Dive Brief:
- The U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences has released 6 best practices and implementation guides for institutions seeking higher success outcomes for underprepared students.
- The most effective recommendations include intrusive advisement and monetary rewards for high academic performance, along with longterm support programs.
- Financial resources, poor communication and lack of buy-in from staff were listed among the challenges for implementation of most of the recommendations.
Dive Insight:
Many experts and observers of student outcomes can agree that paying closer attention to students' personal development and financial capacity is the best way to predict success in the classroom. However, it is not enough to predict that a student will struggle because of a lack of food, homelessness, personal or family medical issues, or transportation difficulties.
Without fundraising and development support for these challenges, which often can be unique and vary in degrees of impact for different students, understanding the trouble areas only frustrates students and faculty more in the face of not being able to change the issue itself.