In February 2020, Colleen Arrey, Associate Vice President for Partner Success and Steve Ast, Senior Vice President for Partner Success at InsideTrack, embarked on a weeklong Listening Tour in South Carolina to learn more about unique approaches to student success in the state. They met with higher education administrators, faculty and staff at six institutions, including private liberal arts universities, regional state universities and flagship research universities. Participants in the interviews shared information about their strategies for recruitment and enrollment, student engagement, and retention, persistence, and timely program completion. They also discussed the values that motivate their work and the challenges that they, their institutions and their students face. Several common themes emerged throughout these conversations. In particular, we were struck by a deep dedication to helping students complete their education and the connection of this work to broader goals such as:

• Supporting regional economic development
• Providing equitable access to education
• Fostering social mobility
• Driving institutional innovation and excellence 

We have organized our learning, observations and recommendations into three broad categories below, as well as a final section on additional themes that surfaced throughout our conversations.

Retention, Persistence and Timely Program Completion

Challenges and Strategies

Every university we contacted was interested in improving retention, persistence and/or program completion, even if their current numbers were strong. 

Smart Strategies We Encountered

• Insulate students against the end of semester “grade surprise” by requiring mid-term grades for all courses. Provide academic coaching for students in high Drop Fail Withdraw (DFW) courses whose midterm (or earlier) grades fall below a certain threshold.
• Embed access to supportive services within the curriculum, so that students don’t have to ask for help. Build visits to the writing lab and other resources into new student orientation classes and freshman core courses.
• Streamline syllabus formats so that expectations and requirements, as well as information about support services, are right up top and easy to find.
• Assign all incoming students an academic coach to provide advising, access to resources and mental health first aid.
• When considering new approaches to improving retention, consult data and examine campus cultural issues that might impact student sense of belonging and engagement. Addressing those issues can make a more dramatic impact than focusing on academics alone.

Common Challenges and Proven Solutions

The most common challenges discussed during our interviews fell into the categories below. We have addressed each challenge with proven strategies and best practices:

• Understanding why students drop
• Colleges and universities often lack adequate data on the reasons why students drop out. Investing time and resources in a drop recovery campaign can be an effective way to collect data on the true reasons why your students are leaving, with the benefit of bringing some of them back — and potentially being able to prevent them from dropping in the first place.
• InsideTrack research shows that post-traditional students are more likely to drop out due to “life” related reasons rather than issues pertaining to academics. In fact, more than 30% of drops come from difficulty managing commitments whereas academic issues account for less than 10% of drops. 
• Re-enrollment strategies
• Reaching out to current students prior to the enrollment period for the next semester or term and encouraging them to re-enroll can prevent students from stopping out. The message should be positive rather than transactional. Express interest in having them continue their studies rather than simply providing dates and deadlines for the process.
• A best practice for preventing student drops is financial hold forgiveness.  Some students leave college because of registration holds for things like parking tickets. A $50 fee can be out of a low-income student’s reach and the lost tuition from that drop is much greater than the loss in parking fees, library fines, etc.
• Low-effort, high-volume call campaigns can be effective strategies for re-enrolling students who have stopped out. These campaigns can also be a good source of data to better address stop-out trends.
• Working with faculty
• Almost every institution we visited expressed some concern about faculty support for student success efforts. Faculty may not see the connection between their role and nonacademic factors that have an impact on student retention, persistence and completion. It may be helpful to give faculty information about techniques to foster noncognitive skill development and how such activities actually support academic performance.
• Obtaining actionable information
• Data on recruitment, enrollment, persistence, engagement, progress, student surveys, and completion are often siloed from one another, preventing an institution from developing a full picture of the students they are serving. Sharing and integrating that data can inform better, more timely student success efforts. It also prevents students from having to repeat their stories multiple times in different offices of the institution when seeking help.
• Developing a broad culture of support
• Frequently, only student affairs or the provost’s office explicitly embraces student success as a primary objective. But no single office or division can effectively tackle the challenges of ensuring that students succeed. All units of the institution have an impact on student success. High retention and completion rates result from a comprehensive, supportive culture across campus.

More Resources

Questions? We are here to help.

Have a question? Want to unpack some of these insights in more detail? Reach out directly to me at colleen.arrey@insidetrack.com or you can fill out the form below and I will get back to you shortly. Thanks and look forwarding to connecting.