Closing the achievement gap for Iowa State's underrepresented, first-generation or low-income students wouldn't require "astronomical" numbers, learned participants at a campus symposium Feb. 5. About 150 faculty, staff and administrators attended the symposium, a starting point for assessing and eliminating the student retention and graduation disparity that exists by race, socio-economic status and other variables. The project is one Iowa State is taking on as a member of the University Innovation Alliance.
For example, retaining three more underrepresented students from the fall 2010 freshman class for their sophomore year, 24 more for their junior year and graduating 37 more after six years would have moved their progression rates within five percentage points of their white peers. Five percent is the "closing" goal. Even so, 37 students is nearly 12 percent of underrepresented freshmen in fall 2010.
To bring underrepresented students' six-year graduation rate even with white students, 56 more from the fall 2010 class would have needed to graduate.
As President Wendy Wintersteen noted in her comments at the end of the day, "We have a long way to go, but we also learned there's an advantage to small numbers."
Matthew Pistilli, director of student affairs assessment and research, presented data that laid out where Iowa State is now. In about 25 minutes and 100 slides, he covered retention and graduation rates for underrepresented students at Iowa State, the status of programs and projects that support them, and how far the university needs to "move the needle" to help more students successfully graduate. Amanda DeGraff, assistant director in the office of institutional research, also produced the report.
Fall 2010 entering class: Retention and graduation comparison by race (percentage)
|
Student group (size) |
Retention |
|
|
Graduation |
|
|
1-year |
2-year |
3-year |
6-year |
|
Underrepresented minority (312) |
83.6 |
70.2 |
66.0 |
60.3 |
|
Subset: African-American (129) |
82.2 |
64.3 |
58.9 |
48.8 |
|
Subset: Hispanic (169) |
86.4 |
76.9 |
72.2 |
69.8 |
|
White (3,623) |
88.2 |
81.5 |
79.3 |
75.7 |
Underrepresented minority: Those who declare African American, Hispanic/Latinx, American Indian/Alaska Native or Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander as their race/ethnicity
Fall 2010 entering class: Retention and graduation comparison (percentages)
|
Student group (size) |
Retention |
|
|
Graduation |
|
|
1-year |
2-year |
3-year |
6-year |
|
First generation (1,348) |
85.1 |
74.5 |
72.3 |
67.1 |
|
Not first generation (3,170) |
89.3 |
82.5 |
80.9 |
77.5 |
|
Pell grant recipients (1,041) |
85.1 |
74.3 |
72.0 |
66.4 |
|
Not Pell grant recipients (3,477) |
88.9 |
81.9 |
80.2 |
76.8 |
First-generation: Neither parent/guardian completed at least a bachelor’s degree
Pell grant recipient: Student's expected family contribution allows him/her to receive grants reserved for the lowest-income students
Closing the gap for either first-generation students or non-Pell eligible students, Pistilli said, would require retaining 22 more per year from either group over the six-year period. After six years, Iowa State also would have graduated an additional 120 students in each student group. The cumulative effect of that, he noted, also helps the university's bottom line. Retaining more students provides more resources to invest in their success.
Pistilli said the most precipitous student attrition consistently occurs after the sophomore year.
"The challenge, it seems, is getting students into the third year of study -- at which point attrition becomes relatively small and success seems to increase," he said.
Support hasn't kept up with growth
Pistilli said that despite the challenges to retaining underrepresented students, their numbers have grown since 2010 -- 23 percent by 2016 for underrepresented students and 34 percent for multicultural students (includes underrepresented plus Asian-American students and those who self-identify with two or more races).
Unfortunately, funding for two scholarship programs with a track record of retaining these students -- the George Washington Carver and Multicultural Vision Program scholarships -- remained flat. Two fewer students (193) received one of these scholarships in 2016 than in 2010. If scholarship funding growth had kept up with the growth in student numbers, 681 underrepresented students could have received one of the scholarships -- or more than 1,100 multicultural students, which actually would have exceeded the enrolled and eligible number.
He also cited support programs such as learning communities, multicultural liaison officers and other discipline-specific efforts already in place.
"The challenge for us isn't knowing what to do. It's figuring out how to scale what we have," Pistilli said.
