Using behavioral science to improve the postsecondary student journey

Posted by ideas42 on July 4, 2016

Nudging for Success

Using behavioral science to improve the postsecondary student journey

From pre-admission to post-graduation
In today’s job market, holding a college degree is more vital than ever: it roughly doubles a person’s lifetime earnings. American high school students appear to recognize these benefits, as nearly 70% of high school graduates enroll in college. But starting college is not the same as finishing, and only 59% of full-time students at four-year institutions graduate within 6 years. The results are even worse in community college, where just 29% of full-time students graduate within 3 years. In a time where the average student borrower owes nearly $30,000 in student loans, successfully graduating with a degree is incredibly important, as borrowers without a degree are often in the worst position of all. It’s clear that there’s a completion crisis in American higher education.

Theories abound for why college graduation rates are so low. Many point to obvious culprits such as high tuition, poor levels of academic preparation in high school, and the stress of competing obligations like work and family. Though the problems they identify are real, to point to them as the sole reasons students fail to complete their degrees is to fundamentally misunderstand what it’s like to be a student.

When ideas42 looked at the completion crisis from the perspective of students themselves, we saw evidence of all of the classic well-studied challenges. But we also found something else. By applying the lens of behavioral science to our work with over a dozen state universities and community colleges, we discovered that the student path through college to graduation day is strewn with subtle, often invisible barriers that, over time, hinder students’ progress and cause some of them to drop out entirely. These behavioral barriers are certainly unintentional and often unrecognized, but their impact on student persistence is significant. Even for students whose tuition is covered by fnancial aid, whose academic preparation is exemplary, and who are able to commit themselves full-time to their education, the subtle logistical and psychological sticking points we uncovered can have a huge impact on their ability to persist and fully reap the benefits of a higher education.

Read more: http://www.ideas42.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Nudging-for-Success-ideas42-FINAL.pdf