There are
many structural barriers and inefficiencies that prevent students from
completing college. They include lack of access to good information on student
outcomes, poorly designed pathways to credentials, stringent scheduling models, inequitable college readiness opportunities, ineffective ways of measuring student
learning, and a lack of alignment with the skill needs of local and regional industries.
Any of those challenges can take students off track and make it difficult for
them to complete their postsecondary educations, even if they pay little or no
tuition.
If we want
to truly move the needle on college success, JFF believes that we should dramatically
change the way postsecondary education is designed and delivered to students,
so that it is more relevant, coherent, adaptive, and accelerated wherever
possible.
Early Examples Where Change Is Working
We are
fortunate to have examples of the types of changes we have in mind because colleges
across the country have embraced strategies that improve student success and
system relevance.
Take Lorain County Community
College (LCCC) in Elyria, Ohio, where partnerships made possible
by policy-driven interventions enabled the school to rapidly deploy an
innovative earn-and-learn program called TRAIN Ohio in the fall of 2016.
Through an arrangement that blends school and work, TRAIN Ohio participants
engage in paid work-based learning at sponsor companies three days per week and
take full course loads while attending classes two days per week. LCCC has also
developed an effective system of pathway supports through an initiative it
calls ASAP (the Accelerated Study in Associate Program), which provides students
with wraparound supports, including tuition assistance, academic and career
advising services, and financial assistance to cover transportation and
textbook costs.
While programs
such as these have resulted in improved student outcomes at LCCC and other
schools, we still face a problem of scale and capacity across the broader
postsecondary system.