Preventing Early Attrition

Executive Summary

Student Enrollment and Market Share Declines at the Top of Member Priority Lists

Since 2010, community college leaders across the country have seen student headcount and credit hour production decline at unanticipated rates. The country’s economic recovery is the most common rationale for the enrollment downturn—as the economy improves, students leave higher education for the prospect of an immediate paycheck. However, this most recent economic recovery differed from previous economic rebounds. Despite record enrollments during the recession, community colleges’ share of the total undergraduate population remained flat and then declined, starkly different from previous recessions when two-year colleges experienced gains in both headcount and market share. Since 2002, community colleges have lost nearly 6 percentage points of market share to competitors that have invested heavily in advertising, convenience, and the appearance of low cost.

Applicant Attrition Rates Reveal Problematic Intake Process at Two-Year Colleges

From 2011 to 2013, two-year colleges lost more than half of all prospective students between application and the first day of the fall term. In the fall of 2013, community colleges converted only 42% of all applicants into enrollees at their institutions—a 58% attrition rate before the semester even began. The applicant conversion challenge is exacerbated by the increasingly risky profile of incoming students. Over the past decade, more students have entered community college with remedial needs, applying for financial aid, and enrolling in college after years away from a formal educational setting, resulting in greater demands on college resources to help students navigate the enrollment process. In an era of declining enrollments and heightened competition, community college leaders must focus on optimizing intake for incoming students by smoothing their path to enrollment and completion.

Financial Aid Presents Greatest Barrier to College Entry and Persistence

In a survey of our members, community college leaders overwhelmingly identified financial aid as the greatest pain point in the enrollment process for incoming students. Research confirms that finances are a top reason students struggle during the intake process, as well as a barrier to their persistence. Many of the reasons finances hinder enrollment and completion are rooted in decisions students make early in the intake process: students skip the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), fail to complete the federal verification process, make poor assumptions about the size of their aid packages, overlook alternative sources of support, and accept aid without consideration of the repayment schedule. To reduce the financial barrier to student success, college leaders must help students make optimal financial decisions.

Nudge Students via Text Message to Check Institutional Email for Financial Aid Updates

After completing the FAFSA, eligible students may still face difficulties in securing the financial aid they need. If aid application forms have missing, inaccurate, or suspicious information, the federal Department of Education may flag a student for additional verification materials. Every year, more than 12 million FAFSA applications are selected for federal verification. Unfortunately, many students miss these calls to action that are sent to rarely-checked institutional email address. To help ensure students get the aid they need, the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission (WVHEPC) pushes alerts about federal verification using a more familiar channel—cell phones. Using text message alerts, WVHEPC has prompted hundreds of students to complete previously unknown financial aid application and college enrollment steps.

Traditional Advising Conversations Lead to Rushed, Suboptimal Academic Decisions

The typical new community college student has little time and only fragmented support when making academic decisions at intake. Ideally, advisors would help new students select a degree program, first semester schedule, and course load, and then build a long-term academic plan. However, the average community college advisor manages hundreds, if not thousands, of students simultaneously, making it difficult to provide in-depth intake guidance for every student. If a student makes an appointment with an advisor during peak registration period, she is likely to participate in a short, 15-minute meeting that reviews only a fraction of the necessary topics. The onus for personal reflection and career exploration typically falls on students’ shoulders with minimal supervision from staff, meaning that most students never experience any sort of formal goal-setting exercise before selecting a major or first semester schedule.

Allow Students to Register for More than One Term at a Time to Encourage Persistence

Many students enter college without considering the long-term commitment it will take. They do not see the connection between courses from one semester to the next, and they fail to consider how their nonacademic and educational lives will converge during future terms. Several institutions have created multi-term registration systems to alleviate this challenge. At institutions like West Hills Community College, students can plan for a year’s worth of courses in a single registration process. Faculty plan course schedules once per year instead of revisiting the calendar each term. Student services staff ensure students remain on track by reviewing student progress in prerequisite courses. These systems require minimal technological effort and have shown positive results in retention from term to term.

Most First-Term Attrition Occurs When Life Factors Disrupt Students’ Educational Plans

The typical community college serves a large and growing population of students with many risk factors for dropping out (e.g., first-generation college attendee, employed, family caregiver, low-income, etc.). These competing responsibilities and demands often converge at the same time, and ultimately cause students to drop out mid-semester. To minimize this early attrition, college leaders must align on-campus services with student needs, connecting individuals with the right support at the right time.

Designate Withdrawal Prevention Specialists to Provide Personalized Intervention

Academic difficulties, a sudden lack of motivation, or unexpected life events could all lead students to withdraw from college before completion. Community college students are especially prone to early attrition due to non-academic factors, which are more difficult to identify and track than academic behaviors alone. To understand the reasons students withdraw from courses mid-semester, Manchester Community College designated Withdrawal Prevention Specialists who are responsible for speaking directly with students who express interest in withdrawal. When students request a withdrawal form, staff begin on-the-spot conversations to uncover their motivations for leaving the institution and identify appropriate campus services. Through this intervention, withdrawal rates at the college have plummeted; administrators credit the success of the coordinators to the personal relationships they build with students, demonstrating that someone at the institution cares about their success.

Restructure the Academic Calendar to Mitigate Pain of Unavoidable Drop Out

Sometimes, withdrawal is the best option for students even though they leave behind unfinished courses and lose tuition dollars spent. The high cost of mid-semester attrition was one of many reasons that prompted Trident Technical College’s leadership to restructure the academic calendar. In 2014, Trident replaced the traditional fifteen-week semester with two 7-week terms. Enrolling in a few courses at a time has positively impacted student academic performance. It also helps students who must withdraw from the institution midsemester. Rather than lose all credit and tuition for time spent in the classroom, a student who withdraws from the college in week 12 still earns credit for the work she completed in the first 7-week term. In select cases when the college cannot prevent early attrition, Trident reduces the long-term impact of mid-semester withdrawal.

Introduction

Since the launch of the completion agenda, community colleges have poured staff and faculty energy and millions of dollars into student success efforts. Despite this tremendous investment, college leaders and their teams continue to express frustration that they have not made enough progress. Completion and retention rates remain nearly unchanged.

With mounting public pressure to retain and graduate more students at a faster rate, Community College Executive Forum partners posed a number of critical questions to uncover the primary factors impeding progress on ambitious student success goals.

Supporting Optimal Financial Decisions

The practices in this section outline strategies to provide students with the right information about financial aid at the most appropriate time, supporting optimal financial decisions. The first three practices featured in this section support students during the aid application process. The final two practices offer methods of expanding financial aid support by considering alternative sources of aid and responsible debt management.

Practice 1: On-site FAFSA Completion Lab

During a review of the effectiveness of the financial aid office, administrators at Fresno City College recognized a gap in in-person student support: the financial aid office lacked dedicated computers for students to complete FAFSAs with staff support.

Through grant and state funding, the financial aid office opened an 18-computer financial aid lab that is available year-round for students to receive financial aid assistance. Including technology and staffing, the annual cost of the lab is approximately $100,000.

The lab is staffed by one fulltime financial aid assistant at a time: Fresno City College has nine full-time staff members in this position, and they rotate working in the lab every week. These staff members, however, mainly answer students’ more complex questions, while two to three work-study student staff members answer more basic questions.

Practice 2: SMS Verification Updates

The West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission (WVHEPC) launched an initiative to support prospective college students during the enrollment and financial aid application process using SMS text messaging.

In 2014, the organization partnered with Ben Castleman, a scholar at the University of Virginia, to communicate with high school students about the college enrollment process early, starting in the winter of their senior year. Messages clearly outline steps for submitting applications and securing financial aid, and the messages continue to support students even after they matriculate to college through the completion of their first semester.

SMS messages are sent using Signal Vine, a text messaging platform, and have proven to be highly effective. Each message prompts students to complete discrete enrollment steps, including checking their aid status.

Students stated that without the text message intervention, they would have been unaware of steps necessary to complete college enrollment.

Practice 3: Automated Aid Estimates

“In financial aid applications, the early bird gets the worm. If you apply early, you get your aid early. If you apply late, it’ll take five to six weeks.”

Steven Myrow, Dean of Financial Aid, Santa Monica Community College

In 2014, Bergen Community College changed their internal financial aid processes to provide students with an early estimate of their financial aid package before they receive their official award letter. These automated aid estimates allow students to plan for tuition costs not covered by federal aid, which contribute to more informed decisions about scholarships, job opportunities, and course loads.

The college made three small changes to their financial aid processes to quickly produce automated aid estimates for students. First, the college downloads Institutional Student Information Records (ISIRs) from the Department of Education’s Central Processing System daily, rather than their previous weekly schedule. Secondly, Bergen uses information housed in their student information system (SIS) to create estimates. Lastly, they send estimates directly to students, emphasizing that it is an estimated amount and not a final offer.

Overall, administrators at the college are satisfied with the results of the initiative. The increased transparency about the financial aid process drastically reduced the number of complaints from students to the financial aid office.

Practice 4: FAFSA Benefits Eligibility Screens

To ensure student awareness of available public benefits, LaGuardia Community College formed a partnership with Single Stop USA, a national nonprofit network that connects students with public benefits assistance, including free legal and tax counseling.

The financial aid staff at LaGuardia use information on students’ FAFSA forms (e.g., annual income and number of household residents) to identify students who might be eligible for public benefits. These public benefits prescreens result in flags on students’ SIS records, prompting them to visit the oncampus Single Stop office. At LaGuardia, the Single Stop office is located directly next to the financial aid office.

The flags present Single Stop visits as mandatory, even though the follow-up visits are in fact optional: a flag remains on a student’s SIS record until she visits Single Stop. Even though the flag doesn’t prevent students from completing any other enrollment steps, the vast majority of students with these flags visit the Single Stop office and receive public benefits.

Practice 5: Pre-loan Workshop

Broward College recommends that all students planning to accept public or private loans to pay for college attend a two-hour debt management workshop. The content of the workshop expands on traditional financial literacy curricula by personalizing the consequences of loan default. Contacts at the college highlight anecdotes and personal stories as effective methods of explaining to students the potential impact loans and debt can have on their future goals, including careers, home ownership, and relationships.

After creating the workshop, the college’s CDR has declined from 15.3% in 2010 to 12.3% in 2011 and has continued to decrease since then.

Elements of Broward College’s Debt Management Workshop

Guiding Intentional Academic Decisions

The first two practices featured in this section offer guidance for college leaders when building in additional supports so students make intentional academic decisions at intake. The final two practices outline strategies that further engage students in their academics and encourage their long-term retention at the college.

Practice 6: Meta Major Scheduling Menus

New students at Queensborough Community College (QCC) choose a major and meta major at the time of enrollment. To aid in first semester course registration, students can refer to one of 10 prefabricated scheduling menus the college offers across its five meta majors.

Each scheduling menu outlines recommended first-term courses in a particular meta major. A student enrolled in a Health Sciences major, for example, would review a scheduling menu containing courses that meet general education requirements (e.g., English Composition I) and distribution requirements for all of the majors in the meta major (e.g., Biology 101). Students are also given flexibility to choose electives.

There are two primary benefits of QCC’s practice. The first is the ease of implementation—the college creates scheduling menus for each meta major, rather than every individual program offering at the college. The second benefit is the flexibility of the scheduling menus—each menu applies to all majors within a given meta major. If students later switch
majors (commonly within the same meta major), their first-semester courses will still count toward their degree.

Implementation Advice for Meta Major Scheduling Menus

Practice 7: Completion Mapping Course

Cuyamaca College addressed both of the challenges often cited with student success courses (i.e., lack of relevancy and low enrollment) with PDC 124, a completion mapping course introduced in the early 1990s.

In 1991, administrators at the college surveyed students who enrolled in the fall semester but did not enroll the following spring semester. The survey asked students to articulate their reasons for discontinuing. Among the group of students who did not earn a credential, two major reasons provided were a lack of clarity on their reason for attending college and slow progress made toward their goals.

In response, the college created a student success course that focused on goalsetting and completion mapping, or academic planning. Course activities included personality self-assessments, reflective journaling exercises, and guided career exploration. Most recently, fall-to-spring persistence rate for career mapping course completers was 85%, compared to 65% for non-enrollees.

The course is not mandatory, but students are incentivized to participate because the course boasts many attributes not commonly seen in traditional student success courses: it is relevant, offered in flexible modalities, and transferrable to nearby four-year universities.

Practice 8: Multi-term Registration

“When we allowed students to queue up their spring classes, they began to think about their future year prior to the start of registration period. They started to take notice of how their life demands might conflict with their academic and class requirements, so they began to adjust accordingly.”

Stuart Van Horn, Vice Chancellor, West Hills Community College

Once students incorporate academic and career goals into educational plans, colleges should provide tools for students to act on these plans. Over the last decade, West Hills Community College (WHCC) took a close look at its student success data: in particular, they focused on the demonstrable impact educational plans have on student success.

In 2014, West Hills Community College helped its students implement longer term educational plans by reframing the traditional term-by-term approach to registration. Through its program, Reg365, WHCC students with an educational plan enroll in an entire year of courses (summer, fall, and spring) at one time.

Students chart out their educational plan with an advisor and then register for the coming year’s courses at once. Before Reg365, about 14% of students enrolled in 30 or more units in their first year of college. After a year and a half of implementation, over 18% of students now enroll in 30 credits per year, allowing them to stay on track for graduation.

Data collected during the registration period allows colleges to forecast section and course demand far into the future. This additional insight facilitates more confident, proactive budgetary and strategic planning for the years ahead.

Practice 9: Full-Time Summer Scholarships

Indiana State University’s full-time summer scholarships provide financial support for summer enrollees.

Scholarship funding for summer enrollees first became available in the summer of 2014. Before the program was piloted, administrators at the college observed that traditional incentives designed to encourage full-time enrollment only focused on 15-credit enrollment in the fall and spring semesters. A model like banded tuition, for example, offers students a chance to enroll in 15 credits in a semester for the price of 12 credits. This lowers financial costs, but students’ busy schedules are another barrier to 15-credit enrollment per term.

Indiana State’s summer scholarship provides students just shy of completing 30 credits annually with up to six free college credits for summer courses. In addition to tuition stipends, the college also grants money for books and other expenses.

The costs of tuition stipends can add up quickly for a college, but the scholarship’s impact on term-to-term retention more than makes up for the up-front expense, particularly with careful implementation planning and continued student support services during the summer.

Minimizing First Semester Dropout

The final section of this study describes new student intake as an opportunity to minimize the risk of attrition during the first semester. College administrators must empower students to manage unexpected life circumstances that could derail them from their completion goals.

While many students struggle academically, often what prevents students from completion are non-academic life factors: a realm in which community colleges have historically had little control. The first practice in this section introduces a way to proactively connect students with the right support services before a challenge arises. The last two practices offer strategies to reengage students who intend to drop out of the institution.

Practice 10: Personalized Resource Nudges

Mount Wachusett Community College encourages students to utilize on-campus services by understanding their needs and connecting with them early. The college administers a survey at the time students take placement exams that includes a wide variety of questions, including access to technology, confidence in academic decision making, and transportation to campus. The answers to these questions form part of the student profile in the student information system. The college also uses the survey responses to suggest matches via SMS with campus resources through a Campus Services Referral Matrix.

Practice 11: Withdrawal Prevention Specialist

Though students face many barriers during intake, they can often withdraw with a single click online.

Manchester Community College decided to create an intentional barrier to student attrition: they designated five on-campus Withdrawal Prevention Specialists who are responsible for intercepting students interested in withdrawal. During peak registration period, these staff members help students through the onboarding process. Through these experiences, staff become cross-trained by learning about financial aid advising and processing, admissions advising, outreach and student recruitment, program operation, record keeping, and reporting.

Practice 12: Compressed Mini-semesters

Even the most prepared student cannot prepare for unexpected roadblocks: a child suddenly getting sick, loss of a home, or worse. When these unexpected events happen, students must drop out midsemester, leaving behind unfinished courses and lost tuition.

The high cost of mid-semester attrition was one of many reasons that prompted leadership at Trident Technical College (TTC) to restructure the academic calendar. In 2014, Trident replaced the traditional 15-week semester with two 7-week terms.

The new format allows students to take two or three 7-week courses at a time; classes meet for two hours instead of 55 minutes. Students have the opportunity to enroll in the same number of courses in the new format as they would in the old format. The primary distinction is that in the new format, students do not take all of their courses simultaneously.

Enrolling in a few courses at a time has had a positive impact on academic performance, and is also extremely beneficial to students who encounter difficulties mid-semester. For example, a student who must withdraw from the college in week 12 still earns credit for the work she completed in the first compressed term. Rather than withdrawing from four courses at once, this student must only make up two courses upon her return.

---

Access the related toolkit

Explore 11 resources and tools that will help community college leaders improve student pathing from application through the first year.