The Work for Student Success Continues

An Introduction to the second issue of the Journal of Postsecondary Student Success by Provost Sally McRorie.

Historically Underrepresented Students Redefining College Success in Higher Education

Extant definitions of college success largely focus on macro-level academic outcomes including academic achievement, retention, and persistence, which are linked to a limited set of indicators achievable by students including high grade averages, extra-curricular involvement, and leadership that denote a successful college student. These normative ideas of college success sustain ideologies that dismiss the multiplicity of ways students experience success in college and most importantly, they define who can and cannot be characterized as a successful college student. Relatedly, the dominant narrative of college success frames historically underrepresented college students (e.g. first-generation, low-income, students of color) as deficient and as less likely to be successful, even though these students consistently have to overcome greater adversity during their college trajectories and consequently experience many victories that are not legitimized as a success. Therefore, the purpose of this manuscript is to propose a more inclusive definition of the term college success that accounts for the diverse realities of students historically underrepresented and reveals the direct connection between student success and institutional success. Authors draw evidence from two research studies to illustrate their proposed definition of college success and provide implications for research, practice, and policy.

Poverty in American Higher Education

A substantial share of college students experience housing insecurity and too many students leave higher education before earning a credential. Both of these experiences are more common among students from low-income families who often lack adequate resources. While prior conceptual and qualitative investigations suggest that housing insecurity is associated with poorer student outcomes, this relationship has not been tested due to quantitative data limitations. In this paper, I use data from a state-wide longitudinal study of students from low-income families to conduct the first empirical test of the relationship between housing insecurity early in college and later college achievement and attainment. Findings show that housing insecurity is a statistically significant predictor of academic success, net of background factors. Specifically, housing insecurity is associated with an 8 to 12 percentage-point reduction in the probability of later degree attainment or enrollment. In the short-term, housing insecurity is also associated with lower mean GPA, a lower probability of obtaining at least a 2.0 GPA, and a higher probability of enrolling part-time rather than full-time, indicating that housing insecurity affects students’ college academic experiences in multiple ways. Efforts to promote college attainment should be expanded to consider students’ housing security. There are likely several points in time and multiple ways that higher education institutions, nonprofit agencies, and policymakers can intervene to promote secure housing and college success.

Investigating Ivy

This qualitative study examined how race and class shaped the college choice process and collegiate experiences of Black undergraduates attending Ivy League Institutions. Findings revealed that although social class did not play a significant role in participants’ college choice process, robust financial aid packaging significantly impacted their decision to attend a highly selective university. Racial identity was largely viewed by participants as a vehicle to admit more Black Immigrant students than Black Native students in order to achieve institutional diversity/affirmative action goals. Prevalent racialized incidents and institutional racism shaped participants’ collegiate experiences. The findings of this study are expected to have implications for minority recruitment, college choice, access and equity, as well as higher education diversity initiatives.

Is Choosing a Major Choosing a Career or Interesting Courses? An Investigation into College Students’ Orientations for College Majors and Their Stability

Students’ orientations towards choosing their college majors lead them to make different major choices with long-term stratification implications. In this paper, we investigate what orientations students use to choose their majors, how these orientations vary by student characteristics, how stable orientations are across the first year of college, and what mechanisms might explain how orientations change. We use mixed-methods data from an original longitudinal survey (N=1,117) and longitudinal in-depth interviews with 50 first-year students at UNC-Chapel Hill (N=146 interviews). We find that students rely on many different orientations, including learning interesting things and helping others, and that their most important orientations frequently change during the first year of college. These findings challenge the existing assumption that major orientations are stable and suggest the need to incorporate changing orientations into models of the major decision process if we hope to successfully intervene to disrupt inequality reproduction.

Catastrophe or Catalyst? Reflections on COVID’s Impact on Community Colleges

The COVID-19 pandemic led to a steep decline in enrollments at community colleges, especially among Black, Hispanic, and Indigenous populations, males, and part-time students. The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES) and the American Rescue Plan (ARP) Acts provided funds for emergency aid and engaging disconnected students, and community colleges moved swiftly to shift services and instruction online. In this essay, we discuss how students and community colleges responded to the pandemic and what their experiences reveal about inequities in higher education. We argue that the crisis was worsened by years of underinvestment in these institutions and by entrenched structures and practices that do not address the needs and aspirations of many students. We review evidence on reforms that aim to remake community colleges in ways that improve student outcomes. While COVID-19 can rightly be viewed as a catastrophe, it may also serve as a catalyst for fundamental and lasting improvements in how community colleges are funded, organized, and operated to help more students achieve their goals.

Learning How to Tailor Programmatic Offerings to Support Low-income, First-generation, and Racially Minoritized Student Success

This study focused on the process of how the staff at the Thompson Scholars Learning Community (TSLC), a comprehensive college transition program, tailored the programmatic offerings to meet the needs of low-income, first generation and racialized minority students. Because college students are complex individuals, each of whom faces a unique set of challenges and opportunities, it is reasonable to hypothesize that tailoring support services to the multiple needs of each student may make them more effective. The research identifies a four-part iterative and cyclical process to tailor the programmatic offerings for students – beginning with the individual student and then using information about individual needs to scale to broader group level tailoring. This broadening or scaling process is a new contribution to the literature that has not previously been identified. The tailored approach we identified works at both individual and group levels, which makes it viable as an intervention for large numbers of students. The effort to attend to and learn about individual students ensures that the intervention still meets the needs of individuals, but the testing of these interventions more broadly allows for understanding how these approaches will work for diverse group level tailoring.

Coming to College Hungry

This exploratory descriptive, single-university study (N=700) joined institutional, external, and survey data to examine first-year students’ food insecurity links to non-cognitive attributes and first-semester performance and persistence. Regressions indicate LGBTQ, multi-racial, international, transfer, and first-generation students exhibit increased food insecurity. Food insecurity linked with psychological distress, financial stress, amotivation, and intent to engage with peers but not to faculty, staff, and academic engagement. Food insecurity is also associated with lower first-semester GPA and credits earned. Findings strengthen limited evidence that food insecurity links to college students’ experience, suggesting groups of already-underserved students may need immediate support to ease food insecurity.

An Exploration of Nonresident Student Enrollment and Institutional Finances at Public Universities

Many public universities have sought to increase the number of students they enroll from other states, with the assumption that a larger share of nonresident students increases institutional revenues and prestige. In this paper, I examine the extent to which out-of-state undergraduate student enrollment shares are associated with changes in per-student revenue and expenditure patterns at four-year public universities both as a whole and by selectivity and Carnegie classification. I find that an increase in the percentage of students from out of state is associated with decreases in per-student tuition revenue and is often associated with a decline in per-student expenditures.

Crossing the Finish Line

Each year, hundreds of thousands of students leave higher education without earning their degree. Helping these students return and complete their degree is an enormous opportunity for higher education to propel social and economic mobility for students and their broader communities. With limited resources at postsecondary institutions, however, most institutional attention tends to go to students currently enrolled, not those who were enrolled. In this case study of Florida State University’s Completion Campaign, we detail how a low-cost, high-impact effort has helped over 1,600 students in four years return to complete their degrees. We illustrate the key features and components of the program, its impact on student success, and considerations for institutions who may want to adopt similar approaches.