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Academic success

Many students who begin postsecondary education drop out before completing a degree. Barely six out of 10 first-time, full-time, degree-seeking college freshmen graduate within six years. Graduation rates are particularly low for minority and low-income students. The following reports show recent trends in graduation rates:

• The Toolbox Revisited follows high school students into postsecondary education, asking how their formal schooling contributed to completing a bachelor's degree by their mid-20s.
  
• Raising Graduation Rates of Low-Income Students (PDF) discusses specific, concrete steps that colleges and universities have taken to improve the success rates of their low-income students.
• A Matter of Degrees (PDF) analyzes six-year graduation rates from every degree-granting higher education institution in the United States
• Dropout Rates in the United States reports on high school dropout and completion rates
• College Persistence on the Rise? examines the rates at which students completed a college degree within five years or were still enrolled at the end of five years

Lumina Foundation has identified some promising ideas to help students find success in higher education. In the Lumina Foundation publication Results and Reflections (PDF), experts evaluate some of these practices, which include:

• Learning communities — Do high-risk students who take classes together and study and live together enjoy higher college completion rates? Vincent Tinto is conducting a national study to determine how certain learning communities increase college success rates. More. Tinto's research includes a survey of why students leave before graduating and offers suggestions for federal policy changes. More... (PDF)
• Student engagement — Engagement includes both student participation in educational activities and campus efforts to encourage such participation. The National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) suggests that engagement is the best predictor of students' learning and personal development. Since 2000, NSSE has surveyed 435,000 first-year and senior students at 730 colleges and universities nationwide. Access NSSE's most recent report (PDF), which is the model for the Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE). Lumina Foundation co-funded the development of CCSSE, which is currently undergoing validation testing.
  
  NSSE is also working with the Alliance for Equity in Higher Education to gather and disseminate information about best practices at schools — including large state universities, private colleges and historically black colleges.  
• Early identification — The Bridge Partnership involves community colleges and high schools in 20 states, working together to identify 10th grade students — especially minority students — who need developmental courses in reading, writing and math to reach the competency level necessary for postsecondary education. More...

The first year of college is the most critical to degree completion. The Education Trust’s A Matter of Degrees (PDF) shows that many institutions lose one out of every four students in the freshman year alone. Data for the six-year graduation rates at four-year colleges and universities shows that 63 percent of first-time, full-time degree-seeking college freshmen graduate within six years. These rates are particularly low for minority and low-income students: only 46 percent of African American, 47 percent of Latino, and 54 percent of low-income first-time, full-time freshmen are graduating within six years.

Research by the Policy Center on the First Year of College shows that the first-year experience is critical to a college student's success. With Lumina Foundation support, the Policy Center is working to establish and promote a set of benchmarks that define excellence at college campuses. This project, called Foundations of Excellence, involves more than 200 college campuses nationwide working to create a model for the first year of college. More...

Remedial courses help students succeed. In a study about remedial courses, researchers found that students taking these courses are more likely to persist in college compared to those with similar test scores and backgrounds who were not required to take the courses. In addition, students who complete remedial courses at both two- and four-year colleges are highly likely to complete associate's or bachelor's degree programs or be employed in a non-minimum-wage job.  

According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the proportion of college students taking at least one year of remedial coursework rose from 28 percent to 35 percent between 1995 and 2000.

NCES data reveals that among students entering a four-year institution, 87 percent of those who had taken a rigorous curriculum in high school — especially in math — were still on track to a bachelor’s degree three years later, compared with only 62 percent of those who had followed a basic high school curriculum.  

Math is often a stumbling block for at-risk students. Research indicates that students who withdraw from beginning algebra classes tend to withdraw from college. More...