According to mentoring.org, young adults who were at-risk for falling off track but had a mentor are 55 percent more likely to enroll in college, 78 percent more likely to volunteer regularly, 90 percent more interested in becoming a mentor later in life, and 130 percent more likely to hold leadership positions.
These statistics help to back up those who are constantly encouraging students at any level of education to seek out a mentor. Mentors are especially sought after today when specializing in a particular field or subject.
Many college students wonder if they really need a mentor to succeed or if they could figure out all of their questions on their own with time, and it is true that some college students will benefit from mentors more than others. First-generation college students are students who need mentors the most to help overcome obstacles of unknown questions that no one at home can help them with.
According to natcom.org, a resource center for specialized communication, 30 percent of entering freshman will be FGC’s.
According to Russ Olwell, a professor at Eastern Michigan University who recently published a new book titled “Mentoring is a Verb: Strategies for Improving Post-Secondary and Career Readiness” says that “Mentoring is like cooking. Whether you are an individual mentor or in a program, you need to vary the recipe based on your location and the young people with whom you are working.”
According to an EMU press release, this book “explores key elements for successfully mentoring high school students; building effective mentoring programs; working with parents and guardians’ forging lasting relationships with students; addressing ways to connect with at-risk students; and how to encourage educators to individually mentor students.”
This book addresses and answers many questions for both students looking for a mentor and for a potential mentors.
Although many students choose to seek out their own mentors after attending some classes in their field and meeting professionals on their own that they click with, EMU does offer Mentorship Access Guidance in College (MAGIC) that is geared at students who spent time in foster care or experience homelessness. MAGIC collaborates with Academic Success Partnerships (PSA) to help find mentors for students and provide support to help these students achieve personal, education, and career goals.
A list of more specific student type mentorship programs EMU offers can be found here.
“Given that alternatives to mentoring include dropping out of high school – which costs society over $1 million over a lifetime – and incarceration - which costs $31,286 per inmate per day - mentoring programs would be flush with funding if they could access even a fraction of what they can save governments,” Olwell said.
