- Broadening the concept of the land grant university and its programs
4H was founded in 1902 to instruct rural youth in improved farming and homemaking practices. In the 1960s and 1970s, 4H broadened its mission to serve urban youth and life experiences unrelated to agriculture that encourage positive youth development. 4H is housed in the Division of Youth and 4H in the National Institute of Food and Agriculture within the USDA. State programs have extensive ties to, and are usually administered by, extension offices at land grant universities. Can 4H programs serve universities as pipeline programs, especially for diverse or disadvantaged youth?
The University of Idaho initiated a college pipeline program oriented towards LatinX youth via an internal mechanism, but has realized the value of associating that program with 4H in a way that may benefit other college pipeline programs. Perhaps a more intentional approach to using 4H to enhance college-going and youth development, on either a state or national basis, could address today’s college educated workforce and social mobility challenges.
The most extensive recent study of 4H’s effects on youth is that of Lerner and colleagues. The study clearly demonstrates many positive youth outcomes of 4H participation, including higher rates of academic achievement as well as lower frequency of negative behavior, but the study does not directly address college going outcomes and diversity issues.
Finding national participation rate data for 4H programs proved challenging (and my queries were never answered by the USDA 4H office), but the Lerner study included survey data of this sort. Comparing the survey data to census data is a bit challenging as the data definitions and survey differed. Nevertheless, as one might expect, rural students are currently overrepresented in the sample; over 46% of respondents of known living environment were rural while only 14% of the US population is rural. 4H also has significant underrepresentation of Asian American, African American, and LatinX youth. Regionally, the Midwest is overrepresented and the South underrepresented. 4H also engages over 60% young women. College-going rates generally follow similar trends with some exceptions. LatinX and African American students are underrepresented in US colleges as they are in 4H; the Midwest has a generally high college attendance rate.
Idaho has one of the lowest per capita incomes in the nation and this is directly correlated with low educational attainment of the adult population. The state hopes to radically increase education attainment to support an emerging high technology economy. Idaho has one of the lowest rates of college attendance in the nation. That rate is particularly low among its LatinX and rural populations (which overlap significantly). In fact, Idaho has the lowest postsecondary attainment of any LatinX population, only 10.7% of LatinX adults in Idaho hold a postsecondary degree.
As a model program, the University’s Latino Advisory Council and Office of Equity and Diversity in 2017 developed a deep engagement model in which programs were embedded in a rural, heavily Latino high school in Jerome, Idaho. The program engaged 8th grade students and their families, and was named by the families “Caminos al Futuro.” This Road to the Future already seems to have changed student perception of career options and brought the students experiences well beyond those offered by the school, but, nonetheless, a challenge emerged concerning the sustainability of the program..
Our Extension Office stepped forward to write a USDA CYFAR grant that will allow us to not only sustain the program but to double it in size. In addition to this support, the engagement with Extension opened our eyes to the Youth Development Curriculum already developed by 4H, Juntos. Juntos programs are operating across the country; I note that Oregon State University’s program engages over 30,000 students. The success of the first grant encouraged us to successfully apply for a second, allowing another program doubling. Additionally, students and some family members from Caminos participated in the on-campus summer meeting program; again opening eyes to new possibilities and engaging students and families in seeing the potential of college-going in general, and especially at the state’s land grant, research university.
How can 4H be leveraged even farther? The cultural relevancy of materials and programs must be increased. To address the cultural gaps, materials should be available in Spanish, for example, so that families who may be less bilingual than the students understand the value and nature of the programs. Volunteers play an important role in 4H; 4H alumni are a rich source of volunteers. Bicultural volunteers must be recruited, many of whom may not have traditionally participated in 4H themselves (4H alumni are the richest current source of volunteers). Addressing the gender gap in 4H participation may also require a much broader approach to activities and intentional engagement of male students and volunteers.
The 4H and Extension programs of our universities have extensive infrastructure and capacity to address some of the central issues facing postsecondary education in rural and other communities. Just as land grant universities helped the United States economic transformation to an industrial society and a world leader in agricultural productivity, we can use this same system to ensure that our underserved communities are not left behind in the knowledge economy.
