High drop-out
rates are a problem for colleges across the country, and certainly an issue
that Lincoln is working to address. A
recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education describes the efforts of
Complete College America, a group supported in part by the Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation that is working to improve retention and graduation rates. CCA
has identified a few basic strategies that, they claim, “can double the number
of remedial students passing college-level courses, triple the graduation rates
for students transferring with associate degrees to four-year colleges, and
quadruple completion of career certificate programs.”
One of their main
recommendations is placing students directly into college-level courses rather
than placing them in developmental courses for which they must pay but earn no
college credits. CCA argues that relying
on a single placement test is not sound educational policy. Besides, they say,
a more relevant predictor of ability than a student’s Accuplacer score might be
that student’s “grit,” the term coined by Penn professor Angela Duckworth for a
student’s ability to persevere toward a goal despite hardships.
Rather than forcing students to spend time in non-credit developmental courses, CCA recommends instead placing them in a credit-bearing course and providing co-requisite remediation alongside the regular course if needed. The Community College of Baltimore County has been one of the pioneers in this mainstreaming approach; see http://alp-deved.org/what-is-alp-exactly/ to read about their program for developmental English. Similar work is being done with accelerated math pathways (Statway and Quantway) being used throughout the Texas community college system.
Rather than forcing students to spend time in non-credit developmental courses, CCA recommends instead placing them in a credit-bearing course and providing co-requisite remediation alongside the regular course if needed. The Community College of Baltimore County has been one of the pioneers in this mainstreaming approach; see http://alp-deved.org/what-is-alp-exactly/ to read about their program for developmental English. Similar work is being done with accelerated math pathways (Statway and Quantway) being used throughout the Texas community college system.
One other
somewhat counter-intuitive recommendation from CCA is that colleges should
provide incentives for all students to take at least 15 credits per semester.
Additionally they recommend that students’ schedules and their path towards a
major be highly structured, as too much choice creates anxiety rather than
freedom.
What do you
think? What seems to ring true or false from your experience? Is there anything
we might adopt or adapt as we work to increase retention? If not these ideas, what?
