1. Leaders of colleges that have improved student success focus on long-term goals of increasing graduation rates for all students, especially underrepresented groups. They build coalitions, communicate clearly, and relentlessly pursue goals over many years. 2. These leaders work within shared governance structures and value faculty input and opinions. They use data to identify problems and hold members accountable for solutions rather than dictating changes. 3. Tapping into a culture that values teaching and students, these leaders engage faculty and staff as partners in using data to raise achievement for all students. They distinguish effective programs and interventions from those that "feel good".

1. 1 Occupy Higher Education: 1
2 2 33 4 4 5 5
6 6
7 WHY COLLEGES 7
8 8 99 10 10
11 SHOULD OWN THE 11
12 12 13 13 14 14
15 EFFORT TO IMPROVE 15
16 16 17 17 18 18
19 STUDENT SUCCESS 19
20 20 21 21 22 22 23 23
24 By José L. Cruz and Kati HayCoCK 2425 25 26 26
27 and Latino families, whose median household wealth has de-
27
José L. Cruz ([email protected]) is vice president for higher
28 clined by 53 percent and 66 percent respectively, compared
28 education policy and practice at The Education Trust.
He is
29 to a decline of 16 percent among whites (Kochlar, Frye, &
29 a former vice president for student affairs at the
University
30 30 of Puerto Rico System and a former faculty member,
depart- Taylor, 2011).
31 31 ment chair, and dean of academic affairs at UPR-
Mayagüez. And it’s not just worsening economic inequality:
Intergen-32 32
33 Kati Haycock ([email protected]) is the founder and
erational mobility is falling as well. The US now has one
of 33
34 president of The Education Trust, a Washington-based orga-
the lowest rates of mobility in the developed world,
exceeded 34
35 nization that works to promote the academic achievement of
only by Great Britain (Hertz, 2006). 35

2. 36 all students at all levels—prekindergarten through college.36
A
The Role of educaTion
3737 s Americans, we tell each other—and the world— The
overwhelming question is, what matters in turning
3838 two powerful stories about our country. this around?
Education. At the macro level, better and more 3939 4040 4141
The first is that we are the land of opportunity. equal
education is only part of the answer, but at the individ-
Whether your parents came here from Mexico or ual
level, it is the main engine of intergenerational mobility.
42you grew up in the hollers of West Virginia, if you
According to a recent study, “among those who have
finished 42
43 work hard you can become anything you want to be. four
years of college, there is no racial gap in economic mo- 43
44 The second is a story of generational advancement. bility:
both whites and blacks in this group experience very 44
45 Through saving and hard work, each generation of parents
high rates of upward economic mobility” (Mazumder,
2008). 45
46 can secure a better education—and a better future—for their
As generations of African American and Latino parents
have 46
47 children. told their children, “Education is the one thing
they can 47
48 These stories are powerful. They are pervasive. And they
never take away from you.”And they were right. Despite
re- 48
49 are dead wrong. cent un- and under-employment statistics
for college gradu- 49
50 As a new round of cross-national studies is showing us,
ates, college-educated adults earn more and are less likely
50
51 the US is now one of the most economically unequal of all

3. to be unemployed than those without degrees (Baum, Ma, &
511 1
2 2
3 3
52 developed countries. The top 5 percent of Americans now
Payea, 2011; Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2012). 52 take
home 21.3 percent of total income, while the bottom 40 What
we in higher education do, in other words, matpercent takes
home only 11.8 percent (U.S. Census Bureau, ters a lot to
individuals and their ability to contribute to our 2011). Among
OECD nations, the US has the fourth high- country’s future.
And given the current levels of economic est income inequality,
exceeded only by Turkey, Mexico, inequality and the
demographic shifts we are experiencing, and Chile (United
Nations Development Program, 2011). we cannot preserve our
democratic ideals without closing And things are getting worse.
The past several years have the educational attainment gaps
that separate low-income brought a veritable economic tsunami,
especially for black students and students of color from their
peers.
www.changemag.org 49
4 The college compleTion agenda themselves to two bold and
important goals: first, to increase 4
5 There has recently been a lot of attention given to the the
number of college graduates in their states while also 5
6 issue of college completion, affordability, and productiv-
ensuring that those graduates are more representative of
their 6
7 ity. Describing how miniscule the improvements in aver-
states’ high school graduates, and second, to narrow the
gaps 7
8 age graduation rates have been over time, critics decry the in
college-going and completion rates between the underrep- 8
9 intransigence of faculty and institutional leaders and call for
resented populations and their peers. 9

4. 10 Today, the A2S Initiative is 22 systems strong, represent- 10
radical change—including alternative delivery models, such 11
ing 312 two- and four-year colleges and serving more than
11 as those employed in the for-profit sector. 12 12
We at the Education Trust have a different view. Our 3.5
million students. Together, these systems educate about 13 13
investigation of the for-profit sector suggests that it gen- 20
percent of students attending public institutions nation-
14 14 erates far higher costs and far lower results for students
ally, including nearly 40 percent of low-income and
minority 15 15 16 16
(Lynch, Engle, & Cruz, 2010). And although we too feel an
students attending public four-year institutions across the
17 urgent need for change, especially in success rates for the
country (Engle et al., 2012). Reaching our collective
college 17
18 low-income students and students of color (who will soon
attainment goals as a country, therefore, depends in no
small 18
19 comprise the majority of young people in this country,) we
part on whether these systems reach theirs. 19
20 are skeptical about trying out the most radical alternatives
Already, some A2S systems and campuses are making 20
21 on our most vulnerable young people (U.S. Department of
substantial progress, demonstrating that the initiative’s and
21
22 Education, 2011). Further, we are dubious that the language
the country’s college completion goals are within reach.
22
23 of “productivity,” with its emphasis on cost reduction over
Consider, for example, San Diego State University
(SDSU), 23
24 student learning, will inspire the efforts of college faculty
one of 23 campuses in the California State University 24
25 and staff, who must execute improvements on the front lines
System. SDSU is an urban research university serving 25

5. 26 in order for us to reach our collective attainment goal. an
increasingly diverse undergraduate population. Today, 26
27 These doubts are founded in what we have learned from
more than one in three incoming students are low-income,
27
28 digging into the practices at the colleges that are in fact
mov-and more than two in five are Latino, African American or
28
29 ing the needle for their low-income students and students of
American Indian (Engle et al., 2012). 29
30 color. What we are finding is that incremental improvements,
From 2005 to 2010, San Diego State cut its graduation- 30
31 skillfully and consistently made, produce results. Leaders
rate gap for underrepresented minority freshmen by more
31
32 in institutions making big gains engage their faculties and
than half, from 19 to 8 percentage points. Graduation 32
33 student support personnel not through frontal attacks but by
rates increased for all students during this time but rose an
33
34 connecting their desire for excellence to improved student
impressive 22 points for minority students. Among transfer
34
35 students, SDSU posted double-digit increases in minority 35
success for all.
36 graduation rates while cutting the gap nearly in half. And the
36 37 37 impRoving insTiTuTions school also raised rates
and narrowed or closed gaps between 38 38
To some in higher education, increasing student success
low-income students and their peers (Engle et al., 2010).
39 39 is simply impossible—at least without significant
improve-
40 40 ments in the preparation of entering students. Our work
has 41 41
42 convinced us otherwise. As readers who are familiar with 42
43 our College Results Online tool and series of related reports

6. 43
44 already know, there are very big differences in student suc-
44
45 cess even among institutions serving exactly the same kinds
Leaders in institutions making big 45
46 of students. 46
47 While some institutions remain stuck at the bottom of 47
48 their institutional peer groups, others have made large im-
gains engage their faculties and 48
49 provements in just a few years for all students and especially
49
50 for their underrepresented minority students. In fact some
student support personnel not 50
51 have completely wiped out the graduation-rate gaps between
51
52 their white students and students of color. through frontal
attacks but by 52
Over four years ago, leaders from public higher educa-
tion systems across the country came together out of a
connecting their desire for shared conviction that their
systems were not doing enough to ensure student success and
that they would benefit from
working together toward common goals. Well in advance of
excellence to improved student policy action in many
states, these system leaders formed the
Access to Success Initiative (A2S). They publicly
committed success for all.
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58 58 59 59 60 60
53 53 54 54 55 55 56 56 57 57
58 58 59 59 60 60
12

7. 3
4 But San Diego State is not the only big improver. The
Uni5 versity of Wisconsin System’s Eau Claire campus is a
com6 prehensive university enrolling about 11,000
undergraduates
7 in the Northwest region of the state. In 2005, Eau Claire had
8 one of the largest graduation-rate gaps between low-income
9 freshmen and their peers in the UW system: 12 percentage 10
points. By 2010, however, Eau Claire had cut that gap in
half 11 (Engle et al., 2012). 12
And then there is Florida State University (FSU). Located 13
in the state capital, the university enrolls more than 30,000 14
undergraduates, about a quarter of whom are African Ameri-15
16 17 18
can or Hispanic and a quarter of whom are Pell Grant recipi-
ents. Since 2005, the six-year graduation rate for underrep-
resented minority freshmen has increased by 8 percentage
19 points, from 63 to 71 percent; it is now roughly the same
rate 20 as for other students (Engle et al., 2012).21
22 how do They do iT?
23 Any campus leader worth his or her salt knows the
24 research on best practices and the programmatic initiatives
25 (e.g. first-year experiences, small learning communities,
26 intrusive advising, course redesign) that can help them put
27 those practices into place (Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005).
But
28 that’s where many leaders get stuck: “We’re doing learning
29 communities, and we have first-rate advising and a first-year
30 experience,” they say, “but we’re still not getting traction.”
31 As we dig deeper into the research and into practices at these
32 and other fast-improving colleges, we have come to under33
stand that it’s not about programs or about practices per se
34 but about a set of five necessary conditions for
transforming 35 best practice into better practitioners.
36 First, successful institutions tend to have long-term, visible
37

8. leaders who communicate a clear set of goals and build co38
alitions to achieve them. Steven Weber, who recently retired 39
as president of SDSU after nearly 15 years, set forth a bold 40
41 42 43
vision for his campus when he asserted the need to “replace
the revolving door with a corridor to graduation.” More
importantly, though, Weber backed up his commitment to this
44 goal by making it his highest priority, putting a strong
leader-
45 ship team in place, and engaging faculty and staff as key
46 partners in the effort. Similarly, Larry Abele, former
provost
47 at Florida State University, told us that “if you want to
change
48 something on a college campus, you have to go for five years
49 relentlessly without blinking,” because “there’s no silver
bul-
50 let—you increase retention literally one student at a time.”
51 Second, leaders at successful institutions work within
52 institutional rhythms and structures, especially those related
to shared governance. Nancy Marlin, provost at San Diego State
University, says that “it doesn’t matter what the initiative is—
leadership in academia isn’t running out there saying ‘This is
what we’re going to do,’ because you turn around and there’s
nobody behind you.”
In her position, Marlin has brokered an effective partnership
with the faculty senate, working closely to manage the
www.changemag.org
university’s retention efforts in ways that preserve the access
mission of the institution while improving student outcomes.
According to Marlin: “You have to value what [faculty] do and
value their opinions and perspectives, because they are the ones
who are going to [do the work].”
Larry Abele credits the success at FSU in large part to a team of
representatives from departments across campus that he
convened on a weekly basis. The purpose of the team wasto use

9. data to identify roadblocks to student retention and to assign
clear responsibility to team members for removing them. “The
advantage of the weekly meetings is you don’t go a month
without knowing about a problem,” says Abele. “If you have to
sit in that chair and say exactly what you did that week to help
your students, you’ll pay attention.”
Third, leaders at successful institutions honor and tap their
institution’s culture to privilege student success. When
administrators at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
(UWEC) decided to tackle low retention and graduation rates by
increasing the number of graduates while decreasing the time to
degree, faculty expressed concerns about “quantity versus
quality.” But academic leaders were able to allay those concerns
by tapping into Eau Claire’s pride as a student-focused
institution with a teaching mission.
According to Patricia Kleine, UWEC’s provost and
vicechancellor, “Faculty [here] are exceptionally devoted to
teaching. They take serving their students seriously. When we
showed them the data… it bothered them.” Michael Wick,
associate vice provost at UWEC, concurs: “It’s really been a
mind shift for our campus. It’s not about a special initiative or
project—it’s about what everybody does on a daily basis. Our
faculty and staff are here because they are dedicated to students.
That makes a difference.”
Fourth, leaders at successful institutions use data to engage
faculty and staff as partners in raising student achievement.
“We give [faculty and staff] the data, but we don’t tell them
where the problem is. They identify the problem, and we
encourage them to solve the problem,” Patricia Kleine explains
about their approach at Eau Claire. The result, according to
Kleine, is that the faculty and staff “will come up with much
better solutions than we could.”
Leaders on successful campuses use data to distinguish what
works from what merely “feels good.” As part of its retention
plan, SDSU administrators and faculty reviewed data on the use
of support programs in order to ensure that the “right students”

10. got the “right intervention” at the “right times.” Doing so not
only improved the effectiveness of the programs—it also made
the best use of limited resources in tight budget times.
Fifth, leaders at successful institutions recognize that efforts to
improve student success are not solely the purview of student
affairs. Raising graduation rates is not about lowering standards
and expectations but rather about high expectations coupled
with high levels of support. SDSU raised its 51
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38
39 40 41
42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52
1 1 2 23 3
4 expectations of students by making orientation mandatory,
fortable truth is that the US’s income inequality is on par
4
5 force-registering students into remedial and gateway courses,
with that of Tunisia, Sri Lanka, and Morocco (Hertz,
2006), 5
6 and advising students to take 15 rather than 12 hours. And
and our intergenerational mobility roughly matches that of
6
7 students have taken that advice: Average course loads have
Nepal and Pakistan (Isaacs, 2008). 7
8 risen from 12.1 in 1999 to 14.9 in 2012 (Brusi, 2012). So
inaction is not an option. Academic leaders and faculty 8
9 But even as they demanded more, SDSU leaders also must
own the effort to improve student success, and reform- 9
10 put in place supports that no longer left student success to
ers and policymakers need to calibrate and modulate the 10 11
chance and gave students structured second opportunities

11. “productivity” message, translating it into language that is 11
12 12 when necessary. As SDSU’s Geoff Chase, dean of
under- consistent with the ideals of excellence and the
commitment 1313 graduate studies, concludes: “What’s driving
us on this to institutional missions that characterize our public
higher 14 14 campus is that we’ve determined that access is not
sufficient. education institutions.
15 15
And it’s not just about success—it’s about high achieve-
Clearly, higher education as a sector cannot do it all. But
16 16 ment.” Or as UWEC’s Wick says, “Equity and quantity,
we have more power than we have used to date. So let’s
17 17 through quality.” examine the practices of successful
institutions and be inten-
18 18
19 tional about expanding access and aligning it with success.
19
20 inacTion is noT an opTion Only then will we replenish
opportunity in America. 20
21 If we don’t turn current pattern around, nearly half of
After all, “excellent institutions,” as San Diego State’s
out- 21
22 all children born to poor parents will themselves be poor
going president, Steven Weber, likes to say, “don’t lose
large 22
23 (United Nations Development Program, 2011). The uncom-
numbers of their Latino or African-American students.” C
23
24 24 25 25 26 26 27 27
28 Resources 28
29 29 30 30
31 n Baum, S., Ma, J., & Payea, K. (2011). Education pays
2010: The benefits of higher education for individuals and 31

12. 32 society. New York, NY: College Board. 32
33 n Brusi, R. (2012). Building a corridor to graduation: San
Diego State University. Washington, DC: The Education 33
34 Trust. 34
35 35 n Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2012). Current population
survey. Retrieved from http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat07.htm
36 36
37 n Engle, J., Yeado, J., Brusi, R. & Cruz, J. (2012).
Replenishing opportunity in America: The 2012 midterm report
of 37
38 public higher education systems in the Access to Success
Initiative. Washington, DC: The Education Trust. 38
39 n Hertz, T. (2006). Understanding mobility in America.
Washington, DC: Center for American Progress. 39
40 40
41 n Isaacs, J. B. (2008). International comparisons of economic
mobility. Washington, DC: Pew Charitable Trusts. 41
42 n Kochlar, R., Fry, R., & Taylor, P. (2011). Wealth gaps rise
to record highs between Whites, Blacks, Hispanics. 42
43 Washington, DC: Pew Research Center. 43
44 44 n Lynch, M., Engle, J., & Cruz, J. L. (2010). Subprime
opportunity: The unfulfilled promise of for-profit colleges and
45 45 universities. Washington, DC: The Education Trust.
46 46
47 n Mazumder, B. (2008). Upward intergenerational economic
mobility in the United States. Washington, DC: Pew 47
48 Charitable Trusts, Economic Mobility Project. 48
49 n Pascarella, E., & Terenzini, P. (2005). How college affects
students. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. 49
50 50
51 n United Nations, United Nations Development Program.
(2011). Human development indices: A statistical update 51

13. 52 2011 [Data file]. Retrieved from http://data.un.org 52
n U.S. Census Bureau. (2011). Income, poverty, and health
insurance coverage in the United States: 2010 (Current
Population Reports, pp. 60–239). Washington, DC: U.S.
Government Printing Office.
n U.S. Department of Education. (2011). ED Data Express:
National Student Demographics, 2009-10. Retrieved from
http://eddataexpress.ed.gov
52 Change • September/October 2012
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Works Cited
Cruz, José L., and Kati Haycock. "Occupy Higher Education:
Why Colleges Should Own The Effort To Improve Student
Success." Change 44.5 (2012): 49-52. Academic Search
Premier. Web. 10 Oct. 2016.