Next-generation student support is here...and we're just getting started

This article first appeared in the February/March 2020 issue of AACC Community College Journal.

In my previous article for the AACC Community College Journal, I wrote about the “consumerization” of higher education, defined as a shift in the balance of power from the institution to the student. I argued that—at a time when competition for tuition dollars is intensifying—matriculating students to completion has grown just as important as enrolling them in the first place. I then outlined the ways that America’s most forward-looking community colleges are answering the call.

In this article, let’s delve deeper into one of those areas: next-generation student support. It’s an area in which community colleges are uniquely positioned to lead the way. In fact, many already are—and have been for some time.

Back in 2011, Amarillo College in Amarillo, Texas asked its students to identify the biggest barriers standing in the way of program completion. In order, the top five results were childcare, food insecurity, housing insecurity, mental health, and transportation. The overarching conclusion was that poverty is the single greatest obstacle to student success. As a result, Amarillo launched the No Excuses Poverty Initiative four years later.

Today, the initiative consists of four primary programs: social services, a food pantry, mentoring, and career center. There is even a Clothing Closet that provides student with professional attire for interviews. As the program has matured, technology has enabled Amarillo to engage in predictive modeling capable of tracking at-risk behavior and driving interventions at the earliest possible point.

The first report on the initiative’s impacts was released in 2018—and it reported an increase in completion rates from 26 percent in 2012 to 45 percent in 2017 (a 73 percent jump). As such, it is now a model that is being considered at other community colleges across the country.

And look at Ohio’s Cuyahoga Community College, where adoption of the federal TRiO Student Support Services program is providing special assistance to students who are income eligible or whose parents did not earn a bachelor’s degree. In addition to academic counseling, the program offers mentoring, transfer guidance, study skills workshops, and grant aid to students who are Pell eligible (which 49 percent of Tri-C students are).

This and other programs that target specific student communities are credited with Tri-C’s improved graduation figures. In fact, the institution graduated a record 1,929 students in December 2017, which represented an 18 percent increase from the year before.

These are just two examples of how community colleges are exploring non-academic approaches to boosting student performance—and given the most recent data, we are likely to see a lot more in the coming years. In April 2019, the Hope Center for College, Community and Justice surveyed 86,000 community college students and estimated that 48 percent are food insecure. That survey also found that an astounding 18 percent of community college students had at some point experienced homelessness.

But what is most exciting about these programs is not that they are poised to be widely adopted across the community college landscape; it’s that they are positioned to evolve in amazing ways as technology paves the way for new innovations.

First, the ability to gather data around the effectiveness of these approaches will enable institutions to hone and refine their programs for maximum impact. For instance, Amarillo College President Dr. Russell Lowery-Hart says, “It was the data that first alerted us to these problems and their impacts on student success—but it’s not enough to simply put a program in place and move on. We need to keep collecting as much insight as we can into how these initiatives are performing, so we can grow and adapt along with the issues out students are forced to confront.”

Second, technology will soon be assisting in ensuring that every student who needs this kind of support actually gets it. Imagine an app that can enable students to self-identify their needs in a private, confidential way? Not only would they be more likely to seek help, they would be able to do so with all the convenience of today’s mobile experiences.

And third, there are already institutions that are implementing outreach mechanisms like digital nudges that can leverage AI and machine learning to transform at-risk data into personalized messages of support. Should an at-risk student go a long period without logging on to the LMS, an automated text message or email can remind him or her that a support structure is available to assist with any issues that may be hindering classroom performance.

As I wrote in my last piece, America’s community colleges have always been leaders in unlocking human potential that would otherwise never be realized. As more and more of them begin to take these efforts to the next level, they are not only providing a template for other two-year institutions to follow, they are setting an example for both public and private four-year institutions where issues like financial hardship and mental health can be just as prevalent.

Community colleges are alerting us all that the next generation of student support is here. More important, they are showing that it works in terms of retention, completion, and career outcomes. Most important of all, they are just getting started—and I, for one, can’t wait to see what the future holds.