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More than one in three currently enrolled students have considered stopping out of their degree or credential program within the last six months, according to Gallup and Lumina Foundation’s State of Higher Education 2024 report. Why do some students persist while others fall back? How can colleges and universities give students the best opportunities to achieve their goals? The Inside Higher Ed webcast “Academics, Wellness, College Life and Career Readiness: Breaking Down Barriers to Student Success” sponsored by TimelyCare explored transformative programs, interventions, and practices in place throughout the U.S. that are helping students stay in school, stay healthy and thrive personally and professionally.
Inside Higher Ed’s Colleen Faherty and Melizza Ezarik led a panel discussion that included Gary L. Brown, Ph.D., Vice President for Student Success, Well-Being and Belonging at Hollins University, and Angela Stowe, Ph.D., Director of Student Counseling Services and Chair of the Suicide Prevention Leadership and Implementation Team at The University of Alabama at Birmingham.
The panelists discussed the multifaceted challenges facing college students and explored innovative solutions to redefine success in higher education. They also addressed barriers such as academic pressures, health and wellness, and campus involvement.
Redefining student success
Three in five students measure their success in college by their grade point average, according to a TimelyCare survey of 1,100 students in 2024. GPA was students’ most popular response over greater knowledge, graduating, or getting a desired job. Angela Stowe posed the question, “Are we creating GPA-obsessed people?” She said, “A lot of the students that we’ve worked with, I think about in the counseling setting of how closely tied their identity and self-worth is to those external kinds of measures of GPA.”
A webinar viewer asked whether institutions should reevaluate GPA requirements for participation in extracurricular activities because of the role those play in campus engagement and the formation of soft skills. Gary L. Brown responded, “While I do think that there is an opportunity to kind of create some aspirational goal for students, they want to achieve a certain level to have access to certain things. I think we have to do it with equity in mind, and ensuring that we aren’t creating exclusivity when the name of the game probably should be more inclusivity.”
Looking to break down barriers to student success?
Systemic change for student success
The panelists acknowledged that students are entering college at varying levels of readiness and support therefore systemic changes may be needed to improve student outcomes.
“One of the things that our Division of Student Affairs has talked a lot about is this perception that students really aren’t ready for college and that we talk a lot about student readiness if that’s academics, if that’s emotional if that’s social, all the different ways. But really, the flip of it can also be, are we student-ready? We don’t have control over who’s coming to us in their K-12 experience, their family experiences, their preparation, but once they’re with us, if we don’t meet them where they are, then they can’t be successful,” said Stowe.
She added, “Maybe we need to rethink how we’re designing our classes, how we’re looking at our curriculum, how we’re approaching just the academic setting in general, which is kind of taking both the settings and systems approach while also looking at the individual needs of the students.”
“We don’t have control over who’s coming to us in their K-12 experience, their family experiences, their preparation, but once they’re with us, if we don’t meet them where they are, then they can’t be successful.”
Angela Stowe, Ph.D.
Director of Student Counseling Services
The University of Alabama at Birmingham
Beyond orientation
An access gap exists where colleges and universities offer student success resources, yet students may need help knowing where or how to find them. In the TimelyCare student success survey, 85% of students identified barriers that prevented them from accessing support. While that kind of information is usually covered during orientation, panelists agreed more needs to be done.
“We do it once and we are like, ‘It’s done.’ We need to continually go back and assess and reassess and revise so that we are actually meeting the needs of the students we are serving right now,” said Brown
“Student feedback is probably the most powerful suite that we have to address the barriers of institutions. We are sometimes guilty of thinking we know where the barriers are and knowing how to resolve those challenges.”
Stowe adds, “Engaging students in conversations that don’t necessarily have to directly do with success but have to do with other parts of their lives and then listening to the story they tell you can also be very powerful. So, it’s that deep listening beyond the surface answer that I think can tell us a lot and get all the stakeholders and voices engaged.”
Brown pointed to a change in how campus housing assignments were made after a casual conversation with a student. “Ultimately, it resulted in a procedural change in terms of how it is that we did that process, how we facilitated that process, and I think ultimately resulted in some greater levels of satisfaction, which we know that satisfaction is an indicator of a student’s desire, or a student’s ability to succeed within an institution.”
An online hub for mental health support came about on Stowe’s campus following an informal conversation with students a few years ago. “One of our features that the students developed is a customizable self-care plan and a daily habit tracker, but also they can schedule an appointment for a counseling session if they want as well. So it’s been something we’ve continued to collaborate with over the years and continues to grow. And that came from, you know, two students coming forward to say we really want to be able to talk to each other, and now we have something impacting the enterprise.”
Shared outcomes
Everyone at a college or university can impact student success, according to the panelists. “We all have the same hope and desire, whether you’re a student, administrator, faculty, staff, we want students to be successful, and we want to feel like we have been able to have people leave our institutions more informed and a better person overall,” said Stowe.
Brown says that’s possible when the student remains at the center of shared goals. “We have lots of pride in the institutions we work for and there’s lots of things we can inspire to. Their real focus is the student and the impact that we are going to make on the students’ lives and communities and the families they come from. The teamwork really does make the dream work. It sounds cliché but it is the truth. We won’t get there unless we are able to work together.”
If you are interested in learning more about student success initiatives, you can download the “Academics, Wellness, College Life and Career Readiness: Breaking Down Barriers to Student Success” booklet by Inside Higher Ed. Or follow this link to learn more about how TimelyCare can support your campus efforts.
