1. Most Universities Are Missing the Mark
First-year students are not getting what they desperately need in order to thrive: advice from older students.
According to a survey by the National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition, 85% of first-year students reported that peer advice was crucial for their success.
Our own GapWell survey in Spring 2024 of over 1,000 college students and parents found that 93% of respondents selected older students when asked where they prefer to go for advice during their first year of college.
Give the students what they want, not just what's convenient for the university.
However, universities struggle to provide this due to logistical challenges and outdated thinking. Most university programs lack the authenticity needed to truly help students thrive.
One wise college professor said to us recently that students first “need to be okay” – have the basic skills and support needed to succeed – before they are able to get anything out of the mandatory inquiry-based course that his school offers. Without that, the glossy eyes of the first-year students looking up at the instructor says it all.
2. Students Are Left Behind
When universities do offer what students need, they often fail to do so at scale. With a few notable exceptions, we have found that most of the innovative approaches to student preparedness on a select few college campuses impact an embarrassingly low percentage of enrolled first-year students.
Well-intentioned, but poorly executed. That is how one administrator spoke about the university's attempt to serve the needs of their first-year students.
At one prominent Midwest university, their peer mentoring program for first-year students was rolled out with a lot of pomp and circumstance to impress applicants about how they’re not just a number at this giant university. What they didn’t say is that the “remarkable” program is only available to support less than 5% of the incoming class of students. The remaining 95%+ have to figure things out for themselves.
Research from the American Council on Education shows that only 30% of first-year students have access to effective mentorship programs. This means the vast majority are left without the support they need, exacerbating student well-being and retention issues.
3. Too Many First-Year Students Don't Make it to a Second Year
Retention rates are a growing concern for all universities.
According to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, the average retention rate for students who enrolled in fall 2022 and returned for fall 2023 at traditional 4-year colleges was 76.5%.
1 in 5 students won't be back. Universities must do better to survive.
The reasons vary, but it’s really difficult to run a healthy business with that sort of customer attrition. Every year. It’s not surprising.
There is no senior official at ANY university whose ears do not perk up when you discuss retention strategies. At a recent coffee with a university administrator in the northeast, he went so far as to say it’s the ONLY metric that matters right now. According to bestcolleges.com, at least 72 public or nonprofit colleges have closed, merged or announced closures or mergers since March 2020. Furthermore, 7 in 10 students who were impacted by one of these events considered their school’s closure “abrupt.” The majority of students who experienced a college closure did not re-enroll in another program.
As parents, we want our kids to thrive in college. As university administrators, they want these students to stay and pay. You don’t need to be a business major to understand why that is.
If seven out of ten students are questioning their place at the university, as our GapWell 2024 survey findings suggest, the situation is dire. This uncertainty is a gamble that universities, families, and students cannot afford to take.
The Urgency of Addressing These Issues
The stakes are high. When universities fail to support first-year students adequately, everyone suffers.
It's time to rethink and scale up effective programs to ensure that all students have the guidance and support they need to succeed.
The future of our students and institutions depends on it.
##
GapWell product and services are built to enhance your journey from high school to career by advising, coaching and delivering the tools young adults need to thrive. Their first flagship product — the GapWell Guide — is specifically designed to help first year college students have an easier and more successful year by sourcing practical advice, tips, personal stories and more from older students by delivering this advice directly to students' phones every week.
Commenti