Guiding Student Choice to Promote Persistence

In this study, we profile innovative tools, technologies, and policies that institutions have used to improve student retention and completion rates.

Colleges and universities often have hundreds of rules, policies, organizational structures, and curricular requirements that hinder student persistence and completion. If institutions were to remove every obstacle to graduation, however, they would sacrifice the comprehensiveness and rigor that a postsecondary degree signifies.

Each exemplifying the idea that smarter institutional design can prevent a significant share of student problems that might otherwise require advisor intervention, and that it can do so without any sacrifice to rigor or curricular breadth.