Tag: completion

  • How an early alert system raised one college’s FAFSA completion

    How an early alert system raised one college’s FAFSA completion

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    NASHVILLE — College leaders understand the value of a completed financial aid application, but they often face hurdles helping students navigate the slog of paperwork.

    Holyoke Community College, in Massachusetts, encountered this problem in spring 2023. That semester, 47% of attendees at the college’s new-student orientation had not completed their Free Application for Federal Student Aid, institutional leaders said Monday at the American Association of Community Colleges′ annual conference.

    Along with low levels of FAFSA completion, they also noted that dozens of students who had otherwise completed their financial aid applications were missing one crucial piece of paperwork — which became the deciding factor between the state completely covering their tuition or not.

    Holyoke implemented an early alert system to address challenges among both groups. By proactively reaching out to new students and inviting them to one-on-one advising sessions, officials raised FAFSA completion rates among that cohort by 14% for fall 2023 and got the appropriate state aid to those who were eligible.

    Missing paperwork

    Enrolling some 3,700 credit-bearing students, Holyoke is located in a college-dense area with about 20 other higher education institutions, according to Lauren LeClair, the community college’s associate director of admissions technology and operations.

    “We fight for our students. We wanted to make sure that we were doing right by our students and getting them aid,” she told conference attendees. “New students probably had no idea that they didn’t have paperwork that was needed.”

    Many also didn’t know where to go to learn more about financial aid, said Kim Straceski, Holyoke’s associate director of financial aid compliance and customer service.

    “They’re getting different information from different offices, and not always coming to meet one of the experts in financial aid,” she said.

    In spring 2023, the college lacked a way to alert students or financial aid staff about missing financial aid documents, according to education consultancy EAB. Holyoke employed the group to establish a new customer relationship management system to address these issues. 

    The new system pinged students to alert them about the missing paperwork and prompted them to schedule an advising appointment to fix the error. An adviser also followed up with a more detailed email, highlighting that they could help students hunt down the needed documents.

    “Students do open emails — if it’s important enough,” LeClair said.

    On the back end, the system allowed both financial aid staff and academic advisers to see notifications to students and any progress they made completing their forms. Before, the two offices were disconnected from one another in this process.

    By fall 2023, 67% of students who received early alerts had completed their outstanding aid requirements.

    The early alert system also helped new students learn where to seek help for any potential financial aid issues that arise in the future.

    MassReconnect 

    At Holyoke, almost 600 students are enrolled in MassReconnect, a state-run free community college program for nontraditional students. Since 2023, state residents ages 25 and older who do not have a degree have been eligible to attend community college for free, so long as they complete the FAFSA.

    Early results indicate the program has boosted the number of adult learners enrolled at Massachusetts community colleges, especially those from households earning below the state’s median income.

    But Holyoke identified a problem for about 40 of its MassReconnect students — they were missing one key document.

    “All of these students need to sign an affidavit attesting to the fact that they have not earned a prior degree,” said Straceski. 

    But for many, that requirement was not made clear in the MassReconnect program’s promotional materials.

    “When students are reading about it on the state’s website and they’re hearing about it in the news — nothing about this affidavit was ever mentioned,” Straceski said.

    Holyoke couldn’t distribute state funding to cover the students’ costs without this documentation. But thanks to the early alert system, Straceski said the college received all 40 affidavits by deadline.

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  • Wraparound Support Network Aids College Student Math Completion

    Wraparound Support Network Aids College Student Math Completion

    Corequisite educational models are tied to higher pass and completion rates for students compared to remedial education, but ensuring learners are passing college-level courses often requires additional institutional investment.

    Middle Georgia State University reimagined its corequisite education model to embed tutors, peer mentors and success coaches in entry-level math courses. Now, students who are falling behind are identified on a weekly basis, allowing for targeted and individualized outreach.

    After the first term of the initiative, passing rates grew over 10 percentage points and withdrawals decreased, encouraging the university to scale the intervention to English courses and, starting next fall, STEM courses with high failure—D or F—or withdrawal rates.

    What’s the need: Middle Georgia State offers 29 sections of its corequisite math course, Qualitative Reasoning. The course has seen stagnant success rates over the past few years, even though the number of students enrolled in corequisites grew, said Deepa Arora, senior associate provost of student success at Middle Georgia State.

    Students who didn’t pass the class were less likely to stay enrolled and progress, prompting institutional leaders to consider new ways to engage these learners.

    How it works: The solution was to create a support network of professionals who assist learners.

    Faculty members are at the center of the initiative, flagging at-risk learners who are missing goals or failing to submit work.

    From there, student success coaches, who are embedded in the course’s learning management system, reach out to those students to share resources, create a success plan and make referrals. Coaches also initiate a follow-up a week later to see if students have completed any action.

    Depending on the student’s area of weakness, success coaches funnel them to one of two types of student employee: an embedded tutor or a peer mentor.

    Embedded tutors address primarily academic concerns, such as low grades. Tutors attend class sessions, provide content-specific coaching and host review sessions as well as set up appointments for learners who need additional assistance, Arora said.

    Corequisite learners who may be missing or not participating in classes are referred to a peer mentor, Arora said. In addition to teaching academic skills, peer mentors focus on a student’s sense of belonging and connection to the institution. They facilitate workshops, provide referrals to other support resources and connect students with classmates.

    Both tutors and mentors are paid positions for which students must meet certain qualifications: They need to have passed the relevant course, be enrolled at least part-time and fulfill role-specific training.

    Building better: The staffing changes were supported by revenue from tuition increases over the past two years. Faculty buy-in was also essential. “Faculty collaboration and cooperation with the success team was an integral part of the initiative and led to the development of a support ecosystem for the student,” Arora said.

    Prior to implementing the new model, faculty members were briefed on the initiative’s design and asked to provide feedback and meet with the success coaches to build relationships.

    Faculty didn’t receive any specific training other than guidance on how to identify at-risk students—those missing classes, earning low grades or failing to engage. Campus leaders also encouraged professors to send weekly communication regarding student performance and share related information about content with the success coach assigned to their section, Arora said.

    The impact: The initiative succeeded in its goal of improving student pass rates: 73 percent of students who attempted the course in fall 2024 passed, a 14-percentage-point increase from the previous fall’s rate. (Excluding withdrawals, 77 percent of fall 2024 students passed the course.)

    One trend the university noted was that the students who did fail were primarily in the online sections, suggesting that improvements to the in-person experiences were moving the needle.

    Additionally, the connection between faculty and success coaches broke down institutional silos through ensuring timely identification of barriers and sharing of best practices. Success coaches appreciated being embedded in the learning management system, as it gave them greater insight into where the students needed help.

    Support staff also noted increased student use of resources.

    What’s next: After the initial positive results, university leaders chose to extend the initiative this term to include all sections of Composition I and its corequisite support courses. “The plan is also to extend this strategy to all sections of Anatomy and Physiology I and II where additional support is needed to improve their success rates,” Arora said.

    The university will also invest in additional focus on online courses to close success gaps there.

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  • 13-Percentage-Point Gap in Pell vs. Non-Pell Completion

    13-Percentage-Point Gap in Pell vs. Non-Pell Completion

    A survey of community colleges finds, across five states, Pell Grant recipients have lower success rates compared to their peers.

    Eduard Figueres/iStock/Getty Images

    Low-income students can experience a variety of barriers to success in college, and new data from the Richmond Federal Reserve points to gaps in success and completion among Pell Grant recipients at community colleges, compared to their peers.

    An analysis of a 2024 survey of two-year public institutions in Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia identified a 13-percentage-point gap in success rates between Pell Grant recipients and those who do not receive the Pell Grant. Forty percent of Pell Grant students achieved at least one metric of success, versus 53 percent of non-Pell recipients.

    Methodology 

    The 2024 Survey of Community College Outcomes includes data from five states—Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia—and 121 colleges. Data includes all degree- or certificate-seeking students enrolled during the 2019–20 academic year, including dual-enrollment students.

    Around 34 percent of students included in the study received a Pell Grant while enrolled at a community college, (compared to the national average of 32 percent). Dual-enrollment students are not eligible for the Pell Grant.

    The background: Pell Grant recipients, who are low-income students enrolled in a college or university in the U.S., are more often to be enrolled at public institutions, and the greatest share are from families who earn less than $20,000 annually.

    Success, as defined by the Richmond Fed, means a degree- or certificate-seeking student at a community college completed one of the following over a four-year period following enrollment:

    • Earned an associate degree
    • Earned a diploma or credit-bearing certificate
    • Earned an industry- or employer- recognized licensure or credential
    • Transferred to a four-year institution prior to degree or award attainment
    • Persisted by completing at least 30 credit hours

    Over all, Pell and non-Pell students completed an associate degree at similar rates (19 percent), but Pell students were less likely to transfer (10 percent of Pell versus 20 percent of non-Pell) or complete a credential (6 percent versus 7 percent).

    Digging into the data: Researchers qualify that while there is a correlation between receiving a Pell Grant and graduation, that does not imply causation, or that receiving Pell Grant funding leads to lower outcomes.

    “Students who qualify for and receive Pell Grant funding may have substantively different characteristics than non-Pell students—differences that could be driving the differences in outcomes,” wrote Laura Dawson Ullrich, director of the Community College Initiative at the Richmond Fed, in a blog post.

    North Carolina was the only state with higher associate degree completion rates among Pell students, but this could be due to how the state classifies dual-enrollment students as degree-seeking and their ineligibility for the Pell Grant.

    South Carolina had the highest transfer rate among Pell (19.3 percent) and non-Pell recipients (27 percent), which could be a result of Clemson University and the University of South Carolina’s bridge programs with community colleges, Ullrich wrote.

    Low-income students are more likely to experience basic needs insecurity, which can hinder persistence and completion. The Richmond Fed plans to conduct more surveys focusing on wraparound student supports and how the existence of these resources may contribute to Pell Grant recipients’ success.

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  • Achieving a 100% Completion Rate for Student Assessment at the University of Charleston

    Achieving a 100% Completion Rate for Student Assessment at the University of Charleston

    Seated in beautiful Charleston, West Virginia, the University of Charleston (UC) boasts “a unique opportunity for those who want an exceptional education in a smaller, private setting.” UC provides a unique student experience focused on retention and student success even before students arrive on campus.

    Students are offered an opportunity to complete the College Student Inventory (CSI) online through a pre-orientation module. This initiative is reinforced through the student’s Success and Motivation first-year course. University instructors serve as mentors, utilizing the CSI results to capitalize on insights related to each individual student’s strengths and opportunities for success through individual review meetings and strategic support and skill building structured within this course.

    After achieving a 7% increase in retention, Director of Student Success and First-Year Programs Debbie Bannister says administering the CSI each year is non-negotiable. Additionally, the campus has refocused on retention, emphasizing, “Everyone has to realize that they are part of retention, and they’re part of keeping every single student on our campus.”

    UC has reinstated a Retention Committee that utilizes summary information from the CSI to understand the needs of its students. Of particular concern, UC notes that the transfer portal has created additional challenges with upperclassmen, so including a representative from the athletic department on the retention committee has been crucial.

    Through this focus on retention and strong implementation strategy, UC achieves a 100% completion rate for the CSI for their first-year student cohort. Building off the scaffolding support from early support meetings related to the CSI insights, first-year instructors are able to refer back to reinforce articulated support strategies and goals throughout the first-year experience. The structure and progression through this course reiterates college preparation skills and resources building motivation and a growth mindset to persist through college.

    Increase student success through early intervention

    Join institutions such as the University of Charleston by using the College Student Inventory with your incoming students. More than 1,400 institutions have used the CSI, and it’s been taken by more than 2.6 million students nationwide. Learn more about how you can use it to intervene earlier with students and increase student yield.

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  • Skipping remedial courses impacts students’ completion

    Skipping remedial courses impacts students’ completion

    Developmental education has come under scrutiny for delaying students’ academic attainment and overall degree progression. While the purpose of remedial courses is to prepare learners to succeed in more difficult courses, it can produce the opposite effect, discouraging learners from pursuing more advanced courses or pushing them to drop out.

    A December report from the Center for the Analysis of Postsecondary Readiness (CAPR)—a partnership of MDRC and the Community College Research Center at Columbia University’s Teachers College—identified the benefits of placing students into college-level math and English classes and how it can impact their credit attainment and completion.

    “This research finds evidence that colleges should consider increasing the total number of students referred directly to college-level courses, whether by lowering their requirements for direct placement into college-level courses or by implementing other policies with the same effect,” according to the report.

    Methodology: Around three-quarters of colleges use multiple measures assessment (MMA) systems to place learners in remedial education, relying on standardized tests and high school GPA, among other factors, according to the CAPR report.

    This study evaluates data from 12 community colleges across Minnesota, New York and Wisconsin and 29,999 students to see how effective MMA systems are compared to traditional test-only placement methods on dictating students’ long-term success.

    Incoming students who took a placement test were randomly assigned to one of two groups: test-only referral or MMA placement. Researchers collected data on how students would have been placed under both systems to analyze different outcomes and gauge long-term outcomes.

    The findings: For most students, there was no material difference in their placement; 81 percent of the math sample and 68 percent of the English sample referred students to the same level of coursework, which researchers classified as “always college level” or “always developmental.”

    Around 44 percent of students from the New York sample were “bumped up” into a college-level English course, and 16 percent were bumped up into a college-level math class due to being assigned to the MMA group, whereas the test-only system would have sorted them into developmental education. Seven percent of learners were “bumped down” into developmental ed for English.

    In Wisconsin, 15 percent of students in the MMA group were bumped up in English, and 14 percent were bumped up in math placement.

    Students who were assigned to the MMA group and were placed into a higher-level course were more likely to have completed a college-level math or English course, compared to their peers in the test-only placement group with similar GPAs and scores.

    This bump-up group, across samples, was eight percentage points more likely to pass a college-level course and earned 2.0 credits more on average. These learners were also more likely to earn a degree or transfer to a four-year institution within nine semesters by 1.5 percentage points.

    Inversely, students who were recommended by MMA placement to take developmental ed, but not according to the test-only system, were less likely to succeed.

    So what? The evidence shows that referring more students into college-level courses is a better predictor of success than the placement system.

    Implementing an MMA is a small cost to the institution, around $60 per student, but it can result in students saving money because they take fewer developmental courses over all, and maybe earn more credits entirely.

    “Overall, this report concludes that MMA, when it allows more students to be directly placed in college-level coursework, is a cost-effective way to increase student educational achievement,” researchers wrote.

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  • Retention tied to timely completion for college students

    Retention tied to timely completion for college students

    Analysis of completion from the class entering in 2016 finds persistence is a significant factor in timely completion among associate and bachelor’s degree seekers.

    Phira Phonruewiangphing/iStock/Getty Images Plus

    Over 36 million Americans have earned some college credits but have yet to complete a credential, demonstrating gaps in higher education that leave students with only part of a degree and often student loan debt.

    Colleges and universities have invested in their retention strategies to improve students’ completion and the cost of education by helping them complete a degree in a timely manner.

    Recent data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center found that academic outcomes in the first year and first- to second-year persistence were significant indicators of a student’s likelihood of completing a degree and doing so expeditiously.

    Survey Says 

    A 2023 Student Voice survey from Inside Higher Ed and College Pulse found 69 percent of undergraduate survey respondents (n=3,004) expected to graduate in the standard two- or four-year time frame.

    Thirteen percent of respondents said they didn’t expect to graduate in a timely manner because they planned or expected to take longer, and 3 percent said it was due to factors that they believe to be the fault of the institution.

    The background: The federal government tracks first-time degree seekers’ graduation rates in terms of six- and eight-year completion, but a typical associate or bachelor’s degree program can be categorized as two-year or four-year, respectively.

    The six-year completion rate for all college students entering two-year and four-year institutions in 2017 was 62.2 percent, with a 34-percentage-point gap between private nonprofit four-year institutions (77.5 percent) and public two-year colleges (43.4 percent).

    Timely completion is associated with lower financial burdens, due to prolonged enrollment and improved socioeconomic mobility for students, as well as optimized institutional resources for the institution. Individual challenges and institutional policies can impact students’ timely progression, including academic challenges, personal struggles, basic needs insecurity, financial instability, transfer barriers, unclear degree requirements, developmental education, registration policies or insufficient advising.

    The study evaluates early success indicators, including first-year GPA, credit completion ratios, second-year enrollment and credits earned, and how these indicators predict completion across credential types and demographic profiles.

    Methodology

    Timely completion, as defined by the report authors, is “the student having earned the credential they initially sought, at any institution, within a specific time frame,” allowing for variance between associate, credential or bachelor’s programs.

    Researchers evaluated four factors: first-year credit completion ratio, first-year credits earned, first-year grade point average and second-year enrollment. Study participants (n=307,500) included first-time, full-time starters enrolled in fall 2016 in bachelor’s degree (63 percent) or associate programs (37 percent). Data was sourced from the Postsecondary Data Partnership by the National Student Clearinghouse and therefore is not representative of the national population.

    The findings: Researchers found a majority of timely completers demonstrated early success indicators, including having a significant number of credits earned, above a 3.3 GPA and re-enrollment for a second year. Further, “Students who completed in a timely manner had higher early indicators than non-completers, regardless of race, gender, age at entry, or major field of study,” according to the report.

    Even students who took 150 percent (three years for an associate degree, six years for a bachelor’s) or 200 percent (four and eight years, respectively) of the expected time to complete had higher success indicators than their noncompleting peers.

    In their first year, students who completed a credential had higher GPAs, earned more credits and completed on average 90 percent of the credits they attempted. They were also more often enrolled in their second year—even if at another institution—compared to their peers who did not finish in a timely manner.

    First- to second-year persistence was a distinct factor of timely completion for two-year or certificate students; students who did not complete enrolled in their second year at a rate 32 percentage points lower than those who did complete. This was the most important success indicator, followed by first-year credits earned.

    For bachelor’s degree seekers, a student’s first-year GPA was the most important early success indicator, followed by second-year retention.

    A student’s field of study can also relate to their timely completion, with bachelor’s degree seekers majoring in social sciences or business more likely to complete and associate degree seekers pursuing STEM or a social science degree more likely to complete. However, the researchers utilized program of study as a demographic category, and therefore analysis cannot be made of program requirements or courses that could help or hinder student completion.

    “These findings emphasize the need for targeted, evidence-based interventions that prioritize early academic achievement, support retention, and address program-specific challenges to improve completion outcomes,” according to the report.

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  • Five areas of focus for student equity in CTE completion

    Five areas of focus for student equity in CTE completion

    Career and technical education can support students’ socioeconomic mobility, but inequitable completion rates for students of color leave some behind.

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    Career and technical education programs have grown more popular among prospective students as ways to advance socioeconomic mobility, but they can have inequitable outcomes across student demographics.

    A December report from the Urban Institute offers best practices in supporting students of color as they navigate their institution, including in advising, mentoring and orientation programming.

    Researchers identified five key themes in equity-minded navigation strategies that can impact student persistence and social capital building, as well as future areas for consideration at other institutions.

    The background: The Career and Technical Education CoLab (CTE CoLab) Community of Practice is a group led by the Urban Institute to improve education and employment outcomes for students of color.

    In February and May 2024, the Urban Institute invited practitioners from four colleges—Chippewa Valley Technical College in Wisconsin, Diablo Valley College in California, Wake Technical Community College in North Carolina and WSU Tech in Kansas—to virtual roundtables to share ideas and practices. The brief includes insights from the roundtables and related research, as well as an in-person convening in October 2024 with college staff.

    “Practitioners and policymakers can learn from this knowledge and experience from the field to consider potential strategies to address student needs and improve outcomes for students of color and other historically marginalized groups,” according to the brief authors.

    Strategies for equity: The four colleges shared how they target and support learners with navigation including:

    • Using data to identify student needs, whether those be academic, basic needs or job- and career-focused. Data collection includes tracking success metrics such as completion and retention rates, as well as student surveys. Practitioners noted the need to do this early in the student experience—like during orientation—to help connect them directly with resources, particularly for learners in short courses. “Surveying students as part of new student orientation also provides program staff immediate information on the current needs of the student population, which may change semester to semester,” according to the report.
    • Reimagining their orientation processes to acclimate first-year students and ensure students are aware of resources. Chippewa Valley Technical College is creating an online, asynchronous orientation for one program, and Diablo Valley College is leveraging student interns to collect feedback on a new orientation program for art digital media learners. Some future considerations practitioners noted are ways to incentivize participation or attendance in these programs to ensure equity and how to engage faculty to create relationships between learners and instructors.
    • Supporting navigation in advising, mentoring and tutoring to help students build social capital and build connections within the institution. Colleges are considering peer mentoring and tutoring programs that are equity-centered, and one practitioner suggested implementing a checklist for advisers to highlight various resources.
    • Leveraging existing initiatives and institutional capacity to improve navigation and delivery of services to students, such as faculty training. One of the greatest barriers in this work is affecting change across the institution to shift culture, operations, structures and values for student success, particularly when it disrupts existing norms. To confront this, practitioners identify allies and engage partners across campus who are aligned in their work or vision.
    • Equipping faculty members to participate in navigation through professional development support. Community colleges employ many adjunct faculty members who may be less aware of supports available to students but still play a key role in helping students navigate the institution. Adjuncts can also have fewer contract hours available for additional training or development, which presents challenges for campus leaders. Diablo Valley College revised its onboarding process for adjuncts to guarantee they have clear information on college resources available to students and student demographic information to help these instructors feel connected to the college.

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