CCSSE ’08: More Accessible Student Services Key to Improving Success of Students and Bolstering College Accountability

Squeezed between rising enrollments and falling budgets, community colleges across the country nonetheless are heeding the growing call for dramatic improvements in student outcomes.  

Yet higher graduation rates, better retention and other benchmarks of student success will remain out of reach if colleges don’t couple higher expectations with improved, more accessible student services.

That is the central finding of High Expectations, High Support, the 2008 report of the Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE).  In preparing the 28-page report, the Community College Leadership Program in the College of Education at The University of Texas at Austin surveyed more than 343,000 students from 585 colleges in 48 states.   See Key Findings of the 2008 Community College Survey of Student Engagement.

The report offers data about the quality of community college students’ educational experiences and gives examples of how colleges are rising to the challenge of educating an ever-expanding universe of diverse students.

“The question for institutions is not whether they should promote higher expectations. They should,” Vincent Tinto, a Syracuse professor of higher education, wrote in the foreword to the report. “The question is not whether they should provide academic and social support. They must. Rather, the question is how they can make sure high expectations and support services are present — visible, accessible, unavoidable — where students are. After all, these efforts will only promote student success if students engage in them.”

But for colleges, providing a broad array of student services is growing more difficult in a troubled economy, said survey director Kay McClenney. Colleges will be pressed to set priorities as they decide how to spend dwindling resources, she said.

“I think everyone believes it’s going to get tougher before it gets better,” she said. “But there is enough money to do the really important things. It is a matter of resource allocation. Where can we make the investments where we can see the most impact on the largest number of students?”

Engaging students in their own educations is a particular challenge for community colleges, which typically serve an exceptionally diverse student population. Nearly two-thirds of community college students attend classes part-time; 56 percent work more than 20 hours per week; 30 percent have children living with them; more than a third are first-generation college students; and nearly 30 percent come from families with incomes under $20,000 annually.

“All of that is true,” McClenney said. “But the accuracy of these characteristics is not an excuse for low performance on the part of colleges or their students.”

The report describes various approaches colleges have adopted in striving to improve student outcomes.

Florida Community College at Jacksonville, for example, revised a student life skills course to emphasize the importance of using support services, in addition to teaching things like study skills and time management. Skagit Valley College in Washington State brought student support services into classrooms, having a counselor join a team teaching developmental education.

McClenney said while the survey showed that while no single approach is right for all colleges, one common, essential thread emerged: All students should be required to avail themselves of student services.

“You really have to take the services to where the students are,” she said. “Colleges are figuring out how to make them inescapable. Higher education tends to fill brochures with the student services that are available. But things like student success courses should be mandatory and prescribed.”

The report has a special focus on financial aid. It notes that “for many students, financial aid is the first and most important element of student engagement. If they miss this step — if they do not get financial aid — nothing else the college does will matter because the students will not be able to enroll and stay in school.”

Yet a relatively small number of eligible community college students even apply for financial aid. Only about 56 percent of students surveyed filled out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid.  Forty-six percent of part-time students and 31 percent of full-time students reported receiving no financial aid of any kind. Sixteen percent said they were unaware of the financial aid process.

Of those who did fill out the survey, 39 percent did not receive any kind of financial aid.

The report notes that the complex aid application form itself is a barrier to obtaining aid. Federal education officials have promised to simplify the form to make it easier for families to apply.

In addition, some colleges are taking it upon themselves to help students move through the financial aid maze, McClenney said.

“An increasing number of colleges are taking it seriously,” she said.

The full report can be downloaded at www.ccsse.org.

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