This Week in Student Success

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Welcome to the first regular feature of On Student Success. If you haven’t already, do subscribe and send this to a friend who may be interested. In this newsletter I will be covering issues relating to student success broadly defined, here in the US and globally.

This weekly feature is meant as a roundup of news and research on student success, delivered with a slightly lighter touch than my usual posts. For On EdTech premium readers who follow my Saturday Interesting Reads This Week posts, the format will feel familiar. For those who don’t, what are you waiting for? Subscribe!

What a week it’s been. Obviously I’ve been busy launching this newsletter, but it seems like the rest of you have been busy too. So, what happened in student success?

Leaky pipelines

Community colleges are a vital part of the U.S. higher education ecosystem, especially because they serve as an on-ramp for so many students who have been historically under-served, including low-income, minority, and first-generation learners.

A recent issue brief from EAB sheds light on how admissions and on-boarding processes often end up discouraging or diverting students before they ever enroll. Like at On EdTech I don't typically cover vendor research that direct promotes its products or services as solutions, while we do cover vendor research that only indirectly makes those connections, Risepoint's Voice of the Online Learner series, for example. But this EAB report is worth exploring in terms of its findings even if the recommendations it makes are promotions. The research itself is solid and not "directed" at leading to certain answers. With that caveat in mind (and disclosure), let's jump in.

EAB’s research makes the scale of the problem both visual and vivid. Before students even confront the challenges of coursework, 60% are lost at the application stage due to inefficient processes.

These problems stem from a range of factors, but most notably from staffing shortages made worse by rising student expectations shaped by more personalized experiences outside of higher education.

The gap between expectations and reality comes through clearly in EAB’s data on how quickly students assume colleges will respond to their inquiries.

The roadblocks experienced by students identified by EAB will look familiar to many in higher education, and not just in community colleges. These include.

• Not being able to reach staff during off hours.

• Being bounced from office to office.

• Having to repeatedly explain their problem at each new office or administrator they get bounced to.

• A lack of clarity about what steps they need to take and in what order.

• Long wait times to access help.

• Different student segments face different hurdles.

These are the problems of a broken student experience. There is not one solution, but it is a problem that sorely needs to be fixed.

Failing goes to college

New semesters are kicking off all over the U.S., and at many colleges students are no doubt being welcomed with talk of all the great things they’ll achieve this year. But not at Hamilton College. There, President Steven Tepper welcomed students by encouraging them to fail.

And no, he isn’t a plant from a rival school, it’s all part of a campaign on failure led by the college’s student success division, ALEX. (Despite hearing the soundtrack a gazillion times thanks to my spouse, who adores it, it still took me a while to get the reference.)

The campaign encourages students to stretch themselves and take risks, with the goal of building greater resilience in the face of challenges.

I love this idea. I’m fascinated by the concept of failure and the ways it can be used to foster learning and student success. An aversion to failure can become a kind of toxic positivity, one that blocks real progress and, more importantly, genuine learning.

I’ll be watching this project closely over the next year.

Some minor issues with major and career choices

A new study on community college students’ major and career choices was not the easiest read, but it ultimately underscored for me both the challenges, and the absolute necessity, of providing career support and academic program advising early in students’ college journeys.

The Community College Research Center investigated how new community college students approach program and career decisions. It’s a large-scale study, drawing on survey data from more than 4,500 first-time students in their first two months at four different colleges. The goal was to capture the nuance in how students think about their academic paths and career aspirations.

What they found was that students were considering multiple programs and careers, often in unrelated fields. Students listed an average of 2.7 different careers with a substantial majority interested in three or more.

Not only were students’ career choices different, but for a majority they weren’t even in the same job cluster. In fact, 62% of students who listed more than one career were considering options in at least two different occupational fields (for example, healthcare and business).

In some areas, such as healthcare, there was strong alignment between students’ expressed career goals and their choice of major. But this was far less true in programs like Liberal/General Studies. For example, 37% of liberal/general studies students selected a healthcare occupation as their first-choice career, despite being in a major that would not directly support that path. The lack of alignment among liberal/general studies students is especially troubling given the over-representation of minority and first-generation students in this major.

Of course, it’s not surprising that students in their first few months of college would express interest in multiple possible careers—this is a natural period of exploration. What is more striking is that a large majority nevertheless expressed a high degree of certainty about their first choice: 84% said they were very or somewhat certain that their first-choice career was the right one.

Even more surprising, a majority of students reported that they had already received all the career help they needed—even though their choices were all over the map, often misaligned with their goals, and made just two months into their college careers.

Even apart from the confusing wording of the survey question, this finding is baffling. The report offers little explanation for why students appear so certain about their choices even while considering multiple, often conflicting options. My hypotheses are the following.

• Bluster. For many students, this is their first time navigating the world as adults. They want to project confidence and present themselves as having a plan.

• A major-and-career Dunning–Kruger effect. Students don’t yet know how little they know about majors or careers. If you’re unaware of the options and obstacles ahead, and all you’re asked to do is identify a choice, you may not feel you need more support.

• Decisions made too early. This may reflect a structural problem: students are being asked to make important choices about majors and careers far too early in their college journeys.

On this last point, the report recommends that colleges move beyond the binary “decided vs. undecided” framework and instead provide robust advising for all new students. It also suggests offering early, structured exposure to a variety of fields,through seminars, shadowing, or low-stakes program experiences to help students make more informed choices.

The need for tectonic shifts in how we think about academic integrity

Academic integrity may only be indirectly related to student success (even under my broad definition).

But you don’t often come across cartoons about plagiarism, so I couldn’t resist including this one.

Lifelong learning analogies at war

In this newsletter, as in much of my work, I use an expansive definition of student success. Crucially, that includes the transition to lifelong learning and the ability to learn how to learn, which underpins it.

We don’t yet know enough about either of these dimensions. But today I came across a post from Austin Kleon that sparked some useful thinking about both.

Kleon draws a contrast between school and learning.

He contrasts school and library environments.

Obviously, the analogy isn’t perfect, and Kleon gets some things about libraries wrong. Since it’s a lighthearted post, part of me wants to cut him some slack.

But I’m not going to.

I like the library analogy, but I think it needs to be challenged. Libraries aren’t just buildings with books or collections of resources. They have structure, librarians, expertise, and strategies.

Lifelong learning needs structure too. From an earlier (and long-forgotten) source, I’ve always liked the analogy that MOOCs are like gyms, but what most of us actually need is a personal trainer.

The structure of lifelong learning requires people, pedagogy, and plans. Without these, anything beyond short bursts of learning tends to fall apart for all but the most dedicated free-range learners.

This may sound obvious, but overlooking these elements is one reason we struggle to foster lifelong learning in our societies.

Musical coda

One of the best concerts I’ve ever been to was Richard Thompson’s 1000 Years of Popular Music. He opened with a hurdy-gurdy and took us on a journey all the way to ABBA and Britney Spears.

So it’s no surprise that I’ve been hooked on the podcast A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs. It might take me forever to make my way through even the episodes that are already out, but I know I’ll enjoy the journey.

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