Leaders, students are on different pages when it comes to supporting degree completion

Colleges and universities are always trying to understand how they can best push their students toward higher retention and graduation rates. Still, it’s easy for communication to get crossed between what students want and what leaders believe they should provide.

A new report from Anthology studying U.S. colleges and universities points to a telling picture of where the communication streams are mixed. In “The Student’s Perspective,” the prominent edtech company sought to understand what higher education stakeholders believed needed to be refined to maximize teaching and student support.

It ultimately grasped perspectives on over 5,000 higher education leaders and students from 11 countries, but this report focuses on the U.S. only. As a result, surveys from 255 students and 251 higher ed leaders were considered.

More from UB: Colleges, universities feature prominently in the top 10 worst censors of 2024

Opportunities for change to ensure degree completion support

Some of the most prominent misconceptions leaders had about what students prioritize to support their college degree completion were offering courses in different modalities, offering a more comprehensive range of engaging and relevant content, and offering flexible course scheduling options.

For example, 22% of leaders agreed that student success should focus on providing more flexible course scheduling options; this was the single-most chosen strategy. In contrast, this option was third to last among students’ top choices. Similarly, while offering courses in online and hybrid settings was a massive priority for leaders, only 8% of students considered this vital to their success. Moreover, while 33% of students agreed that their top need was being offered a more comprehensive range of engaging and relevant content, less than half of higher education leaders had this option on their radar.

Leaders seemed to be accurate in predicting students’ needs for cultivating belonging, improving mental health resources and expanding financial aid and scholarship opportunities. For example, the latter was equally ranked fifth on both leaders’ and students’ overall hierarchy. In sixth place, the two parties similarly shared access to mental health.

Administration correctly assessing the importance of mental health resources is vital for students who identified feeling overwhelmed and anxious, and struggling with their wellness as the most pressing challenges at their university this past term.