Eliminate Administrative and Financial Barriers to Success
While most academic leaders think of advising, academics, or student affairs when thinking about student success, the administrative infrastructure of a campus has an equally key role to play. Many students will struggle even more if they must overcome a multitude of administrative and financial hurdles to progress toward graduation. The right policies, processes, and financial supports form the foundation for a broader student success strategy.
Audit student-facing policies to discover hidden barriers to student success
Nearly every academic policy, no matter how minor, can have an impact on student success. But most policies emerge from shared governance committees without careful analysis of their effects on student persistence or equity.
Overly strict registration hold policies, for example, can needlessly discourage students from reenrolling, while overly lenient course repeat policies might lead some students to repeat the same course without making progress toward their degrees. Just revising bursar holds alone led to an 8% increase in retention at one university.
Create a policy audit committee (or charge an existing policy committee) to review existing policies all at once, consider their cumulative impact on student success, and revise policies that create unintentional roadblocks to graduation.
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