By Julie Plaut, August guest blogger
Six years ago, Minnesota Campus Compact held its first meeting focused on how colleges and universities committed to community engagement might increase student enrollment and retention in college. One of the participants’ comments really stuck with me: Campuses already know how to create systems that boost student success. They do it for student athletes, often providing both financial assistance and structured academic tutoring, as well as encouragement to enroll in the first place and a sense of belonging from their team. Since the institution has a stake in their success/eligibility to play, faculty members are expected to alert key staff if an athlete isn’t performing well in a class. This allows someone to reach out, find out what’s going on, and offer support early — success isn’t just considered the individual student’s responsibility.
That meeting happened at Augsburg College, which offers a striking example of how an institution can apply a similar approach to supporting students more generally. Augsburg’s entering class has gone from 11% students of color in 2005 to 40% in the last two years, in part because the college deliberately set out to build relationships with college access programs and to remove obstacles that could prevent lower-income students from enrolling. Scholarships are now available for participants in any college access program, and instead of requiring admitted students to pay a $150 deposit before their financial aid has kicked in, students may write a letter committing to enroll. Graduates of a nearby K-8 school, where scores of Augsburg students do service-learning, also qualify for scholarships. Many people at the college are deeply engaged with the surrounding Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, and it matters that they see the mostly Somali residents as neighbors, partners, and potential students, not simply service recipients.
The college has paid attention to retention as well. A strong connection with Admission Possible, for instance, has AP college coaches on campus and AP alumni hired as staff in student service areas. There may still be issues to address, but the institutional commitment to enrolling and supporting a more diverse student body is clear — and that’s an important step.
“Student success must be everyone’s business,” according to the authors of Student Success in College. It's not enough to know that an educated workforce is critical to our collective well-being, or even to offer diffuse college access programs. We must change policies and cultures to advance education as a public good. What other examples of effective systemic change have you seen? What other changes do you consider necessary?
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