Have you heard of the old adage, that you might also have heard from a professor – ‘Look to your left. Look to your 
right. Next year, one of you will not be sitting here.’ There used to be a time when the prestige of the institution was tied to its ability to weed out students, where the attitude was all about taking the best in. However, with scholarly work to change the notion, colleges and universities have started concentrating on developing a new perspective to student success. It may be a measure of success on any stage, but the prime responsibility is to provide students with the support they need to achieve their goals.
What is the kind of support? – You may ask! In the past few decades, a virtual cottage industry of various retention initiatives have sprung up on campuses, starting from writing centers, academic resource centers, outreach and engagement programs. Yet, in spite of this creative and varied list, there has been a little progress on a national scale. But the efforts of supporting students to graduation can certainly be improved. Now that the policymakers are slowly shifting their focus from access (as important as it has been to equitable delivery of education services) to completion, when these efforts fail, they will likely come under scrutiny.
According to the perspective of the policy maker:
- The bureau of labor statistics says that students graduating with 2 or 4 year degrees in hand are expected to get 70% more than the high school diploma holders
- The economic recovery is dependent largely on how well is the success in education delivery and retraining
- Building human capital in order to drive innovation, that is critical to sustenance of global standards
One can hope that Obama administration and other such federal programs’ plan, such as the American graduation initiative should tie up with US department of Education so that the latter’s plan to consolidate financial aid to college performance will sharpen student’s focus on retention, persistence and graduation. With the focus sharpening further and the accountability’s demand continuing to develop, student success will become a critical factor affecting reputations, rankings and funding.
It is not easy to achieve measurable and sustainable strides which can help in improving student success, learning and persistence-to-degree completion. However, certain organizations have shown that colleges and universities can make significant improvement and outperform other institutions with a concerted and intentional approach. It should be clearly understood that academic advising connects a clear link between student and academic affairs components which is important for student retention and success.
Know how academic advising can be used with a mindset of appreciative advising to improve student retention. Join this session Appreciate Recruitment: The Advisor’s Role in Increasing Yield Numbers by expert speakers Joy Cobb and Melissa A Toretch on Thursday, May 19, 2016 to get qualitative and quantitative data supporting the influence of ‘green carpet day’ in student matriculation.
