Improving College Completion Rates
Problem
Graduation rates are unequal in higher education.
Countless programs have tried to increase college graduation rates for all students, but many have fallen short. In response, the Partnership for College Completion (PCC) developed a facilitated collaborative to guiding and support colleges and universities in achieving higher college completion rates through the development and enactment of strategic plans. Comprising 25 public and private, 2- and 4-year institutions, members enroll 40 percent of all undergraduates in Illinois. NORC received funding from the William T. Grant Foundation to study how these colleges and universities can implement organizational change to better support students’ college completion outcomes.
Solution
NORC investigated how institutions designed strategic plans to support college completion.
NORC and Fordham University conducted comparative, qualitative case studies with six of ILEA's member institutions from November 2021 to May 2023. Variations in institutional characteristics and student outcomes (such as 2-year versus 4-year, public versus private, and disparities in graduation rates) enabled us to explore how potentially overlooked organizational factors and beliefs contributed to the choice and spread of institutional policies and the ways a facilitated collaborative supported efforts to promote college completion.
Result
Findings suggest that institutions benefited from being in the partnership to focus on improving college completion for all students.
Our study found that institutions embraced the opportunity to engage with a network of local colleges and universities through the ILEA program and engaged deeply, taking the bold step of posting publicly available data. In addition, the process of creating a strategic plan brought stakeholders within each institution to the table to talk about and develop a shared understanding of how to effectively support college completion for all students. All chose high-impact practices and were working towards becoming more strategic to ensure that all students complete college. Having an external accountability partner also helped some institutions develop and enact their chosen policies.
Importantly, although their strategic plans received strong buy-in from high-level leaders, they did not always build in student voices or include detailed budgets to ensure the sustainability of their initiatives.
