![[PDF]](/pb-assets/Icons/adobe-pdf-icon-1498649896243.png){kind=icon}
Abstract
College graduation rates often lag behind college attendance rates. One theory as to why students do not complete college is that they lack key information about how to be successful or fail to act on the information that they have. We present evidence from a randomized experiment which tests the effectiveness of individualized student coaching. Over the course of two separate school years, InsideTrack, a student coaching service, provided coaching to students attending public, private, and proprietary universities. Most of the participating students were nontraditional college students enrolled in degree programs. The participating universities and InsideTrack randomly assigned students to be coached. The coach contacted students regularly to develop a clear vision of their goals, to guide them in connecting their daily activities to their long-term goals, and to support them in building skills, including time management, self-advocacy, and study skills. Students who were randomly assigned to a coach were more likely to persist during the treatment period and were more likely to be attending the university 1 year after the coaching had ended. Coaching also proved a more cost-effective method of achieving retention and completion gains when compared with previously studied interventions such as increased financial aid.
Keywords
References
|
Adelman, C., Gonzalez, B. (2006). The toolbox revisited: Paths to degree completion from high school through. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education. Google Scholar | |
|
Angrist, J., Lang, D., Oreopoulos, P. (2009). Incentives and services for college achievement: Evidence from a randomized trial. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 1(1), 136–163. Google Scholar | ISI | |
|
Bettinger, E. (2004). How financial aid affects persistence. In Hoxby, C. (Ed.), College choices: The economics of where to go, when to go, and how to pay for it (pp. 207–238). Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Bettinger, E., Long, B. (2009). Addressing the needs of under-prepared students in higher education: Does college remediation work? Journal of Human Resources, 44, 736–771. Google Scholar | |
|
Bettinger, E., Long, B., Oreopoulos, P., Sanbonmatsu, L. (2012). The role of application assistance and information in college decisions: Results from the H&R block Fafsa experiment. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 127, 1205–1242. Google Scholar | |
|
Bloom, D., Sommo, C. (2005). Building learning communities early results from the opening doors demonstration at Kingsborough community college. New York, NY: MDRC. Google Scholar | |
|
Brock, T., Richburg-Hayes, L. (2006). Paying for persistence. Early results of a Louisiana scholarship program for low-income parents attending community college. New York, NY: MDRC. Google Scholar | |
|
Calcagno, J. C., Long, B. T. (2008, July). The impact of postsecondary remediation using a regression discontinuity approach: Addressing endogenous sorting and noncompliance (NBER Working Paper No. 14194). Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research Google Scholar | |
|
Carrell, S., Sacerdote, B. (2012, July). Late interventions matter too: The case of college coaching in New Hampshire. UC Davis mimeo. Google Scholar | |
|
Dee, T. S. (2005). A teacher like me: Does race, ethnicity, or gender matter? American Economic Review, 95(2), 158–165. Google Scholar | ISI | |
|
Deil-Amen, R., Rosenbaum, J. E. (2003). The social prerequisites of success: Can college structure reduce the need for social know-how? The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 586(1), 120–143. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
|
Deming, D., Dynarski, S. (2008). The lengthening of childhood. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 22(3), 71–92. Google Scholar | ISI | |
|
Dynarski, S. (2005, April). Finishing college: The role of schooling costs in degree attainment (Working paper). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University. Google Scholar | |
|
Dynarski, S. M. (2003). Does aid matter? Measuring the effect of student aid on college attendance and completion. American Economic Review, v93(1), 279–288. Google Scholar | ISI | |
|
Gallagher, R. (2010). National survey of counseling center directors. American College Counseling Association. Retrieved from http://www.iacsinc.org/NSCCD%202010.pdf Google Scholar | |
|
Gansemer-Topf, A. M., Schuh, J. H. (2006). Institutional selectivity and institutional expenditures: Examining organizational factors that contribute to retention and graduation. Research in Higher Education, 47, 613–642. Google Scholar | ISI | |
|
Goldrick-Rab, S. (2010). Challenges and opportunities for improving community college student success. Review of Educational Research, 80, 437–469. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
|
Goldrick-Rab, S., Harris, D., Benson, J., Kelchen, R. (2011, July). Conditional cash transfers and college persistence: Evidence from a randomized need-based grant program (Institute for Research on Poverty Working Paper. 1393–11). Google Scholar | |
|
Kern, C. W., Fagley, N. S., Miller, P. M. (1998). Correlates of college retention and GPA: Learning and study strategies, testwiseness, attitudes, and ACT. Journal of College Counseling, 1, 26–34. Google Scholar | |
|
Long, B. T. (2008, April). What is known about the impact of financial aid? Implications for policy (An NCPR Working Paper No 52). New York, NY: National Center for Postsecondary Research. Google Scholar | |
|
Obama, B. (2009, February). Address to Joint Session of Congress. Speech presented in Washington, DC. Google Scholar | |
|
OECD . (2007). Tertiary education graduation rates—education: Key tables from OECD. Retrieved from http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/tertiary-education-graduation-rates_20755120-table1 Google Scholar | |
|
Robbins, S. B., Lauver, K., Le, H., Davis, D., Langley, R., Carlstrom, A. (2004). Do psychosocial and study skill factors predict college outcomes? A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 130, 261–288. Google Scholar | Medline | ISI | |
|
Scott-Clayton, J. (2011, January). The shapeless river: Does a lack of structure inhibit students’ progress at community colleges (CCRC Working Paper No. 25). New York, NY: Columbia University. Google Scholar | |
|
Scrivener, S., Weiss, M. J. (2009). More guidance, better results? New York. NY: MDRC. Google Scholar | |
|
Sommo, C., Mayer, A. K., Rudd, T., Cullinan, D. (2012). Commencement day: Six-year effects of a freshman learning community program at Kingsborough community college. New York, NY: MDRC. Google Scholar | |
|
Thaler, R. H., Sunstein, C. R. (2009). Nudge: Improving decisions about health, wealth, and happiness. New York, NY: Penguin Books. Google Scholar | |
|
Tinto, V. (1975). Dropout from higher education: A theoretical synthesis of recent research. Review of educational research, 45, 89–125. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
|
Tinto, V. (1998). Colleges as communities: Taking research on student persistence seriously. The Review of Higher Education, 21(2), 167–177. Google Scholar | ISI | |
|
Turner, S. E. (2004). Going to college and finishing college. Explaining different educational outcomes. In Hoxby, C. (Ed.), College choices: The economics of where to go, when to go, and how to pay for it (pp. 13–62). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Zeidenberg, M., Jenkins, D., Calcagno, J. C. (2007, June). Do student success courses actually help community college students succeed? (CCRC Brief No 36). New York, NY: Columbia University. Google Scholar |
