New England Board of Higher Education » remediation

Improving Math Success in Higher Education Institutions

John O. Harney — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 10:47:28 +0000

Many students begin higher education unprepared for college-level work in mathematics and must take non-credit developmental courses. Furthermore, many are math-phobic and avoid courses, majors and careers that involve quantitative work. Yet science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields are among the few job-growth areas in the U.S. Many companies are lobbying the federal government to expand the number of H-1B visa positions in order to bring overseas hires to the U.S to fill STEM positions.

At Worcester State University, we have learned to do developmental math better, but that’s not enough. We shouldn’t need developmental math programs at all. Our country needs more students prepared for STEM majors and careers. This article will address issues related to fostering student interest and success in mathematics.

What is college-level work?

At some selective institutions, the first college-level math course is calculus. Many other institutions offer for credit two or three algebra-based courses consisting of topics that are prerequisite to calculus and normally taught in high schools. Given the push to teach all students algebra in grade 8, this is perplexing: it doesn’t matter how early students take algebra, if they arrive in college needing to repeat it.

Many of my colleagues report that their students not only have weak algebra skills, but also struggle with arithmetic that should have been mastered in elementary school. Some of my calculus students would prefer that I avoid any mathematics that involves fractions.

Why are students unprepared for college-level courses that require a math background?

The problem begins in the early grades in both curriculum and instruction.

The Massachusetts state standards were considered among the best in the nation. Yet they still had problems. For example, the third-grade framework listed 33 standards—far too many.

One of the more important ones was:

... Know multiplication facts through 10 x 10 and related division facts, e.g., 9 x 8 = 72 and 72 ÷ 9 = 8. Use these facts to solve related problems, e.g., 3 x 5 is related to 3 x 50.

How were third-grade teachers supposed to teach 33 math topics in addition to all their other responsibilities? How were they to recognize the importance of mastering single-digit multiplication when a topic so important is not even on state tests?

New standards

The new Common Core State Standards (CCSS) address this issue. They begin by stating:

For over a decade, research studies of mathematics education in high-performing countries have pointed to the conclusion that the mathematics curriculum in the United States must become substantially more focused and coherent in order to improve mathematics achievement in this country. To deliver on the promise of common standards, the standards must address the problem of a curriculum that is “a mile wide and an inch deep.”

Forty-five states, including all six in New England, have adopted the CCSS, but it will be years before the effort’s promise is fully implemented and we see a real improvement in college readiness.

Why are teachers unprepared for K-8 mathematics?

The CCSS is part of a potential solution, but far more important is the mathematical preparation of our teachers. The CCSS emphasize mathematical reasoning and understanding. However, teacher-preparation programs have not provided most elementary teachers—nor many middle-school teachers—with the depth of mathematical background needed to effectively teach for understanding. We want students to readily divide 12 by ½. An effective elementary teacher must understand why the procedure works and be able to create word problems to illustrate the calculation.

Massachusetts began to address this issue in 2007 with a new certification test in mathematics for elementary and special education teachers (the failure rate on the first test administration was 73%). In the past, we have taken the view that the math of elementary school is simple, so we really don’t need to provide our teachers with much coursework. People will say: “How hard it is to teach how to add 27 + 18 or multiply 7 x 8?” Yet, the same people would not ask, “How hard is it to teach the Cat in the Hat?” In the debate leading up to this new requirement, I frequently heard the question “Why does an elementary teacher need math beyond the level she teaches?” My answer was simple: “Suppose that your child’s 3^rd-grade teacher reads at the 4^th-grade level—is that acceptable?”

It’s clearly not acceptable: Effective teachers must understand the mathematics they teach to a much greater depth than their students, understand subsequent levels that their students will soon encounter, and be able to engage students in real mathematical discourse.

For example, suppose a 2nd-grade student writes: 27+18=315

This is a common error that indicates confusion about place value. The teacher must provide experiences that help students develop an understanding of place value, not simply tell the child to memorize a procedure.

We send our elementary teachers into the workforce with strong backgrounds in English language arts, but minimal backgrounds in mathematics. Educators at all levels from kindergarten through higher education must take ownership of this problem. Finding fault or being defensive is not helpful.

The CCSS, the Massachusetts certification changes and the state universities’ new entrance requirement of four years of high-school math have the potential—over time—to minimize the need for remedial math programs in higher education. Meanwhile, we still have to work with the students who arrive at our doors with substantial mathematical deficits and phobias.

Despite much noise to the contrary, it is possible to have a successful remedial math program. At Worcester State University, we have cut our remediation rates in half primarily through awareness activities. Now substantially fewer students need to take remedial courses. Success rates in these classes have increased from around 30% to approximately 80%. We did this by providing clear and consistent standards as well as a nurturing, supportive environment. Students, including many nontraditional learners, gain tremendous self-confidence when they discover that they really can understand math and be successful.

We face several other challenges

The excessive use of calculators is a problem at all levels of math education. Yes, use a calculator to accurately divide 12.567 by 2.154, but not to divide 12 by 2. Otherwise how will you be able to tell if your calculator’s answer to the first question is even roughly correct? Every math professor can tell stories of students using calculators to multiply by 10. A child learns to dribble a basketball, by dribbling a basketball—a lot. Our students will not be comfortable working with numbers unless they spend lots of time working with numbers.

There is pressure at all levels on educators to pass students who have not mastered concepts. My concern is that the focus on higher education graduation rates is leading to a lowering of standards so that more students can be “successful.” We want our students to graduate, but they must have the quantitative skills and knowledge to be successful in a highly competitive world.

Steven Pinker, a Harvard cognitive scientist, wrote: “Mathematics is ruthlessly cumulative, all the way back to counting to ten.” When our students have significant gaps in their mathematical knowledge, it becomes impossible for them to move forward. If I know nothing about World War I, I can still take a class about World War II and be successful. However, a student who doesn’t understand arithmetic will struggle with algebra and statistics. A student who doesn’t understand algebra will struggle with calculus and many courses in the sciences. We can substantially improve our system of mathematics education, but there are no quick fixes.

Richard Bisk is a professor of mathematics at Worcester State University. Thanks to Tom Fortmann for his many suggestions to improve this article.

Developing Story: A Forum on Improving Remedial Education

John O. Harney — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 01:22:59 +0000

Why is remedial or developmental education such a hot issue? Partly because it costs time and money and casts doubt on the elementary and secondary education systems that we assume will prepare students for college.

The New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE) explored solutions to the problem at a recent forum in Kennebunkport, Maine, called “Ready for Real: Innovative Strategies for Improving Remedial Education and College Success.”

NEBHE staff briefed the audience of educators, legislators and policymakers on the recent Lumina Foundation for Education grant the regional organization received to support community colleges implementing Khan Academy materials in developmental math courses. NEBHE also released a policy brief outlining college placement policies across the region and models for boosting college readiness.

Rethinking developmental ed

Many colleges use the College Board’s Accuplacer test to determine whether students are ready for credit-bearing college courses or first need to take and pass one or more remedial classes.

In a session on “Rethinking Developmental Education: State and Institutional Perspectives,” Lara Couturier, program director at Jobs for the Future, offered a national context for remediation. She noted that 60% of community college students were referred into developmental education programs—Dev Ed as she called it. Once there, most never progressed into college-credit-bearing work, and only one-quarter earned a college degree within eight years.

A historian by training, Couturier spoke about different developmental education models, including some involving long sequences of courses with too many exit points where students are tempted to drop out—and too often do. Some call Dev Ed the place where college dreams go to die. Others, Couturier among them, believe it should be looked at in a more holistic way, as an “on-ramp to a structured pathway to graduation.” Virginia has been a leader in a wave of states redesigning developmental education, followed by North Carolina and Florida. Another promising model is the California Acceleration Project, which aims to reduce the number of exit points.

Some models involve partnering with local K-12 districts, so students’ skills can be assessed in their junior year of high school. If at the point, the students are deemed not college-ready, they can take remedial courses while still in high school. Others make developmental education a co-requisite—a formal course taken simultaneously with another as opposed to a prerequisite. The Community College of Baltimore County, for example, places developmental students into college-level English but also supports them with an hour-long companion course.

Couturier noted that the placement tests that have been relied upon historically may not be the good predictors of success we thought they were. She also urged aligning development education with the student’s major and career interest. The spotlight, she suggested, should shift to getting development education students into programs of study, which means more intentional and frequent advising.

Couturier also noted a dearth of efforts to help students who are severely underprepared.

Feed me data

Norwalk Community College President David Levinson, who is also vice president for Community Colleges with the Connecticut Board of Regents for Higher Education, said he was amazed by how little Connecticut relied on data when he came aboard in 2004. Indeed, a self-study for the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC) had not a single bit of data. Then Achieving the Dream came along and brought to bear the purpose of research, Levinson said.

Norwalk Community College has tried blending college-level courses and developmental courses in "learning communities" but that was with just over a dozen students. The question, said Levinson, is how do you bring that to scale?

Today, such issues are being overshadowed in Connecticut by legislation calling for all remediation to be confined to a one-semester, intensive course—not as a sequence. “We are faced with the really daunting task of not only a new structure that is not even a year old (the state's new Board of Regents for Higher Education) but also this humungous task of trying to implement a piece of legislation that doesn’t have a penny attached to it," said Levinson.

He noted that Connecticut acknowledges enrollment ‘swirling,’ and students starting at one school, taking some courses at another, and going on to get not only an associate degree but perhaps a bachelor’s and master’s. Levinson said that even at his college on Connecticut’s euphemistically named “Gold Coast,” 83% of students from Norwalk and Stamford need at least one precollege course. What politicians see in all this, he said, is the state paying for remedial education twice—in high school and college—and the students still are not succeeding.

Nashua Community College President Lucille Jordan said she was asked by the New Hampshire Legislature to identify which students needed developmental education and which high schools they came from. Problem was, she said, many have been out of high school for a long time.

Besides, what would have been a good enough score in math at one time no longer is. Nashua Community College uses Accuplacer Diagnostics, providing a detailed analysis of a student's strengths and weaknesses, so students can focus on the areas where they are weak. Jordan also called for embedding reading and study skills in 100-level courses. She acknowledged that many students may need tutors to stay with them through college-level coursework.

Community College of Vermont President Joyce Judy said the Vermont Legislature has chosen not to get involved in the developmental skills arena per se, focusing more on dual enrollment and multiple pathways.

“We have one shot with those students and if we’re not successful in helping them engage and feel like it’s relevant to them, we’ve lost them for another 10 or 15 years,” said Judy. Some students need a 15-week basic skills course; others need something different. We’re asking if Accuplacer is nuanced enough to see where strengths and weaknesses are, she said. She noted that the college is asking developmental English students to do a self-assessment, not of their skills, but of their practices, asking for example, if they read newspapers and magazines regularly.

“One size does not fit all,” said Judy. In developmental math, the Community College of Vermont is developing a one-credit, self-paced tutorial, which Judy says, “students could realistically move through in three weeks.” That’s a challenge, she noted, for institutions that like to go with 15-week courses that are easier to manage, but just don’t work for all students.

Several attendees said the Dev Ed conversation should not deal so much with repairing vs. preparing. Many believe the Common Core State Standards will help with preparation, but there will always be adult learners who need some kind of remediation perhaps via new models such as massive open online courses (MOOCs).

Sharing strategies

Developmental education can be improved, but not eradicated, warned Rhode Island College President Nancy Carriuolo. For one thing, Dev Ed is not just remediation, but actually covers a wide range of learning needs exhibited by all learners. Thomas Edison today would have probably been placed in remediation, Carriuolo asserted, because of his deficiencies in reading and writing.

“Policymakers often don’t know firsthand the distractions low-income students have—families to support, drug or alcohol problems, low self-esteem and the cumulative effect that comes from not doing well in school," Carriuolo said, adding: "Notice in that brief list, I didn’t say anything about poor teaching.”

“We need to think carefully about what will happen to the most underprepared students who are turned away from community colleges," Carriuolo reflected. "Will they enter adult basic education to learn the basic skills they need … will they enter a training program someplace else or will they simply go home to their couches, a bag of potato chips and a life sustained by a welfare check?”

Solving the math problem?

At Housatonic Community College, students who went through developmental English passed the gatekeeper college English at a 20% higher rate than those who tested straight into the course without the detour, said President Anita Gliniecki. But math was completely opposite, she said. Even if you got through the developmental math, your potential to succeed was at least 10% lower than those who tested directly in.

Students noted that the developmental math moved too slowly over the topics they already knew and too quickly over those they didn’t know—and still don’t. So Housatonic started self-paced courses, in which students test out of items they know and focus on items they don’t, until they ultimately demonstrate all the competencies. Faculty also embed in the course measures of how much time students spend on the work to keep an eye not only on skills but also on affective behavior.

When Housatonic allowed students to take an online math refresher programs, then retake Accuplacer, 69% of students increased at least one course level.

Speaking more broadly, Gliniecki and Carriuolo both lamented students' failure to "estimate," urging that high school calculus courses have students put away their calculators.

A private option

Deborah Hirsch, vice president for development at the private, four-year Mount Ida College, said one-third of students there are “first-generation,” one-third are Pell Grant-eligible; and half of entering Mount Ida students place into developmental education courses, but are also enrolled in college-level courses.

Mount Ida, she said, has tried to create some linked courses, for example, offering students guided study skills linked with Introductory Psychology.

And because the sequence of developmental math was a Bermuda Triangle for students, Mount Ida decided to combine the two-level sequence of developmental math courses into one course. The college renovated the classroom with chairs and desks that move easily on wheels, laptops and smartboards. The class features three days of mini-lectures and one day of lab. Mount Ida has also added a "financial literacy" component, so it’s more relevant to students who often don’t want to be taking high school math again.

Finally, Mount Ida formed partnership with Persistence Plus—the “Weight Watchers” of college completion. The system uses smartphones to give students personalized, real-time “nudges” to help them set and reach goals, manage their time, cope with setbacks and connect with campus services. The nudges include personalized motivators—such as "did you know a third of your class is in the library now studying for the exam?"

Janet Sortor, vice president and dean of academic affairs at Southern Maine Community College, where enrollment has quadrupled in 10 years, promoted an advising course called “My Maine Guide.” The program offers a personalized online portal for students, which provides quick access to student’s electronic portfolio, course schedule, important reminders and other tasks. And students are required to take Freshman Interest Groups—theme-based one-credit courses that combine college success skills, goal exploration and setting, and investigation of a topic aimed at capturing the interest of students.

National views

At an evening session, Bruce Vandal, vice president of Complete College America, and William Trueheart, president of Achieving the Dream, addressed a panel on national views on developmental education and improving graduation odds.

Vandal noted the urgency of addressing college readiness, particularly in light of the Common Core State Standards assessments coming online in 2014. A study by ACT suggests that in many states, fewer than half of students who take that test will be deemed “college ready.”

Vandal urged states to focus on developing strategies that effectively transition students from high school to postsecondary institutions, including early assessment in high school, perhaps 10^th grade. He also called for better pathways into academic programs by realizing that not all students need the same skills. Students in social sciences and humanities, for example, may not need the heavy algebra appropriate for STEM students. He suggested diversifying the placement tests used to predict success, including adding high school GPA.

Trueheart described the mission of Achieving the Dream to help students, many of them lower-income and students of color, to be college ready. He held out the example of El Paso Community College in Texas, where 98% of students in 2003-04 needed remedial education, partly because so many students at the border institution did not speak English as their first language. In 10 years, the community college closed achievement gaps in math and English and raised rates of completion significantly.

Legislative view

At a session of legislators and former legislators on the NEBHE board, Maine state Rep. Emily Cain began by citing the recent finding by economist Anthony Carnevale of Georgetown University that job growth is occurring for jobs that require a credential beyond high school, but is declining for jobs that require only a high school diploma.

Maine state Sen. Brian Langley, Senate chair of the Education Committee, took time from opening his restaurant in Ellsworth, Maine, to describe his path as a nontraditional learner through vocational school, community college, the University of Southern Maine, Syracuse University, and the online Capella University. But, he assured the audience, he understands the pressures of traditional higher education cost issues, having put his kids through Colby College and the University of Michigan. “I have a picture in my mind of good culinarians who are still working in the industry but left my programs because they didn’t have the math or writing skills to do college-level work.” said Langley. "A few have taken remediation courses and failed them; adult ed can be more supportive," he believes.

Rhode Island state Sen. Hanna M. Gallo, chair of Education Committee and a speech pathologist by training, said she is a big proponent of full-day kindergarten. If that were available, she said, the college readiness problem wouldn’t come down to high school failing or college remediation. We need to remediate not in college, but earlier, she said, adding, that we also need better teacher-training programs at colleges, professional development and accountability for parents and communities.

Former Massachusetts state Sen. Joan Menard, now vice president at Bristol Community College, said that being all things for all people has become a problem for community colleges. They admit everyone, including adults with 6^th grade educations, and help employers write workforce training grants, but they are judged on graduation rates. Menard argued that community colleges need to bring legislators to campus not only to ask for more money and when parents and students call with complaints, but to tell them the good things that are happening.

Among those good things, New Hampshire state Rep. Ralph Boehm, vice chair of the House Education Committee, told of Nashua Community College's relationships with Honda for car mechanics and Delta Dental's gift of equipment to New Hampshire Technical Institute to help train dental hygienists.

Middlesex Community College President Carole Cowan urged community colleges to partner with vocational-technical and high schools. But, she added, don't dismiss the academic mission" “Those technical workers are going to go for a baccalaureate degree some day because they will want to walk that pathway to greater success.”

NEBHE Awarded Lumina Foundation for Education Grant to Work with Khan Academy to Boost Remedial Math

John O. Harney — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 20:16:47 +0000

* Goal is to increase student persistence and completion

* Drive reform of developmental math

The New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE) was awarded a $356,200 grant from the Lumina Foundation to support a developmental education project that provides a high-quality, low-cost instructional platform coupling Khan Academy and community college resources.

The project aims to boost the number of high-quality college degrees and credentials by improving student performance in developmental mathematics, and to further drive reform of developmental mathematics instruction, including new designs, lower costs and improved student outcomes.

As leaders ranging from President Obama to Lumina Foundation have heralded increased "college completion," one obstacle has been the many students leaving high school but are not "college ready." They are often steered toward developmental or "remedial" courses. These sub-college-level programs cost them money and time. But they generally don't award credit, pushing off the day when the students can become educated contributors to society. Moreover, research shows that many remedial programs have low success and persistence rates.

The NEBHE program will leverage Khan Academy's math content (conceptual videos, practice exercises and adaptive assessment environment) for community college students and faculty in various developmental education delivery models.

The initiative will initially benefit participating New England two-year institutions, but will be available to students and colleges nationwide.

NEBHE estimates that between 50% and 70% of all incoming community college students will need one or more developmental math courses.

Most of Khan Academy's work has focused exclusively up to now on K-12 schools, but it has recently developed a new interest in postsecondary education. The NEBHE demonstration project promises outcomes and deliverables that will support the adaptation of no-cost tools to accelerate developmental mathematics reform and provide timely research data.

The project is fully aligned with current national initiatives-including the Common Core Standards for Success-to increase college completion, reform remedial education reform and advance free courseware and technology-enabled instruction. Further, while research indicates that technology-assisted, accelerated and contextualized strategies show great promise for improving developmental mathematics performance, the availability of high-quality, cost-effective tools is limited.

"We see this project as a away to generate high-impact data and research findings related to developmental math instruction and college persistence," said NEBHE President & CEO Michael K. Thomas. "We thank Lumina Foundation and look forward to working with Khan and the community colleges to drive and inform changes in policies, programs and practices at the institution, system and state levels."

Lumina Foundation is an Indianapolis-based private foundation dedicated to expanding access and success in education beyond high school. This mission is directed toward a single, overarching big goal-to increase the percentage of Americans with high-quality degrees and credentials to 60% by the year 2025.

Khan Academy is a nonprofit organization with the goal of changing education for the better by providing a free world-class education for anyone anywhere. All the site's resources are available to anyone. It doesn't matter if you are a student, teacher, home-schooler, principal, adult returning to the classroom after 20 years, or a friendly alien just trying to get a leg up in earthly biology. The Khan Academy's materials and resources are available to you completely free of charge.

Do We Have a Retention Problem … Or Do We Have a Problem About Retention?

John O. Harney — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 14:09:03 +0000

This paper, like many being written these days, deals with the “problem” of student retention in higher education. But unlike most, this paper focuses not on the problem of retention per se but rather on how institutional leaders think about student retention, completion, and success–how the way they frame their concerns about retention can give rise to a different sort of problem. Something we might call the “meta-problem” of student retention.

Before exploring the meta-problem, though, it is important to acknowledge that there are any number of very valid, practical problems–from tracking at-risk students to providing requisite remediation and counseling services to addressing on-campus alcohol abuse–that need to be addressed to ensure that students achieve all that they are capable of achieving in their college careers. With so much evidence of inadequate preparation, unforeseen academic difficulty, unnecessary emotional turmoil, unfulfilled promise and wasted tuition dollars, who would argue against doing everything possible to encourage student persistence and completion? Thankfully, toward that end, a burgeoning array of proven strategies and techniques is available to college administrators and faculty. Nothing in what follows is meant to suggest that these should not be deployed with the utmost enthusiasm and to ever-greater effect.

Retention Tensions

That said, however, we need to acknowledge another phenomenon–a byproduct perhaps of the growing national preoccupation with retention–which may be increasingly familiar to institutional administrators and faculty alike. It is a phenomenon observed more in faculty lounges than in conference rooms, more behind the scenes than on websites. We observe it when faculty members who rarely push back publicly against their institution’s laudable commitment to fostering student “success” privately express great concern about what they perceive as a willingness to dilute academic rigor in pursuit of student retention. We observe it in the decision-making struggles of admissions officers who, as a matter of institutional mission, feel an obligation to reach out to at-risk, disadvantaged students while at the same time, as a matter of academic reputation, are encouraged to increase student selectivity.

These are examples of the kinds of institutional tensions surrounding matters of student retention which, if left unaddressed, can seriously undermine efforts to implement truly needed retention initiatives.

I suggest we shift our focus, from our usual preoccupation with finding solutions to the retention problems we believe we have, to reframing the retention problem we wish to solve. We can do this is by reassessing the strategic significance of student attrition and mitigating its institutional impact.

How Significant Is Retention Problem?

Not every school that experiences less than the highest levels of student retention and completion necessarily has a significant retention problem.

First of all, there are reasons for attrition that may be beyond an institution’s control. As shown in Fig. 1, reasons for student attrition can be viewed as progressing from those that are almost entirely personal with little or no potential for the school to affect the stay/leave decision, to those that are the result of interactions between the student and school such that the institution can play a role in influencing the outcome.

Fig. 1

A Continuum of Reasons for Attrition

There are at least six broad (and, at times, overlapping) reasons students might choose to drop out or transfer from an institution of higher education. They range from personal and family circumstances and preferences, to preparedness for college-level work and adjustment to college life, to issues arising from the availability of desired offerings and positive or negative experiences at the institution.

Circumstances Personal circumstances specific to a student and his/her family may cause that student to drop out or transfer. The reasons can include personal illness, family illness or obligations, financial problems, a need for full-time employment or logistical problems posed by distance from home.

Preferences The student may choose to leave because he/she preferred another school to begin with, and matriculated only out of necessity or until improvement in grades permitted transfer. Other preferences regarding the student body, amenities, location, etc. might also figure into the decision.

Preparedness Inadequate academic preparation that results in poor grades or, conversely, inadequate academic challenge for students with a high level of preparation and expectation, may result in a decision to leave the school.

Adjustment The student may be emotionally unprepared to be on his/her own or unable to make the necessary social adjustments to college life. The student may be unhappy with roommates or stressed by other aspects of the social life at the school.

Offerings The student may be disappointed in the school’s program offerings (academic and/or extracurricular, athletic, etc.) either because what had been promised was not, in fact, available or because the student changed academic or other interests along the way.

Experience Desired program offerings and other features may be available but so poorly delivered or the curriculum may be so difficult to navigate (especially after failing a critical course) that the student’s experience is negative enough to precipitate a decision to leave.

At one extreme, Circumstances and Preferences are reasons for attrition that tend to be the least susceptible to institutional influence on the stay/leave decision. As we move to the right on this continuum, Preparedness and Adjustment combine both personal and institutional factors in ways that may permit the school to take steps to successfully preempt a decision to drop out or transfer. And, as we approach the other extreme where the institution can be most influential, we see how Offerings and Experience more substantively speak to the school’s role in providing desired (or promised) programs and experiences, and in delivering them with a high degree of student satisfaction.

Viewed in this context of a continuum of shared student-school responsibility and limited institutional influence, a school’s leaders might well conclude that, given the particular student mix and factors at play, the current retention level is already close to the best level achievable.

Other Ways of Gauging Significance

There are other ways of assessing the institutional significance of retention (or attrition) that are worth considering before investing considerable time, energy and dollars in “fixing the problem.” Those charged with doing the fixing should first ask themselves: Are our current levels of student retention and completion significant . . .

When we consider our historical performance. When viewed in light of the school’s own historical performance, current retention and completion results may or may not signal a trend worrisome enough to warrant a comprehensive retention-enhancement program.

When we consider the retention performance of peer institutions. Even if retention measures were not such an important part of the US News college rankings, it would make sense to compare one’s own performance to that of peer institutions. Such benchmarking inevitably raises valuable questions that enable a school’s leaders to better understand why their own institution outperforms its peers.

When we consider the performance to be expected at schools like ours. Sometimes, benchmarking against peer or aspirant schools can leave too much room for debate of the “apples and oranges” variety. On the other hand, looking at institutions with comparable levels of student high school achievement, family income, age, number of dependents, and commuting students can be far more revealing in terms of gauging the significance of one’s own retention performance.

When we consider our preferred or desired performance. Regardless of historical or comparative performance, every school is free to set goals based on its own particular mission, values and vision. These goals can be powerful motivators even as they may depart from prevailing norms. Recognizing those norms, however, needs to be part of any full assessment of retention performance.

When we calculate the foregone revenues involved. There is a cost in foregone tuition and fee revenue that is incurred as a consequence of attrition. For some schools, this financial cost can be so intolerable that it is the major driver of concern about student retention and the major factor in assessing retention significance.

In light of certain rigorous programs, or even certain types of students, for which a given level of attrition may be acceptable or even desirable in order to maintain standards. What if improving retention came at the cost of lowering academic standards–would doing so be desirable? Are there certain programs or student subgroups for which our current attrition level is tolerable or even desirable? As noted earlier, this concern about the potential for diluting academic rigor can be one of the more contentious issues raised by a retention-enhancement program.

When we assess the degree to which those who persist through graduation are, in fact, satisfied and subsequently support the institution as alumni. Thinking about retention significance in terms of post-graduation behavior is rare, but can be a good test of what retention at any cost might actually mean. Is it really a good thing to retain and graduate dissatisfied students who go on to become disgruntled, non-supporting alumni?

The Retention-Satisfaction Matrix

This last point about dissatisfied–yet retained–students deserves further comment, as it raises the rarely mentioned possibility that mere retention through completion might not always be the most appropriate institutional goal. Consider the implications of the Retention-Satisfaction Matrix presented in Fig. 2.

Fig. 2

Retention-Satisfaction Matrix

As indicated above, virtually every matriculating student begins her or his college experience in the upper-left quadrant–both satisfied and retained.

Over time, some may become less satisfied yet continue to persist (upper right.) As time goes on and they (and their parents) become increasingly invested in the school and their accrued credits become increasingly difficult to transfer, their dissatisfaction may be overridden by a willingness to persist through to degree completion. Unfortunately, these graduates will probably not become the most ardent supporters of their alma mater.

Some students, however, may become so dissatisfied they drop out (lower-right.)

And there are others who, although satisfied, are compelled to leave for academic, personal and/or financial reasons (lower-left.)

Finally, there are likely to be some students for whom this school was not their first choice. They may move quickly into the upper right quadrant, where they are at risk of dropping out early. If they cannot be retained, they may need help in finding a more suitable school. This would argue for transfer policies that smooth the student's transition to another school. It would also argue for heightened attention paid to such students from the outset in an effort to change their opinion of the school and perhaps convince them that this was a good fit for them, after all.

While the institution’s objective should be to maximize the number of students in the upper-left quadrant over the full extent of their academic careers, what about those students in the upper-right and lower-left quadrants? In both cases, these students are making decisions which belie their ostensible satisfaction levels–decisions that are suboptimal and potentially damaging to the school. What should we do about them?

Dissatisfied Persisters

Students who persist at a school despite relatively low levels of satisfaction are not only at risk of becoming less than supportive alumni, but may also spread their negative opinions of the institution to others. Were they to do so via the Internet with all of its potential for viral amplification, the damage to the school’s reputation and future recruitment efforts could be substantial. To forestall such an outcome, the school would do well to continually monitor student satisfaction levels and take steps that improve those levels, especially on behalf of students in this category. Should such efforts fail, follow-up actions to mitigate the consequences of their disaffection would certainly be in order (more on this below).

Satisfied Dropouts

Conversely, students who drop out despite relatively high levels of satisfaction not only deprive the school of potentially high-performing students, but also of grateful alumni. Although they continue to hold the school in high regard, some in this quadrant may leave only because their academic or career objectives have changed and the school no longer meets their needs. Helping them transfer to a more appropriate setting may be rewarded by the maintenance of a long-term relationship that includes: returning as adult learners; providing financial, mentoring or other kinds of support; and/or generating future student referrals.

Having stepped back from the presenting problems of retention practice to consider the meta-problem of retention significance, we can now see that this complex web of issues surrounding student attrition, persistence and success is not so easily reduced to a single institution-wide approach. Indeed, it’s not even clear that a dropout is necessarily an institutional failure, if the school is willing to maintain contact in hopes of retaining the former student’s goodwill and future support. By the same token, a student retained through graduation is not necessarily an indicator of institutional success, if retention came at the price of a diluted educational experience or suppressed dissatisfaction that robs the school of a lifelong, mutually supportive relationship.

How to Mitigate the Effects of Student Attrition

Whatever the results of a thoughtful exercise in assessing retention significance, it is always advisable to consider what opportunities exist for mitigating the effects of student attrition. In fact, the very prospect of reducing the impact of attrition might factor into a determination of its significance. In other words, if we knew that, say, the financial impact of attrition could be offset by other revenue streams, would we be as concerned about our retention “problem?”

Perhaps the most compelling example of preventive mitigation involves enrollment policy and practice. If the institution were to enroll only students with a high probability of persisting through graduation, that would certainly render moot much concern about retention. Mining the school’s historical data to better identify and recruit those students who display characteristics associated with satisfaction and persistence, and adopting financial aid and other enrollment practices to enhance the likelihood of their matriculation, could go a long way toward improving student fit with the school–and, as a happy byproduct, student retention.

Of course, many institutions would resist adjusting their admissions criteria in this way, especially if doing so were to conflict with key mission imperatives of promoting access and diversity. But even commitment to such laudable goals should be a conscious choice made after due consideration of how front-end enrollment policies shape subsequent retention experience. The point is not that if you knowingly admit at-risk students, you are stuck with the consequences; but rather, if you do so, you should be prepared to invest resources into providing the necessary support to such students to encourage their persistence and completion. Indeed, you have an obligation to do so.

Other Mitigation Initiatives

Short of modifying enrollment policies, however, there are other ways to offset the negative effects of student attrition.

Create an “upstream” remediation capability. By creating pre-college “boot camps” or special programs at feeder high schools, an institution can practice a kind of preventive mitigation that makes it unnecessary to modify enrollment policies such as alluded to above.

Raise funds specifically to make up for revenues lost through attrition. Institutions where the financial risk of poor retention looms large may want to launch fundraising programs specifically to cover these losses and/or seek other revenues from, for example, the use of otherwise underused campus facilities.

Build in an expected level of freshman-to-sophomore attrition. Some institutions purposely enroll more freshmen than they intend to serve in sophomore and subsequent years. This sort of “overbooking” can, however, have some serious unintended consequences, such as worsening the retention problem due to the intolerably large lecture courses required in the first year in order to accommodate an oversized freshman class.

Institute a robust inbound-transfer program. An increasing number of schools are seeking to mitigate the impact of student attrition by adopting a proactive transfer replacement strategy that replenishes the ranks of departing students. Some offer a “guaranteed transfer” or “deferred admission” program that makes acceptance conditional upon a student’s achieving a certain first-year GPA at another college.

Maintain contact with those who leave. Consider instituting a proactive contact program that seeks to turn dropouts into stop-outs, eventual degree completers or adult learners down the road. Students who never graduate might nevertheless become loyal institutional supporters, if they are maintained as valued members of the school’s extended employment network.

Meta Mysteries

The need to improve student retention and completion has become something of an article of faith in American higher education, and for good reason. But for a school to simply accept this need as a given without thoughtfully examining the significance of retention at a meta level can precipitate internal contention and ineffective follow-through that, in turn, can undermine valid efforts.

Although at times counterintuitive and even a bit daring in an era of heightened institutional competition, such a meta perspective requires institutional leaders to uncouple the notion of student retention from both the constraints of place and time. A student not retained by one school might still enroll and complete elsewhere. A student who drops out today might still be a valued member of the institutional community at another time and in other ways. And, perhaps most difficult to accept, a retained student who has received something short of the education he or she deserves or who graduates dissatisfied should not be viewed proudly as a token of a successful retention effort.

Institutions need to make explicit their underlying (and sometimes conflicting) rationales in improving retention. Only then can they create a constructive space in which to develop more nuanced approaches to assessing the significance of student attrition and more creative solutions to mitigating its effects.

Lawrence Butler is senior consultant at Maguire Associates Inc., a Concord, Mass.-based consulting firm.