Dear Colleague,
As the 2022/23 academic year commences, we’ve been seeing news about declines in enrollment as colleges and universities struggle to attract and retain students. We’ve undertaken work recently—both with individual colleges and through consortia—to dig into student data at the institutional level to better understand the factors associated with students leaving their programs and the strategies colleges can implement to help them persist.
Getting students to the finish line is a big motivator behind many of our initiatives. In this newsletter, we highlight a few: designing a program to get students in Northeast Ohio back in the classroom, exploring the steps that higher education in prison programs need to take to meet the needs of incarcerated students, and understanding the library’s role in promoting student success.
I hope some of this work might spark innovation in your institutional context. Please reach out if there are ways Ithaka S+R can help you improve student learning outcomes.
Sincerely,
Catharine Bond Hill
Managing Director, Ithaka S+R
New program aims to get students back in the classroom
Stranded credits—credits students have earned but cannot access due to debt owed to their institution—often prevent students from completing their credential and disproportionately impact students of color and those from lower income backgrounds. To address this issue, we’re proud to support the Ohio College Comeback Compact, an innovative program that aims to get former students back in the classroom with up to $5,000 in institutional debt forgiveness and transcript release. Through a network of eight public colleges and universities, the program offers a second chance to more than 15,000 students in the Northeast Ohio area who left college without a degree and haven’t been able to re-enroll due to unpaid fees and tuition owed to their former institution.
Faculty value the library’s role in supporting students
The latest Ithaka S+R US Faculty Survey sheds light on faculty members’ perceptions of the library as a campus institution, equipping universities and libraries with the data to make strategic and evidence-based decisions. Our findings show that while faculty continue to value the library as a buyer of scholarly resources, they also highly rated the library’s role in providing undergraduate support, with responses rising from below 60 percent in 2012 to almost 80 percent in the latest cycle.
Increasing access to higher education for the incarcerated
Effective July 1, 2023, incarcerated people will once again be eligible to receive Pell grants to support their education, ending a 29 year ban. To prevent bad actors from exploiting them and this new stream of funding, the Department of Education engaged in the negotiated rulemaking process to determine what procedures and guardrails will be put in place to ensure that incarcerated students are provided with a quality education. In a letter to the Department, Ithaka S+R, drawing on our expertise in higher education in prison programs, provides recommendations for improving these guidelines.
Five Questions for Duke University’s Dr. Jenny Wood Crowley and Chris Rossi
As part of our Academic Equity Interview Blog series, we interviewed Dr. Jenny Wood and Chris Rossi about Duke University’s inclusive living and learning model, QuadEx. QuadEx aims to deliver transformative experiences for undergraduate students by strengthening on-campus communities, enabling intellectual exploration, and providing targeted delivery of programs and resources for overall student success and wellbeing.
In the media:
September 7, 2022
Building Transparent Statewide Transfer Pathways
Daniel Rossman, Julia Karon, and Loni Bordoloi Pazich, Inside Higher Ed
September 7, 2022
Report Reveals a Differing Picture of Debt at HBCUs
Jon Edelman, Diverse Issues in Higher Education
September 1, 2022
All Archivists Survey Details Employment, Education, and Demographics of Archives Field
Matt Enis, Library Journal
September 1, 2022
Study Examines How Colleges Borrow During Times of Crisis
Josh Moody, Inside Higher Ed
September 1, 2022
Expand Post-Baccalaureate Offerings to Help Diversify Faculty, Researchers Say
Laura Spitalniak, Higher Ed Dive
August 11, 2022
Ohio’s College Comeback Compact Offers Students With Outstanding Debt A Second Chance To Finish Their Degrees
Michael T. Nietzel, Forbes
August 4, 2022
The Edge: At Last, a Solution to Undo a Barrier to Enrollment
Goldie Blumenstyk, The Chronicle of Higher Education
July 28, 2022
US Faculty Members Support Open-Access Publishing in Broad Survey
Chris Woolston, Nature
July 25, 2022
Antitrust Law Will Not Limit College Costs
Catherine B. Hill, Inside Higher Ed
July 21, 2022
ARL, CARL Engage Ithaka S+R for Report on Aligning the Research Library to Organizational Strategy
Lisa Peet, Library Journal
July 20, 2022
These Policies Can Rescue Stranded Credits and Help Colleges Retain Students
Laura Spitalniak, Higher Ed Dive
July 14, 2022
Evolving Faculty Views on Teaching, Publishing and Technology
Susan D’Agostino, Inside Higher Ed
June 28, 2022
Completion Grants Pioneered at Georgia State to Expand Statewide
Metro Atlanta CEO
June 9, 2022
How Are Academic Libraries Evaluating Streaming Media for Their Collections?
Rick Seltzer, Higher Ed Dive
June 6, 2022
Taking on “U.S. News”?
Catharine Hill, Inside Higher Ed
May 26, 2022
Federal Oversight on Accreditation Shows Weak Outcomes
Meghan Brink, Inside Higher Ed
May 26, 2022
Biden’s Debt Forgiveness Misses Targets
Catharine B. Hill, The Hill
May 12, 2022
Permanently Expand SNAP Benefits to College Students, Researchers Say
Laura Spitalniak, Higher Ed Dive
May 12, 2022
The Transfer Process Desperately Needs Innovation
Pooja Vora and Christopher Buonocore, Inside Higher Ed
May 11, 2022
Turning Credit Transfer From a Black Box Into an Open Book
Martin Kurzweil, Inside Higher Ed
April 19, 2022
Is Geopolitics Closing the Door on Open Research?
Karin Fischer, The Chronicle of Higher Education
March 31, 2022
Emergency Microgrants Help Students Graduate Quicker, with Less Debt
Laura Spitalniak, Higher Ed Dive