Higher Education BlogKai Drekmeier
President and Founder
InsideTrack
The latest Inside Higher Ed survey of Chief Academic Officers found that more than 75 percent of CAOs list “improving retention and degree completion” as a top challenge/issue facing their campus over the next two to three years. To facilitate meaningful conversation around this issue, InsideTrack is surveying of a broad spectrum of innovators, change agents, and other leaders in higher education and preparing a Leadership Report on Issues and Ideas in Higher Education.
We would like to add your voice to the discussion, so please email me your thoughts on any of the following questions (feel free to pick just one) at kaid@insidetrack.com or leave a comment by clicking the link at the bottom of this post:
1) Is improving retention and degree completion a top challenge/issue facing your campus over the next 2 to 3 years?
2) What do you see as the key obstacles to improving outcomes at your university, and/or at non-profit [public/private] universities in general?
3) How do you measure/should we measure the effectiveness of initiatives designed to improve outcomes?
Thank you in advance for your participation.
One challenge of Higher Education is the lack of diversity in the administration of Higher Education such as the admissions officers, deans, counselors, etc. If there was more diversity it would encourage more students to attend, as they will feel more comfortable relating to someone of their own background.
Some of my thoughts about What do you see as the key obstacles to improving outcomes at your university, and/or at non-profit [public/private] universities in general?
1- Expanding college access to low-income and minority students. The federal government’s Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance indicates that each year nearly 400,000 academically qualified students fail to pursue a postsecondary education because they cannot afford it. This enormously diminishes individual opportunity and wastes precious human capital. The single most effective step to boost college participation of low-income and minority students is to substantially increase the value of Pell grants. We know that there are programs to reach underserved populations. For example, the TRIO (such as LMU Upward Bound) programs have helped launch the successful college careers of thousands of low-income, first-generation college students. In addition, we have our own Academic Resource Center with the First to Go program for first- generation students to transition into college. Great opportunities to nurture the low income and minority students in campuses.
2- Keeping college affordable. According to the College Board, 46% of full-time undergraduates in four-year colleges and universities face tuition charges of less than $6,000, prior to receiving financial aid. Many families worry that they cannot afford a postsecondary education and believe that colleges are indifferent to the impact of tuition increases. It is imperative to identify new approaches to contain costs using technology and other tools to help our students to be successful.
3- Improving learning by utilizing new knowledge and instructional techniques. Seek for effective instructional practices and student learning. We should use our assessment information to enhance student learning and expand teaching methods to reach our diverse student populations.
4- Preparing students for higher education. Many students do not graduate from high school, therefore, they are not ready to succeed in college. This growing crisis especially affects low- income students. This particularly manifests itself harshly in science and mathematics, which are vital areas for competing globally. One key to solving this problem is to better align high school curricula and graduation requirements with college-readiness standards. Our colleges and universities confront unprepared students every day and have implemented temporary solution measures like remedial courses and tutoring. However, these methods do not meet the current needs of the nation. Higher education must participate in a coordinated, national effort to address K-12/higher education transition challenges.
5- Increasing accountability for educational outcomes. Accreditation is a critical part of quality assurance. The accreditation process gives us the opportunity to reflect on our practices and provide evidence for our educational outcomes to the outside world.
6-Internationalize the student experience. As globalization continues to make the world smaller, we need our students gain the skills and knowledge to excel in their careers. This includes giving more attention to international issues in the curriculum, increasing proficiency in foreign languages, and expanding the number of students participating in study abroad opportunities.
7-Increasing opportunities for lifelong education and workforce training. Preparing students for the workforce is a central task of in higher education. We need to pay more attention to the employment outcomes of our graduates.
These challenges primarily affect undergraduate education. There are other critical challenges facing higher education, particularly related to research and graduate education and the increasing competition in both of these areas from other countries. At a minimum, we should keep the basic goals of higher education – the ability to think, write, and speak clearly; to reason critically; to solve problems; to work collaboratively; to acquire field-specific knowledge; and to acquire the judgment, analytic capacity, and independence of thought to support continued, self-driven, lifelong learning and engaged citizenship.
1-Yes
2-As a land-grant, there is an expectation to provide access to education to state’s youth. The challenge is to set admissions standards appropriately to allow access with academic success. Cost continues to impact progress to a degree to many students and new federal guidelines or changes in financial aid will probably have further impacts. Increase in non-traditional learners and online delivery also impacts retention and time to degree stats.
3-This is an awkward question – all objectives or learning outcomes should be measurable.
2-There is a serious lack of attention to the needs of “nontraditional” adult students which is where there is huge potential for growth while the high school populations continue to decline. Some examples:
a. Classes scheduled MWF or TTh during the day hours. Working adults cannot attend classes during these times. One day a week, evening and weekend classes, online and hybrid classes meet their needs much better.
b. Addressing a campus culture that is not welcoming to older, working adults including professors who are openly hostile to older adults in their classes, campus offices only being open during 8 – 5 hours, activities geared to the teen-age and young adult students, no child care or elder care facilities, etc.
c. Degree requirements that block degree completion such as residency requirements, full-time internships, or study abroad requirements.
d. Consistent, easily accessible and supportive prior learning evaluations are rare so adult students get no respect or credit for their life’s experiences, prior education and training. Some commercial evaluation services are very expensive and few universities accept their evaluations, insisting on their own faculty doing the review. Usually there are no consistent guidelines or criteria for the faculty reviews so the outcomes are unpredictable. Putting a portfolio together involves a huge amount of work often without any guidance or criteria to follow so when little or no credit is awarded, the student is understandably frustrated and may just quit at that point.
e. University strategic plans ignore adult students and their needs. Admissions offices rarely recruit them focusing instead on competing for the increasingly smaller population of teenagers. Community college transfer students may find an admissions office and a campus culture that does not welcome them in spite of the fact that transfer students are far more likely to graduate than the native students. Retention and graduation rates for transfer students are consistently higher than for native students.
f. Adult students find themselves treated as second-class citizens on campus, as outsiders. They find little sympathy or respect for the fact that they may be raising a family, caring for elderly parents, working full-time and trying to reach their dream of a college education simultaneously.
g. Since they may take only one class at a time, they are not eligible for financial aid which requires a minimum of six credit hours. Often, adult students are the first in their family to attend college and they may struggle to navigate the admissions, financial aid and course registration processes. Their confidence in their ability to succeed is fragile and any number of barriers can stop their forward progress. Finding a faculty advisor who will actually talk with them and get to know them can be a major barrier to reaching their goal. They would benefit from a support group of other adult students who may need to connect online rather than live due to work and family schedules.
h. Adult students may have to “stop out” from time to time depending upon their family, work and financial situation. So classes offered sequentially or only once a year substantially and negatively affect retention rates and graduation times.
i. Adult students benefit from an individually designed degree that allows substantial transfer of hours from previous colleges or universities, acceptance of prior learning experiences, and flexibility in course requirements and offerings, providing choices of courses within and across disciplines and of delivery mechanisms, live or online. These degrees may be called “University Studies” or something similar. There needs to be a strong advising component and strong support for the adult student attempting to complete the degree as it may take many years to complete. These students won’t show up in the four and six year graduation statistics.
3-Look at the number of adult students who enroll in live or online classes.
- Look at the retention rate of adult students.
- Look at the graduation rate of adult students at 8 and 10 years, not just 4 and 6 years.
- Ask the adult students about the campus culture and their place in it.
- Ask the adult students about the prior learning assessment process.
- Ask the adult students about the financial aid, admissions and recruitment processes. Then look at their success in achieving their goals.
- Review the admissions and recruitment processes for their success in recruiting adult students.
- Hold faculty accountable for effectively advising and creating a welcoming classroom atmosphere for adult students. Give the adult students criteria to evaluate the faculty’s achievement in these areas and collect these data then use them as part of the annual faculty evaluation.
- Establish a consistent prior learning assessment process that includes support for the adult student throughout the process, and criteria and guidelines that are consistently applied across disciplines. Then measure before and after success rates in achieving credit for prior learning.
- Put serving adult students into the University strategic plan along with action, budget and evaluation plans to assure implementation.
- Look at the details of the campus culture that create barriers for adult students such as support office working hours, class scheduling, degree completion requirements, lack of child or elder care facilities nearby, and make changes. Evaluate effects on recruitment, admissions, retention and graduation rates after an intensive marketing campaign to let adult students know they are welcome. (Expect a lack of trust that these changes will last.)
1. Absolutely yes! Our Provost talks about these two issues a lot, and we’re using the term “degree completion” instead of transfer now. These two are our top priorities.
2. Reduced funding from the state means a combination of staff cuts and cuts in service delivery, which affects students. Combined with tuition hikes required because of staff and service cuts, the obstacles are front and center.
3. Our state has decided to measure them (and tie higher ed funding to) by % of students graduating, so we will measure by those metrics as well.