We’re all familiar with the stereotype from The Paper Chase: the stern college professor who tells his students on the first day of class: “Look to your left; look to your right. One of the three of you will not be here at the end of the term.” Such warnings were variously interpreted as gimmicks to inspire serious effort or as dire statements of fact. Indeed, there was a time when rigorous courses were designed to “weed out” students who did not “belong” in a particular program — or even in higher education.
In the current climate, however, such drills are increasingly seen as ill conceived and inappropriate. For a variety of reasons — political, economic and ethical — colleges and universities are obligated not only to admit a wider range of students but also to ensure that the students they admit have realistic opportunities to succeed.
Colleges and universities can no longer define success by the number of people they turn away or by the number of students they “weed out.”
The programs described in the preceding pages demonstrate that colleges and universities are increasingly intentional and proactive in raising their retention and graduation rates. Betty Sanford of the SUPER program at Michigan State calls the approach “intrusive” — and makes no apology for that. When her students miss class, they are required to attend special study sessions. When there is a problem, she shows up personally at the student’s dorm room. Freeman Hrabowski of UMBC adds, “Institutions that have improved retention rates tend to know their students well.”
Eileen Kolman, the University of Notre Dame’s dean of first-year studies, sees a return of the often-disparaged philosophy of institutions acting “in loco parentis.” Her university hires 14 full-time professional advisers for new students, and Kolman communicates regularly with parents.
Kolman concedes that Notre Dame has much going for it — high admissions standards, a residential setting, a strong religious tradition — but adds that the university’s 97 percent return rate for second-year students (the nation’s highest) is no accident. “We try to make the first year into a transition,” she said.
At least two major insights have emerged from the experiences of colleges and universities that have taken a proactive or intrusive approach to student persistence. The first is the importance of providing students with what Vincent Tinto, chairman of the higher education program at Syracuse University, calls “powerful learning environments.”
“There’s been a shift from the conversation of 10 to 15 years ago,” Tinto said. “If institutions are serious about student retention, they’re going to have to move beyond marginal programs and services. They have to reshape the nature of the classroom experience, engage faculty with student affairs professionals and make systematic efforts to identify what sort of academic intervention programs lead to successful completion of college.”
A second lesson is the need to make student success part of the campus culture. Students at Elon, Michigan State, Iowa State, UMBC and other institutions that have successfully addressed retention issues repeatedly make the point that, on their campuses, expectations are high, and they’re backed up by strong support services — both formal and informal.
Colleges and universities with less-than-spectacular retention and persistence rates point out — correctly — that they are being called upon to educate large numbers and proportions of students who in the past would never have aspired to higher education. Moreover, like primary and secondary schools, they are being asked to educate masses of students to levels that in the past were deemed appropriate and necessary for relatively few.
Is that an explanation of mediocre graduation rates? Possibly. Is it a valid excuse? “Absolutely not,” says Patrick Callan of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. “You have to educate the population you have. We should cut colleges and universities as much slack as the global economy will — which is none.”
Edward B. “Ted” Fiske is an internationally known education writer and editor. A former education editor at The New York Times, he is the author of a well-known college-search guidebook, The Fiske Guide to Colleges. Fiske was assisted in his research by Grace Boachie-Ansah and Wendy Wu.
