radio ads, billboards and posters, pamphlets and an interactive Web site geared toward eighth to tenth grade students from low-income families and those who would be the first in their families to attend college, said Jamie Abel, assistant director of communications for the Ohio Board of Regents.
According to research conducted by the Ohio College Access Network, 80 percent of eighth to tenth grade students believe they can go to college, but that optimism dwindles to 42 percent by age 17.
The campaign encourages students to find a counselor or adult to assist in the college application and financial aid process, prepare more for standardized tests and explore different higher education options such as two-year degrees or trade schools, said Kimberly Gormley, director of marketing and communications for OCAN.
The Portsmouth-based Ohio Appalachian Center for Higher Education, one of the campaign's local supporters, recently has worked with Trimble Local Schools, Hocking College and Ohio University's Southern, Eastern and Chillicothe branches to increase the number of Appalachian and first-generation high school students attending college, said Brenda Haas, the center's executive director.
The college-going rate for Appalachian Ohio is 30 percent, compared to 41 percent statewide and 62 percent nationwide.
Ohio will be the second state after Indiana to launch its Know How 2 Go campaign on March 28, Gormley said.
Recently hired by OCAN to head Ohio's ad campaign, Gormley said the state was chosen as one of seven target states to test the campaign because recent outsourcing of warehouse jobs has led to a need for an educated workforce.
The campaign's research, production and distribution already has $3 million behind it from Lumina, a private organization that grants about $50 million annually to prospective college students, said David Cournoyer, Lumina's program director.
The campaign will utilize eight lighthouse sites ' one of which is in Adams County ' created by a six-year U.S. Department of Education grant to distribute materials and monitor the effectiveness of the campaign, Abel said.
OU Students from Appalachian Ohio
Year
# of Students Percent of Student Body
2006-2007
4,131
24.0
2005-2006
3,860
22.6
2004-2005
4,187 24.8
2003-2004 4,304
25.3
2002-2003
4,341
25.7
Source: OU Office of Institutional Research 17
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