By Paul Fain
November 12, 2018
A growing number of universities are trading notes on how to improve student success rates. And the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities wants to take this cross-institutional collaboration to the next level.
The group recently released details on an ambitious project involving 130 universities and systems, including the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, that have pledged to work together in 16 “clusters” to boost their student access and completion rates while also curbing equity gaps.
“These are burning issues for everybody,” said Rick Miranda, provost and executive vice president of Colorado State University, which is part of the effort. “Working together is a way to do it better.”
The APLU and participating universities helped shape the clusters, each of which includes four to 12 universities grouped around geographic and other characteristics. For example, the project features an urban cluster, a group of technology-focused institutions, a cluster of universities with high percentages of Pell recipients and one that will seek to integrate data collection systems across six universities.
The 130 participating institutions collectively enroll three million students, one million of whom are eligible to receive Pell Grants. Under the project, which is dubbed Powered by Publics: Scaling Student Success, the universities are seeking to graduate several hundred thousand additional students over the next five years. APLU, which is holding its annual meeting in New Orleans, said specific completion targets are in the works.
Data sharing will be a key part of the effort, said Julia Michaels, deputy executive director of APLU’s Center for Public University Transformation, which receives funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is overseeing the initiative. She said the clusters will use standard metrics on student completion, retention and credit accumulation.
Nationwide, 61 percent of students who first enrolled at a four-year public institution graduate within six years, according to data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Deep achievement gaps persist as well. Just half of black students and 56 percent of Latino students completed at four-year publics within six years, the center found, compared to 71 percent of white students and 76 percent of Asian students.
APLU has asked for a five-year commitment for participating universities. The group said it will be open about its goals, publicly releasing hard numbers about completion and other targets as well as how each university is faring. If the project is successful, the group said it will continue the work as part of its membership benefits.
Urgency about improving completion rates at public universities has been building in recent years, due in part to performance-funding formulas that more than 35 states have enacted, many of which include completion components.
But beyond nudges from policy makers, university leaders and faculty members also increasingly realize they must help more students get to graduation to avoid the catastrophe of taking on debt without earning a degree, which in turn contributes to high student loan default rates, particularly for borrowers from minority groups.
“It’s the right thing to do,” Peter McPherson, APLU’s president, said when the group unveiled the project in February.
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