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A new Ithaka S+R research project aims to determine whether campus libraries could do more to help community-college students complete their studies. The first phase of the project discovered that libraries and students aren’t always on the same page. For libraries, “student success” often has been defined by measurable academic data, such as the number of students who attain degrees or certificates, according to EdSurge’s account of the project. On the other hand, researchers found students viewed success in school in terms of personal satisfaction with their work and their lives—a much more nebulous goal. However, when students were asked about ongoing challenges, their answers provided some insights into how libraries could lend a hand to help them. Many students reported that applying for financial aid was confusing and they were having trouble paying for normal living expenses. Quite a few students were working parents who said they struggled to find affordable care for their kid...

How can universities attract and retain more students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses to fill the growing need for employees in these fields? As it turns out, one of the ways is to ensure students have a positive first experience with STEM education, according to University Business. After noticing that a lot of students who enrolled in an introductory STEM course never took any more, Michigan State University put more resources toward bolstering instruction in these 100-level classes. When the instruction improved, so did student success, and more students continued to sign up for STEM classes. “Twenty years ago, especially at research universities, a lot of faculty would see their primary job as research, and teaching as something they had to do,” James Fairweather, professor emeritus of higher adult and lifelong education at MSU, told UB. “I’d say the attitude of faculty toward teaching today is more positive. I don’t think they see it as the dreg...

College students hold a fairly high opinion of their writing skills, even when their grades don’t merit it. According to Inside Higher Ed , a new survey by Primary Research Group found that 46% of students didn’t think they needed any more instruction in writing and just over half said they didn’t require assistance with spelling or grammar. About a third were willing to concede their writing and grammatical skills could use a little work, but believed they were able to brush up on their own without formal instruction. Students who earned A grades were more likely, as you might expect, to say their writing skills were just fine, but students with lower scores were almost as confident. Only 17% of C students admitted to needing more instruction in writing. Students in their first or second year of college overwhelmingly held a positive view of their writing capabilities, but seniors (who had presumably by then received more feedback from professors on their papers) were somewhat more ap...

California State University is opening the system’s entire catalog of 3,000-plus online courses to its residential students. Full-time students who live on one of the 23 CSU campuses can take one online class per term at no charge, regardless of which CSU branch is offering the class. Many schools allow on-campus students to enroll in online courses, but most don’t make all courses available to those students. CSU used to limit access, too, but opted to drop most of the barriers. One remaining hurdle is that students can only take online classes from campuses that have the same semester or quarter term as their residential campus. That means the two quarter schools (in San Luis Obispo and San Bernardino) can only offer courses to each other. One of the objectives of the program is to help students finish their degrees on time by making available online options if they can’t get into a required course at their home campus or the class is scheduled at an inconvenient time. Students will...

There may be growing anxiety among many college students and their parents over whether attaining a bachelor’s degree is worth the expense, especially when student loans are involved. Two surveys—both, ironically, commissioned by companies that provide student loans—conducted last spring with young adults reveal some of the concerns. In the survey from Ascent Student Loans, 51% of respondents said they “do not believe the value of a college education has kept up with the rising cost.” Almost half said they were responsible for paying at least 50% of their school tab. In a survey from Discover Student Loans, 26% of current students and recent graduates were worried they’d need to take on a second job and give up leisure activities in order to pay off loan debt for their education, but that percentage rose to 59% among young adults who had been out of college for a few years. However, a lack of financial literacy may be contributing to students’ apprehension. More than 40% of the Discove...

Low-income, first-in-family college students sometimes need a little help getting to the finish line. Institutions typically respond with solutions such as tuition aid and academic counseling. That may not be enough, according to speakers at The New York Times Higher Ed Leaders Forum held recently. “The new economics of college goes way beyond tuition; we spend so much time talking about whether tuition is going up, whether it’s frozen, whether that makes college affordable. But the vast majority of the cost of attending college faced by students in the United States are things like books and supplies, room and board, medical expenses, transportation, clothing,” said Sara Goldrick-Rab, professor of higher education policy and sociology at Temple University, in a report about the conference on Education Dive. Goldrick-Rab and other speakers pointed out that some students need assistance covering basic living expenses while they’re in school, yet that gap has been overlooked by colleg...

Over the course of 14 years, Georgia State University managed to boost its six-year graduation rate from 32% to 54%. Some of the methods used by the university to raise that rate didn’t cost a lot and, in hindsight, seem rather obvious. For instance, the school realized that how well (or not) students did in introductory courses in their major served as a fairly reliable predictor of their academic success (or lack of it) later on. However, students who needed help could only receive generalized tutoring in writing, math, and languages. So, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education , the university hired high-performing students to attend course sections and provide tutoring on that specific content each week to other students who needed it. Many intro courses were moved to a “flipped” format, which required students to complete reading assignments beforehand so that they could use class time to apply the concepts in the course materials. Students also used to change their major ...

Some 39% of college students who have taken out loans to finance their education don’t want to assume any more debt and would think about dropping out first, according to a new survey by MagnifyMoney. More than half of the students answering the survey owed at least $20,000. But when questioned more closely why they see leaving school as an option, it turns out the size of the loan debt isn’t the only—or even most critical—factor. Of the student respondents with loans, 51% admitted to having a difficult time juggling their studies with a job and 20% were grappling to accommodate family-related responsibilities. More than a quarter were pondering whether to drop out after realizing their intended field paid relatively low and 10% didn’t even expect to work in the major they were studying. Dissatisfaction with the college or university they were attending also played a role in considering whether to continue or drop out. Not all of the respondents with student loans, though, were having...

Despite concerns over whether postsecondary schools can prepare graduates for jobs in the real world, the public still feels there is value in pursuing higher education. Sort of. In a new poll from the research group New America, a majority of respondents agreed “a college degree leads to better job opportunities than a high-school diploma,” according to a report in The Chronicle of Higher Education . A large percentage (78% of respondents who said they were Republicans and 84% of those who voted Democrat) also were “comfortable” with tax money being used to fund colleges and universities. However, although the respondents had a more favorable view of community colleges in general as well as the institutions in their local vicinity, they weren’t so sure about other schools in the higher-ed universe. Just 25% of respondents were satisfied with the current state of higher education. The biggest reason was cost. Thirty-eight percent of respondents viewed college attendance overall as too...

Three-year bachelor’s programs may be one way to reduce the overall cost of higher education while moving students into the workforce faster, according to a new study by the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI). PPI identified 32 institutions that were already offering bachelor’s degrees in three years but claimed all the programs deserved an “F” grade. “That’s because,” said the study report, “with the exception of a handful of schools such as Southern Oregon University, most are merely four-year programs squeezed into a three-year window.” The study recommended that three-year programs reduce the number of general and liberal-arts courses required so that most of a student’s time can be devoted to in-depth work in one or two subjects. That’s how many European universities structure their three-year degrees. To that end, the study said, students should also be required to declare a major or concentration as an entering first-year student, although allowed to switch later if they choose...

There could be tens of thousands of potential community-college students out there who haven’t enrolled yet, apparently because they never got around to completing the paperwork. A simple phone call could reel them in. According to Education Dive , a recent presentation at the American Association of Community Colleges Annual Meeting described how several colleges decided to conduct a call campaign to reach two groups of prospective students: those who had applied but didn’t finish forms for financial aid and those who had submitted financial-aid papers but hadn’t enrolled in classes. The results of the calls were pretty amazing. Hillsborough Community College in Florida, for example, increased enrollment by 745 students compared to the previous year, amounting to more than $3 million in revenue. San Juan College in New Mexico got 17% of the individuals called in the first semester to enroll; the percentage went up to 46% in the second semester. Like Hillsborough, San Juan enjoyed a ni...

Two new studies reinforce previous research showing college students are less likely to continue their education if the first courses they take are taught by adjuncts or part-timers, rather than tenure-track faculty. The Chronicle of Higher Education reported one study looked at community college students taking remedial and introductory courses and found that fewer students in adjunct-taught classes moved on to the next course in the sequence. The other study examined students enrolled in STEM courses at four-year schools. More STEM majors switched to other fields after experiencing intro courses led by adjuncts. Both papers were presented at the American Educational Research Association’s annual conference. The reason doesn’t appear to be that adjuncts are overall less capable at instruction than full-time faculty. Instead, the findings pointed to the lack of opportunities for adjuncts to assist students individually after class, often because they don’t have time due to a larger t...

While the debate over smartphone usage in the classroom rages, new research suggested that even having the device nearby can pose an issue. Experiments conducted jointly by the schools of management at the University of Texas, Austin; the University of California, San Diego; and Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, found students who had no access to their phones outperformed those who had the phone on their desk or in their pocket. “It’s not that participants were distracted because they were getting notifications on their phones,” said Adrian Ward, co-author of the report  and assistant professor at UT-Austin’s McCombs School of Business. “The mere presence of their smartphone was enough to reduce their cognitive capacity.” The study asked students to sit at a computer and take tests that required concentration. The first experiment split students into three groups that either left their phones outside the testing room, placed their phones face-down on their desk, or kept ...

While open educational resources (OER) are often touted as an important step in keeping the cost of course materials in line, finding quality materials can be a problem , especially for K-12 instruction. Teachers surfing the web for individual lesson plans is not really an ideal way to deliver excellent content. “There’s more bad OER out there than good; that’s a fact,” Rebecca Kockler, assistant superintendent of academic instruction for Louisiana, said during a panel discussion at the recent SXSWedu conference. “We need to find the quality stuff and elevate it for everyone.” The Louisiana Department of Education has taken a positive step in the right direction by making integrated curriculum available on its website. The content is aligned with the state’s core standards and adaptable to the needs of individual students, providing teachers with more time to just teach. The Louisiana approach also couples professional development for teachers with the sharing of best practices and cur...

Critics pointing to student debt and graduates with no careers are forcing colleges and universities to defend the value of their degrees. Some are responding with new programs intended to ensure more grads land well-paying positions. City Colleges of Chicago just announced a new partnership with PepsiCo to reserve up to 40 technician and mechanic jobs in transportation, distribution, and manufacturing for its students. Those enrolled in degree or certificate programs will also receive workplace readiness training from PepsiCo and will be able to participate in the company’s prep sessions for its screening process. PepsiCo also committed to hosting a series of hiring events specifically for City Colleges students and local residents. The partnership creates a pipeline to funnel City Colleges grads into high-skill work needed by the company. DePauw University in Greencastle, IN, unveiled the DePauw Gold Commitment , guaranteeing each graduate “a successful launch” into the working worl...

Four-fifths of the students who first enroll in community colleges intend to move on to a four-year school to obtain a bachelor’s degree, yet just 32% make that transfer within six years and even fewer graduate. A new guide aims to help improve that rate. The Columbia University Community College Research Center, working with the Aspen Institute and other research organizations, studied institutions with much higher rates of transfer and completion. “These colleges clearly made transfers a priority. They made transferring a default plan for every student, rather than optional,” researcher John Fink said in an Education Dive report . The center’s guide identifies a number of actions institutions can take to assist transfer students. First, two- and four-year schools must communicate with each other about degree requirements so that curriculum can be designed to enable students to step up to a university without taking extra classes. As it is, too many community college students discover...

According to a 2013 study by the Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics, more than two-thirds of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) associate’s degree candidates fail to complete their studies, with about half of those switching to a non-STEM major and the other half leaving without obtaining any degree or certification. Overall, fewer than 30% of community college students complete their program in three years. Sometimes, all it may take is a nudge to keep such students on track and on time. A trial involving almost 2,000 STEM students at four community colleges over the summer of 2017 found that those who received personalized text-message “nudges” returned for the fall term at a rate 10% higher than a control group that didn’t receive the messages. The nudges, created and delivered by Persistence Plus LLC , were designed to help students manage their time better, access resources for registration and financial-aid renewal, and increase the...

A small but significant uptick in the number of U.S. college students attaining their degrees last spring is being hailed as a positive indicator for the national economy. “For the more than 2.27 million students who started college six years ago, the signs of postrecession recovery are clear: adult students shrank as a share of the cohort, four-year public and private nonprofit institutions increased their share of the cohort, and the total completion rate surpassed the prerecession high,” said Doug Shapiro, executive director of the National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) Research Center, in i ts annual report on enrollment and graduation patterns for each incoming class. A key benchmark is the graduation percentage after six years. Approximately 56.9% of the fall 2011 freshmen had graduated as of 2017. That outpaces the six-year graduation mark for the 2010 freshman class (54.8%) and the 2007 freshman class (56.1%), which had previously been the highest to date. Almost 12% of the 2011...

Simple modifications in classroom teaching practices could greatly assist college students with disabilities and help out the rest of the class to boot, in the view of an Assumption College professor. In a guest column for The Chronicle of Higher Education , James M. Lang recounted how his institution invited faculty to hear a panel of students discuss their various disabilities and what they needed in the way of accommodation to succeed in their coursework. For the most part, the students asked for easy changes that would add little to no time or cost to an instructor’s lecture preparation and wouldn’t disrupt class proceedings. Among the requested alterations were: writing larger and more legibly on whiteboards with black markers (not colors); creating PowerPoint slides with fewer words in bigger type; and providing PowerPoints or other materials before or after class so students can review them on their own. “In example after example, [the students] described teaching practices tha...

Some 31 million adults in the U.S. have earned enough college credits to be classified as “near-completers,” but it will take a village to help them cross the finish line to graduation, according to a new report from the Education Commission for the States. The commission “looked at the progress of legislation and initiatives in the area,” said an article in Education Dive , and found they were overall insufficient to boost graduation rates among dropouts. Some legislative measures were well-intentioned and may have helped new enrollees—such as state policies and funded programs designed to improve the affordability of higher education—but they didn’t move the near-completers any closer to completion. One reason is that near-completers may have been unaware of such policies and programs, or weren’t motivated to take advantage of them. The senior policy analyst who wrote the report told Education Dive that “a consistent hurdle for states is they often need a champion for near-completers...