Preventing Early Attrition Implementation Toolkit
11 tools to promote student persistence
The typical new community college student has little time and only fragmented support when making academic and financial aid decisions at intake. And oftentimes, the rigid academic calendar at colleges does not offer the flexibility or encouragement to help students persist and avoid needing to drop out.
This toolkit—a supplement to our related study—will help you improve student pathing from application through the first year.
The toolkit contains tips, guides, templates, and more. Select from the options below to learn more about each tool.
Tool 1: FAFSA Lab Ambassador Job Description
This tool is an adaptation of a recent job posting for the FAFSA Lab Peer Ambassador position at Fresno City College. The job description provides great detail on the expected duties of the student work-study staff, as well as essential hiring criteria to ensure that well-suited candidates are selected.
Tool 2: FAFSA Lab Ambassador Training Curriculum Outline
This curriculum outline is adapted from Fresno City College’s financial aid lab ambassador training modules and may be adjusted to include information regarding institution-specific regulations and policies. The outline is meant to be filled in by the trainer with training activities and preexisting material from state- and institution- specific financial aid information. A recommended timeline of optimal seasons for training is also included.
Tool 3: Public Benefits Screening Form
Benefits access programs often utilize a questionnaire during the new student intake process. Students are prompted to fill out several basic questions that provide college staff with indicators of whether or not they may qualify for public benefits assistance. The following questionnaire is an adaptation of several benefits screening forms from colleges profiled in this study.
Tool 4: Public Benefits Screening Providers Evaluation Matrix
This public benefits screening provider evaluation matrix provides the key considerations college leaders should think through when selecting a screening provider.
Tool 5: Implementing Meta Majors on Your Campus
This collection of meta majors was compiled exclusively for community colleges. The taxonomy explains the nature of meta majors and helps you select meta majors that fit your institution’s services.
Tool 6: Completion Mapping Course Curriculum Builder
This tool is designed to support staff in creating a curriculum for a Completion Mapping Course that integrates already existing services and resources into current curriculum, with the intention of emphasizing the new curriculum on career and educational path exploration and planning. We recommend that this tool be used in conjunction with traditional curriculum writing practices as an informative supplement.
Tool 7: Non-cognitive Student Needs Intake Survey
The following sample student intake survey provides a template for a basic student intake survey that is mapped to the non-academic resource matrix on the following page. These survey questions may be integrated into the application itself or included as an addendum to the application.
Tool 8: Non-academic Resource Matrix
Fill out this worksheet with all contact information for all resources in the column titled “Suggested Resources” as well as any other institution-specific resources identified on your campus. Once the table is as comprehensive as possible, formalize the information into a handout for all faculty and staff; urge them to keep the handout in plain sight in their offices. Student responses to the survey questions in Tool 7 should guide faculty and staff toward appropriate resources with which students should be connected. In addition, staff and faculty should refer to the handout whenever a student expresses a non-academic need.
Tool 9: Tips for Texting Students and Parents
The following list of best practices for texting students and parents was compiled by experts at Signal Vine, a text messaging provider that works with many colleges, school districts, and community-based organizations nation-wide. These tips are intended to provide additional context for practitioners when devising text messaging calendars, schedules, and content.
Tool 10: Sample Text Message Nudge Calendar
The following text message nudge calendar is taken directly from a calendar utilized at a college in West Virginia. This tool is meant to serve as an example of the quantity and type of text.
Tool 11: Compressed Mini-semester Business Case Template
This compressed mini-semester business case template guides users through the key factors that should influence the decision to implement (or not) compressed mini-semesters at their institution.
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