Dive Brief:
- California State University-Stanislaus, CUNY Bernard M. Baruch College, and Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts are among the best performers when it comes to graduating low-income students.
- Advancing Diversity reports that CSU-Stanislaus has hired more tenure-track faculty and enhanced advising to improve retention and graduation rates, while Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts offers holistic support through its Center for Student Success and Engagement, tracks first-year students to make sure they progress toward 30 credits by the start of their third semester, and offers on-time graduation degree maps for every major.
- Baruch College targets low-income students with the SEEK opportunity program — which offers financial, academic, and social support services — and it offers free tutoring and writing services, runs an early alert program for mid-semester feedback, and addresses achievement gaps between students from underrepresented groups with pre-semester academic skills bootcamps.
Dive Insight:
For a long time, colleges and universities were not held accountable for student outcomes. They enrolled students but didn’t have to go too far out of their way to make sure they graduated. Now, massive support infrastructure has been built up to ensure students are prepared for their adult lives and future careers. Many states have begun incentivizing schools by tying funding to student outcomes.
That practice, though still in its early stages, could be achieving opposite results. A recent study found colleges may be enrolling fewer low-income students to inflate their outcomes data and game state formulas. Schools that serve high numbers of disadvantaged students already argue their outcomes are taken out of context in the College Scorecard. A key element of accountability proposals must be attention to inputs as well as outputs.