Assessment of student learning is typically undertaken with at least two goals in mind, accountability and improvement. This dichotomy of purpose has dogged assessment from the outset (Ewell, 2009) and contributed to conflicted or incomplete ends. As Banta and Palomba (2015) concluded, assessment undertaken primarily to comply with accountability…

The essay examines the variety of research methods and measures used in the first-year experience and students-in-transition field over the past 25 years. Interrogating the extant research, Kinzie explores whether the methods and analytic processes most commonly employed are adequate to advance our understanding of complex issues in the field. The…

Getting all students to high levels of achievement is what matters most. Many campuses today are working hard to develop a clearer and more integrated, collective approach to this goal. This takes leadership, resources, good data, a willingness to try new things, and, above all, a sense of purpose--working toward shared goals for student success.…

There is no shortage of challenges facing postsecondary institutions in the US. One that cuts to the core of the enterprise is whether they are preparing their graduates to live productive, civically responsible lives in a dynamic global marketplace mapped onto diverse, yet increasingly interdependent, social and cultural systems. Much of the…

A few years ago, in "Student Success in College (SSiC)," the authors profiled twenty colleges and universities that were unusually effective in fostering student engagement and success, defined as better-than-predicted scores on the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) and better-than-predicted graduation rates. These schools are…

Significant progress has been made over the past four decades in enrolling more students from historically underrepresented groups in U.S. colleges and universities. While total enrollment increased by about 40% overall, minority student enrollment increased by 146%, with Hispanic undergraduate enrollment greatly outpacing other racial/ethnic…

The Inventory for Student Engagement and Success (ISES) is a self-guided framework for conducting a comprehensive, systematic analysis of the properties and conditions for student success that are present at an institution. It can be used to assess an entire institution; units within an institution, such as a school or department or an academic or…

To aid members of the news media in looking at the issues of quality in postsecondary education, the authors of the recently published "Student Success in College: Creating Conditions that Matter" distill some useful factors for the media and the general public to use in assessing the quality of education at four-year colleges and universities.…

This study aims to determine the relationships between key student behaviors and the institutional practices and conditions that foster student success. To do so, student-level records from different types of colleges and universities are merged to examine the links between student engagement and two key outcomes of college: academic achievement…

The qualitative difference in the "success" of college students raises question of how educators envision student success. Although in "Student Success in College," George Kuh, Jillian Kinzie, John H. Schuh, Elizabeth J. Whitt define student success broadly as "satisfaction, persistence, and high levels of learning and personal development," the…

"Thriving in Transitions: A Research-Based Approach to College Student Success" represents a paradigm shift in the student success literature. Grounded in positive psychology, the thriving concept reframes the student success conversation by focusing on the characteristics amenable to change and that promote high levels of academic,…

College costs are rising and enrollments are at an all-time high, yet the proportion of students earning degrees has stayed more or less constant for decades. This leads some to conclude that colleges aren't holding up their end of the educational bargain. The question, Do they graduate? is receiving the most scrutiny by state legislatures and by…

This report is an abridged version of work performed for the National Postsecondary Education Cooperative to synthesize the relevant literature and emerging findings related to student success, broadly defined (Kuh and others, 2006). The author's purpose is to provide an informed perspective on policies, programs, and practices that can make a…

"Student Success" is EPI's occasional e-magazine dedicated to the discussion of retaining students in higher education. Over the course of the next issues of "Student Success," the Educational Policy Institute (EPI) will explore three questions about retention on our college campuses. Part I will look at the barriers to student retention, both…