tag: Basic needs
Research Report
September 30, 2020
Measuring the Whole Student
Landscape Review of Traditional and Holistic Approaches to Community College Student Success
As colleges and universities work to enhance student success, they frequently use traditional outcome-based metrics—such as graduation rates, year-to-year retention, and post-graduation employment—to define that “success.” These measurements, which throughout this report we refer to as traditional metrics, are often prioritized across higher education given their impact on and consequences toward institutional decision-making, benchmarking, and most importantly, funding. While these quantitative metrics can provide a useful—albeit limited—view into student experiences inside and outside of the classroom, they often focus on…
Blog Post
September 23, 2020
A Letter to College Administrators
Considerations for Virtual Learning
Kimmy Cacciato graduated from The College of New Jersey with a major in Deaf/Hard of Hearing Education – Mathematics Teaching. This fall, she returned to TCNJ to pursue an MAT in Deaf/Hard of Hearing Education. She is currently serving as a student advisor to Ithaka S+R’s Holistic Metrics of Student Success project. Dear College Administrators, As a senior I thought I had it all figured out. But then COVID-19 hit, and the game changed. As we all experienced, there…
Blog Post
September 3, 2020
What Your Students Want to Hear
Effective Communications in the Time of COVID-19
Kimmy Cacciato is currently serving as a student advisor to the Ithaka S+R Holistic Metrics of Student Success project. She graduated from The College of New Jersey with a major in Deaf/Hard of Hearing Education – Mathematics Teaching. This fall, she is returning to TCNJ to pursue an MAT in Deaf/Hard of Hearing Education. During this time of uncertainty, effectively communicating with students is more important than ever. Campus administrators and…
Blog Post
November 21, 2019
Increasing Awareness of Basic Needs
Holistic Measures of Student Success for Community College Leaders
Higher education institutions typically use quantitative metrics like year-to-year retention rates, graduation rates, and post-secondary outcomes to measure student success. Most, if not all, institutions are required to report these data to government, regulatory, and accreditation agencies, and use them for benchmarking and measuring progress towards goals. To date, however, the student perspective of what success means — and what barriers stand in the way of achieving it — has often been omitted from these practices. Our research with seven…
Blog Post
October 29, 2019
Do Emergency Micro-Grants Help Financially-Disadvantaged Students Succeed?
Over the last 10 years, tuition and fees at degree-granting institutions have risen by 27 percent, making it more difficult for students, especially those already struggling to cover basic needs like housing and food, to afford to remain in college in the face of unexpected financial trouble. In many cases, unpaid term balances prevent students from continuing in the current term or enrolling in the following one, and as a result, students dropout or are automatically dropped. Unpaid balances…
Blog Post
October 16, 2019
Why we are adding a basic needs module to the Ithaka S+R local surveys
Students often struggle with balancing their personal, professional, and academic responsibilities, including affording their most basic needs in conjunction with course expenses. Recognizing this reality, we will be offering a basic needs module for the Ithaka S+R local student surveys starting in spring 2020. In late 2018, colleagues and I worked in partnership with a cohort of community colleges to survey their students about their goals and challenges.