Futureworks | Fellowship for Regional Sustainable Development Building New Pathways to Sub-Baccalaureate Credentials: The GPS Model Brian Bosworth, FutureWorks.

futureworks | Fellowship for Regional Sustainable Development

Building New Pathways to Sub-Baccalaureate Credentials:

The GPS Model

Brian Bosworth, FutureWorksJune 19, 2013

Let’s Begin With Some Numbers:National Completion Rates

Sub-Baccalaureate Institutions, Public & Private

Public, Degree Granting 2-Year (1,010)• Completers within 150% of Time 20.5%• Completers within 200% of Time 26.7%

Public, Non-Degree 1 & 2-Year (362)• Completers within 150% of Time 68.0%• Completers within 200% of Time 73.0%

Private, For-Profit, Degree-Granting 2-year (645)• Completers within 150% of time 58.5%• Completers within 200% of time 61.9%

Private, For-Profit Non-Degree 1 & 2-Year (1,873)• Completers within 150% of time 66.3%• Completers within 200% of time 69.3%

Source: IPEDS, 2010 Data

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What’s Behind These Low Rates of Success?

• Low completion rates reflect our adherence to a traditional academic structure that is not suited to the real needs of the non-traditional students we serve.

• Traditional structure asks them to devote time they do not have, make choices for which they are not prepared, and accept complexity and uncertainly when they need simplicity and predictability.

• Within this traditional academic structure, it simply takes too long to get the credential that permits transfer into a bachelor’s program or pays off in the labor market.

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Traditional Approaches Might Work for Some, Won’t Work for Most

• Piecing together a coherent academic pathway to a credential from an array of apparently unconnected individual courses scheduled in small chunks over 16-week semesters.

• This may work some of the time for traditional students with lots of time, good preparation, and strong navigational skills or access to them.

• It seldom works for typical community college students who are often not well-prepared, sometimes face severe and immediate financial pressures, frequently have family responsibilities.

• These students seldom have academic advisors or non-academic supports to help guide them through the multiple choices required by conventionally complex academic systems.

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Time Is the Enemy• Most community college students respond to these

scheduling challenges by slowing way down – attending only part-time, trying to squeeze in one or at most two courses each semester and occasionally stopping out for a full semester.

• At this pace, the pathway to a credential is long and choppy; things go wrong and most students drop away before getting any credential. Time is the enemy of completion. This is costly and inefficient – for the students and the state.

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GPS Not A Silver Bullet, But…

• We can’t just continue doing what we are doing – the cost is too great.

• Small changes around the edges are not making a difference

• For community colleges, guided pathways with structured programs can make an enormous difference.

• The challenge is scale and scope.

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Image GPS at Scale:NSC Data

Nationally in 2006:• 990,027 students enrolled for the first time at a public 2-

year college; 306,330 received any sort of credential in 6 years

• But if only 50% of these were brought to full-time enrollment intensity (double the national average)

• And if they completed at a rate of 52.6% (the national average for full-time students) and the other half completed at the rate of 33.2% (the national average for mixed enrollment intensity students)….

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Results?

• A total of 424,129 of the entering cohort would have completed.

• That represents 117,799 more than the 306,330 actual completions for 2006 fall entering students

• That’s a gain of almost 40%.

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Imagine Higher Rates of Enrollment Intensity

• If 50% of all entering students were brought to full-time enrollment intensity ,

• And the completion rate for full-time students were 68.8% (the average of the five leading states – IL, ND, SD, TN, and MN) ….

• And 44.2% for mixed enrollment intensity students (the average of the five leading states – KY, MN, ND, VA and FL)….

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Results?

• A total of 559,358 of the entering cohort would have completed.

• That represents 253,028 more than the 306,330 actual completions for 2006 fall entering students

• That’s a gain of 82%.

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That’s the Promise of GPS at Scale

• If we create guided pathways that allow many more students to pursue credentials at a much faster pace,

• We could literally double the numbers of completers.

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