What We Know About Student Success

The secrets to student success are not a mystery. In fact, the keys to unlocking student success are widely acknowledged in the higher education literature, though a variety of experts express the findings in different terms. NISS puts it succinctly: identify barriers, use data to inform strategy, take action to remove barriers.8 Laura Jacobsen, a faculty member at Radford University, wrote in Inside Higher Ed about six pillars of student success: affinity, community, career, early alert, support, and storytelling.9

Our own research, which focused on policy levers as well as effective practices, used five broad categories to capture strategies to advance student success: data-based decision-making, students’ basic needs, holistic advising, access/affordability, and leadership/governance.

Data-Based Decision-Making

Ensuring student success is a strategic imperative that requires commitment across all levels of higher education governance.10 By analyzing metrics such as retention rates, course completion, and postgraduation success, boards can identify areas needing improvement and allocate resources accordingly.11 AGB emphasizes that boards have a fiduciary duty to oversee student outcomes, asserting such as strategic and financial priorities. To fulfill their responsibility, boards must regularly review disaggregated, longitudinal data to identify areas needing improvement and allocate resources effectively.12 This data-driven approach enables institutions to implement targeted strategies that enhance student achievement and inclusive excellence.

Students’ Basic Needs

Governing boards, institutional leaders, and related foundations must collaborate strategically among themselves and with elected officials to design and implement programs that respond to students’ financial and quality-of-life needs, helping students to persist to degree completion.13 This includes scrutinizing tuition policy, expanding need-based aid, and supporting resources that meet students’ basic needs. Higher education leaders must actively prioritize access and affordability to ensure institutions deliver resources that provide value for all students and serve as a critical method to improve student completion rates.14

In particular, effective governance calls for a coordinated design of support systems, tuition waivers and support, transportation subsidies, book stipends, and emergency funds, among other resources, all linked with academic advice and career services to maximize returns on student success across all populations.15 Policy research and oversight organizations such as the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) underscore these priorities in their 2024 reports, ranking college affordability and state funding for financial aid among the top issues for state higher education systems. By embedding inclusive excellence-driven financial support in institutional strategy, boards fulfill their responsibility to ensure higher education is both accessible and sustainable for all students.16

A model case is CUNY’s Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP). ASAP provides students with comprehensive financial support, including tuition-gap scholarships, textbook stipends, and unlimited MetroCards. Similarly, the CSU system implemented a strategy providing financial assistance, gap scholarships, and emergency student loan funds using philanthropic support from the system’s foundation. These supports are designed to remove financial barriers to enrollment and completion, enabling students to persist and graduate efficiently. For example, Renick (2019) highlights NISS’s emphasis at GSU on the importance of affordability and support of students’ basic needs. GSU implemented Panther Retention Grants that add up to $1,500 to the accounts of students who fall behind in tuition payments.

Holistic Advising

Comprehensive and proactive advising models are critical components of student retention and success.18 Integrated advising models that combine academic guidance with career planning create a holistic framework that recognizes the full student and supports them beyond early-stage and late-stage interventions.19 These models intentionally draw on data from second-year performance and prerequisite-course completion to inform advising needs and support students’ holistic development.

Access and Affordability

Research consistently highlights access and affordability as central factors of students’ success in higher education. Rising tuition costs and inadequate financial aid programs are contributors to lower enrollment, persistence, and completion rates, especially for low-income and first-generation students.20 Need-based aid, scholarships, and tuition-free initiatives are ways to expand access and have been shown to improve enrollment and degree completion among historically underserved student populations, including Pell-eligible students and students of color.21

Kuh et al. (2005) found that affordability directly affects students’ ability to become involved in campus life, use support services, and prioritize schoolwork over outside work, all of which are strong predictors of higher rates of student success.23 In terms of policy, investments in affordability, such as state funding for need-based aid, help to narrow gaps in degree attainment among students from different socioeconomic backgrounds.24

The literature consistently shows that access and affordability are essential to keeping students enrolled, engaged, and on track toward completion. Institutions that fail to address their students’ financial barriers risk undermining their other student-success initiatives.

Leadership and Governance

Higher education governing boards, in partnership with institutional leaders, faculty, and related foundations, must ensure that curricula and co-curricular experiences teach and develop transferable skills that align with stakeholders’ expectations and local workforce needs. Moreover, aligning student degree pathways with state-defined success metrics, including credential completion in targeted fields, attainment benchmarks, and workforce alignment, is essential to student success after graduation.25 Boards should further leverage corporate and state-employer partnerships to support student workforce entry and engagement.

A shared-responsibility approach is critical for aligning student course pathways with both career attainment and state needs. Governing boards have a responsibility to ensure curricular offerings directly support workforce needs and assure constituents of the value of higher education.26 However, they also have a fiduciary responsibility to protect the institution’s mission. Governing boards must also respect the parameters of shared governance at their institutions. Consistent with the institution’s mission, governing boards may decide what academic programs will be offered, but faculty members are subject matter experts who determine what is taught. They design and implement the curriculum and therefore have a shared, hands-on role in student success. SHEEO-led initiatives, such as its statewide strategic networks, reinforce this cooperative model by bridging institutional leadership and policy agendas to strengthen student success statewide. This networked structure frames alignment as a cooperative enterprise, positioning higher education as a strategic partner in economic and workforce development.

The 2024–2025 SHEEO policy priorities underscore economic and workforce development as the top concern for state leaders, advocating that institutional academic planning be directly linked to state performance goals. Similarly, reports from the John N. Gardner Institute for Undergraduate Education highlight the importance of structuring the curriculum and advising in ways that support postsecondary-to-career transitions while also meeting state metrics for workforce readiness and equitable outcomes.27 Together, these strategies create a governance framework that ensures educational pathways are intentionally and collectively designed to deliver value to students, institutions, and the broader economy.

Increasingly, the value of higher education will be measured in the earnings of graduates. Jeb Bush, a former governor of Florida, noted that, “Students deserve programs that lead to meaningful, high-wage employment, and taxpayers deserve accountability for the billions they invest each year.” He recommended states evaluate public institutions by examining “every associate and bachelor’s degree program in the state, assessing whether they help students earn more than they would with only a high school diploma. It’s a simple benchmark that will be at the heart of every state’s postsecondary strategy under the recently passed federal budget reconciliation bill, which will require states to measure graduates’ median income four years after program completion and may result in decreased federal funding if earnings fall below a certain level.”28

Jeb Bush offers one definition of student success—finding a remunerative job. On the campuses we studied, several best practices emerged from examination of our case-study institutions and were informed by a review of the literature. In this report we offer governing boards and key administrators insights into how to apply these best practices to their own institutions and provide examples of how this works in practice in the institutions we studied.

In addition to finding many common elements in strategies to promote student success, we also found many commonalities in the definitions of student success. Metrics for enrollment, retention, persistence, graduation/completion, earnings, licensure, or subsequent education of graduates were almost universal in campuses’ definitions and formulations regarding student success. Many analyzed these data using key student demographics to identify gaps in success among student groups, such as Pell Grant recipients, first-generation students, transfer students, and underrepresented minorities. Knowing who succeeds at an institution, and who does not, was an essential part of data-informed decisions. High-level metrics on enrollment, retention, and graduation were most common in system-level longitudinal and comparative data, and they were reported in online systems and to system boards.

In addition, presidents and cabinet-level administrators tracked indicators of the broader student experience, including “actionable data” to inform interventions to change outcomes for students. These ranged from institutional-level data on participation in high-impact experiences (undergraduate research with faculty, internships, study abroad); to drop, fail, withdrawal, incomplete (DFWI) rates for gateway courses; to student-level data on grades for the first test in a gateway course; to enrolling in too many highly demanding classes at once or in courses out of sequence for majors. Administrators also tracked financial data, including unpaid balances and exhausting eligibility for aid, signals that a student might stop out. An administrator at one of our case-study institutions commented that though the system cares about numbers, “We care about the student experience.” Looking at aggregate data allowed institutions to identify barriers and identify systemic solutions. Using data systems to track and communicate with students in real time at critical points allowed institutions to change outcomes.

Detailed information on student experiences was actively managed in real time and integrated with advising and communication systems designed to inform and keep students on track. We found at all four case-study institutions and systems significant investments in technology and user training. All four institutions used a software platform that managed enrollment data and allowed administrators, faculty, and other staff to communicate with and advise students. They used a variety of other data systems for scheduling courses and other administrative functions. Several mentioned the growing pains of transitioning from one data system to another and the ongoing need for training of end users. All noted that data were essential to informing their strategies.

GSU is a recognized leader in student-success practices, and in 2020 founded NISS to respond to interest from other institutions in learning from and using its approaches. Over 500 institutions have visited NISS. Timothy Renick, executive director of NISS, recounted his experience developing a set of key indicators to trigger interventions with students to keep them on track. He expected to find a handful of metrics and ended up with hundreds. GSU employs predictive analytics in an automated system that communicates the right message to the right students at the right time, and triggers outreach from advisers as well. Texting is typically used for communicating with students, and messages are targeted to those who need the information, not broadcast to all students. This is part of a multipronged approach that includes intensive freshman programs, meta majors (custom majors that combine elements from multiple degree programs) and guided degree pathways, holistic advising, targeted financial aid, course improvements to reduce DFWI rates, and more. Graduation rates have improved dramatically at GSU, increasing by 22 percentage points since 2003.

Policy-Level Solutions: When the Institution Is Part of the Problem

GSU is guided by NISS’s principles, central among them looking at ways in which the institution is the problem. Renick finds that institutions often know what they should be doing but lack integrated, campuswide solutions at scale. His advice is: (1) Lead with data, the coin of the realm in academia; (2) Focus on systems, including administrative processes, not faculty; (3) Do not wait for “x” to happen—there are always reasons to delay; and (4) Use pilots and have a plan to scale what works. In the current policy environment, Renick advises that you can attain more equitable outcomes without targeting efforts by race. Student-success efforts should be available to and will benefit all students and will show even more dramatic increases in retention and graduation for the most vulnerable students.

The NISS “Pillars of Success” are proactive advising, structured first-year support, academic design and support, financial wellness, outreach and communications, career-oriented learning, and data. Its work is based on three core principles:

• Institutions inadvertently hinder their students’ success through policies, practices, and structures that are among the key drivers of student attrition and equity gaps.
• Institutions can use data to identify and to understand these institutionally created barriers to completion.
• Institutions can deploy data to create more effective systems and produce stronger and more equitable enrollment, retention, and graduation outcomes.29

In other words, colleges and universities need to examine and change their own policies and practices when these create barriers to student success. Although there are common problems and solutions, each institution must understand its own students’ challenges and establish priorities.

In a recent collaboration between the Gardner Institute and AGB, funded by the Ascendium Education Foundation, the two organizations conducted a project that combined long-term board education and development efforts with intensive data mining and analysis to bring about institutional transformation for equitable student success. The project produced a playbook, and among the key takeaways were these four barriers to progress on student success:

1. Turnover of leadership and board members is a challenge to continuing and sustaining the work.
2. Lack of buy-in and trust among different roles on campus is a challenge to advancing the work.
3. Institutions need guidance and concrete examples of successful implementation of strategies that foster equitable student success.
4. Many board members approach the issue of equitable student success with entrenched deficit mindsets.30

It was clear that the four institutions in our case-study research—and other leading practitioners in student success—have dealt with these four challenges successfully. We think this contributed to their progress and their status as leaders in expanding student success. Here are ways they addressed these four challenges:

1. Their leadership included long-serving board members, presidents, and cabinet members who maintained a focus on student success, even as inevitable changes in leadership occurred. New chief executives were charged with advancing student success and brought experiences that contributed to forward movement. This included a long-serving board chair who previously oversaw K-12 education in the city, a system head who led another institution in the system and had previously served in another presidency, and a president who served previously as a board member and K-12 education commissioner for the state. These were leaders who contributed to solving problems.

2. There was a clear sense of working together purposefully among cabinet members and between boards and institutional leaders. Each president also set an expectation that cabinet members would work collaboratively to support student success. We heard things from cabinet members such as, “no silos,” “that’s what the president expects,” “that’s how we do things here,” and “student success is everyone’s job.” Faculty leaders were also collaborators. Mutual respect and ultimate commitment to students set the tone.
3. There was expert guidance on what works and how to employ the tools available through sophisticated data analytics. Presidents and boards established goals and priorities and provided resources to make key changes. Enrollment management was supported structurally by board committees, cabinet-level vice presidents, and institutionwide data systems. Outside experts were brought in as consultants. Systems used their ability to convene communities of practice to pilot and scale new approaches and offered funds as incentives. Institutionwide solutions were employed at scale.
4. Boards organized their work for student success and invested time in learning about real student challenges and experiences. There were methods to receive regular student input. Boards and presidents looked for ways to change their institutions to address student needs and did not view students as the problem. One president, dealing with issues during the pandemic, created a student problem-solving group and charged it with bringing ideas for solutions along with problems to monthly meetings. Others heard from student government leaders or student trustees at board meetings, adding personal stories to data to make a compelling case about needs. Each of our case-study institutions enrolled a student population with higher-than-average percentages of Pell Grant recipients, first-generation college students, and underrepresented minorities. This was a point of pride among leaders of these institutions and inspired their service. They wanted their students to succeed and their communities to thrive. They understood the challenges of being poor, working while going to college, family obligations, and unfamiliarity with college, and they sought to make over their institutions to meet these needs.

Understanding Today’s College Students

Students today are different from those who attended college when many trustees were students themselves 30, 40, or 50 years ago. The image of a residential college, with full-time undergraduates, 18 to 22 years old, earning a degree in four years has been replaced with the reality of a more varied cohort of students who have other responsibilities, including jobs and children, who take longer to complete degrees, attend more than one college, and have more limited financial resources to pay for college. (See Figure 1, “Today’s College Students.”)

Photo Credit: Gates Foundation.31

Understanding your students and their needs is key to unlocking the secrets for student success. This is essential for identifying barriers and addressing student needs holistically. Case-study institutions used a holistic, whole-person approach to support student success. They considered barriers such as food insecurity, housing insecurity, emergency financial needs, exhausted financial aid, transportation costs, childcare, mental health, sense of belonging, and other human needs.

Their policies and practices were informed by actively listening to student voices to understand their experiences and develop solutions responsive to their needs. They used teams of advisers (academic, career, mental health, and financial) to address related needs holistically. They also recognized that time and money matter. On-campus employment, for example, enabled students to work and learn. Free transportation between campuses facilitated getting to class. They removed financial barriers such as application fees and holds on registration.

Findings from the Case Studies

The findings of this study, which examined the role that governing boards and their policies and practices play in advancing improved student outcomes, confirm a common set of conditions and several key practices related to student success.

Common Conditions

The higher education environment in the states where the case-study institutions are located is shaped significantly by the attitudes of state governors and legislatures toward higher education. Fundamental to this viewpoint remains the question of whether higher education is regarded as a public good or a private benefit, and whether reinvestment in education can be sustained given the nation’s growing debt.32 The stance taken by state leaders can either impede or support institutions in advancing their mission.

When board members and administrators were asked about state and federal policies that had most effectively supported student success, leaders at CSUSB, Hostos Community College, and Kean University highlighted state-supported grant and scholarship programs. These policies expanded access and strengthened support services that are essential to students as they progress through college. Importantly, many of these programs are designed to benefit the students who comprise a large percentage of these institutions’ enrollment: historically underserved students and those who are the first in their families to attend college. Leaders at PVAMU pointed to the Texas Success Initiative, which supports initiatives to ensure that students are ready for college-level coursework before enrolling.

Board members and administrators consistently emphasized that cultivating strong relationships and maintaining open lines of communication with lawmakers and political leaders is essential to sustaining these policies. Governing boards can and do play a pivotal role in this work, including those of institutionally related foundations. As AGB stresses, board members are powerful advocates who serve as ambassadors for their institutions and for higher education more broadly.33

In response to questions about roles and responsibilities of governing boards, board members and institutional leaders demonstrated strong alignment in their understanding of their potential impact on advancing student access and success. Both groups consistently emphasized the board’s responsibility for general oversight of the institution and its role in setting strategic priorities through strategic planning, adoption of institutional policies and regulations, and accountability of leadership for achieving institutional goals.

Importantly, participants identified specific board actions and practices that directly contribute to institutional improvement in student success. These included:

• Approving and supporting the creation of new administrative structures designed to advance student success and achievement;
• Allocating funding for student-success initiatives; and
• Endorsing the review and implementation of policies aimed at removing barriers to access and completion.

A complete list of the key student-success practices employed by these institutions is described in more detail in the following section.

Ten Key Practices for Student Success

Across the institutions studied, a common set of conditions and promising practices emerged as foundational to advancing student success:

1. Relevant and extensive leadership experience: Governing boards, systems, and president’s cabinets had among them people with deep knowledge of education at secondary and postsecondary levels and successful leadership experiences that informed their work.
2. Student success as the main thing: Leaders repeatedly emphasized that student success is not “one priority among many” but the central organizing principle of their institutions. Governing boards, presidents, and cabinets embedded student success in strategic plans, key performance indicators, budget priorities, and communications. Leadership at every level—state coordinating boards, system and institutional governing boards, foundations, system administration, presidents, cabinets, faculty, and staff—demonstrated alignment around a shared commitment to student success.
3. Culture of collaboration: Presidents established a clear expectation that cabinet members work together across divisions, breaking down silos to solve problems collectively. Student success was everyone’s responsibility. Team successes were celebrated and recognized, reinforcing a culture of collaboration and accountability.
4. Data-driven decision-making: Student-success efforts were informed by integrated, institutionwide data systems that guided strategic planning and day-to-day operations. Data systems provided real-time information to inform and trigger communication with students. Boards periodically received and reviewed key data on student-success metrics. Investments were made in training users and updating systems to constantly improve information and its use.
5. Identification and removal of barriers: Institutions actively identified and addressed barriers that prevented student enrollment, persistence, and completion. Institutions adjusted structures, policies, and services to meet the needs of today’s students rather than expecting students to conform to outdated models.
6. Deep knowledge of students: Colleges demonstrated strong awareness of their student demographics and lived realities. Many students were working adults, first-generation, financially vulnerable, and parents. Leaders described their students, in the words of one, as being “one flat tire away from dropping out.” Leaders regularly sought and responded to student input in shaping institutional policies and practices. Student organizations or representatives had a voice in policies and practices.
7. Holistic student-support models: Institutions viewed personal needs as academic needs, addressing mental health, food insecurity, housing, clothing, finances, and childcare needs alongside coursework and advising. Systematic approaches supported students in making timely program and career decisions. Strategies reflected a whole-person approach. Advising was typically team oriented.
8. Community connection: Success strategies were tied to local partnerships and community engagement, recognizing that institutions and students thrive in broader ecosystems. Connections with foundation board members, employers, and community leaders provided internships, mentors, employment, scholarships, and other support.
9. Mission-driven focus: Presidents consistently referenced their institution’s mission as the driver of student-success strategies, reinforcing that inclusive excellence and completion goals are inseparable from institutional purpose.
10. Institutional definitions of student success: Institutions defined student success in ways that reflected their mission and student population. For example:
    • CSU focused on enrollment growth and graduation rates, and eliminating gaps in student success.
    • CSUSB emphasized improving the student experience.
    • Hostos highlighted supporting students’ personal goals and employment outcomes.
    • CUNY centered on increasing enrollment and completion rates and meeting workforce needs in the city and state.
    • Prairie View adopted a highly personalized approach, tailoring support to individual aspirations.
    • Kean University defined student success by supporting a positive and full collegiate experience that prepares students for their future, focusing on academic support, fostering a sense of belonging, and developing a strong foundation of well-being through social connection, financial literacy, and spiritual wellness.

As Kemal Atkins notes in “Advancing Student Success for Governing Boards” in A Guide to Strategic Board Retreats in Higher Education (AGB, 2025), student success must be understood as an institutional priority requiring both structural commitment and cultural alignment. Boards and presidents are most effective when they reinforce a unified vision, dismantle barriers, and adapt institutional systems to support today’s students.34

Recommendations

1. 1. Engage Governing Boards as Strategic Partners.
      • Leverage board oversight to drive accountability and commitment.
      • Deploy senior administrators as staff liaisons to board committees, with expectations of mutual trust, clarity of roles, integrity, and effective communication.
      • Establish board committees that allow holistic approaches to challenges such as student success or student experience committees.
      • Consider joint board committee meetings to facilitate holistic policies and planning. Encourage attendance at committee meetings by other board and cabinet members to gain their input and perspectives.
      • Regularly share reports containing disaggregated student data with the board, accompanied by analysis for improved understanding.
      • Provide institution and foundation board members, as well as the president’s cabinet, with educational sessions and resources on student needs, inclusive excellence, student-success metrics, and exemplary approaches to improve student outcomes. Inspire change based on leading development of best practices.
      • Regularly include speakers who can share student experiences and inform the institution and foundation boards about changing student needs, community needs, and state and local workforce trends.
      • Encourage board members to attend important campus events and show their support for the president in difficult times as well as in celebration of success.

2. 2. Focus on Affordability and Access.
      • Expand financial assistance strategies (for example, emergency grants, last-dollar scholarships for students who have exhausted all other forms of financial aid).
      • Strengthen recruitment pipelines from underrepresented populations.
      • Adopt flexible tuition payment structures to reduce stop-outs due to financial barriers.
      • Eliminate financial barriers such as application fees or holds on registration to enable students to enroll and progress, supported with financial advising and emergency aid.
      • Pursue state-level policy and funding support for expanding enrollment for certificates and degrees to meet workforce demand for important economic, health, and welfare needs.
   3. Implement Retention and Student-Success Strategies Focused on Inclusive Excellence.

2. 1. • Form cross-functional task forces on campus using retention performance management or similar platforms.
      • Set and track inclusive excellence goals disaggregated by cohort (race/ethnicity, first-generation, Pell Grant status, academic program, transfer status).
      • Redesign advising models, early-alert systems, and course scheduling and sequencing to proactively support persistence.

4. 4. Use Data to Inform Continuous Improvement.
      • Develop visual dashboards and reports to track student progress and highlight equitable outcomes.
      • Disaggregate data by student demographics, academic program, and campus engagement.
      • Eliminate data silos; integrate academic, student affairs, and financial data across the institution; invest in improvements and train end users of data systems.
      • Link data insights to strategic planning and resource allocation.

1. 5. Elevate and Amplify the Student Voice.
      • Create standing opportunities for students to provide input into policies, programs, and services.
      • Include students as collaborative partners with administrators in designing solutions to challenges.

Call to Action

As we observed earlier in this report, the practices that lead to improved student success are not a mystery. This study affirms that college governing boards have a critical role to play in the oversight of and impact on student success. Student success is inseparable from the mission of higher education institutions. When boards place the mission at the center of their deliberations and decisions, they create the conditions for administrators, faculty, and staff to align their work with the institution’s ultimate purpose: enabling students to learn, persist, and thrive.

The fiduciary responsibilities of governing boards extend beyond financial stewardship. Boards are not only accountable for the financial health and sustainability of their institutions, but also for shaping campus culture and climate. This broader understanding of governance emphasizes that oversight of student success is not ancillary to the board’s role, but central to it.

During a recent AGB project with institutions in Kentucky, we asserted that if board members embraced the Principles of Trusteeship (AGB, 2021) and acted collectively, they would be well on their way to having a positive impact on student success. The Principles of Trusteeship call on boards to:

• Understand governance as a collective responsibility.
• Lead by example with integrity and accountability.
• Remain mission-focused in all decision-making.
• Steward resources responsibly for long-term vitality.
• Champion inclusive excellence.
• Commit to continuous learning about higher education and the institution they serve.

For boards to realize this vision, several steps are essential. They must begin with an honest assessment of their own performance, reflecting on how effectively they fulfill their fiduciary responsibilities. They should also examine whether their composition provides the thought, talent, and influence necessary to understand and address the realities facing today’s students. Boards must be intentional about learning who their students are, the challenges they face, and the support they need to succeed. In a recent Trusteeship article about how boards can help improve student success, Sara Goldrick-Rab said, “I encourage college leaders to start with curiosity and ask better questions. Seek information about how students are really experiencing your institution and pay close attention to the experiences of people who are not currently engaging with or succeeding there.” Rab encourages institutional leaders to use these data to inform their decisions and to ensure that institutional policies address “students’ human needs, promote their health, and undergird their financial well-being so they can focus on academics.”38

Frameworks such as John Kotter’s 8-Step Process for Leading Change39 are important tools for colleges and universities because they provide a clear, structured approach for guiding transformation in complex institutional environments. Change in higher education is hard. It often requires strong vision and leadership, and an intentional approach to building urgency, creating coalitions, communicating strategically, and institutionalizing innovative practices. Kotter’s and other similar models offer roadmaps that help leaders sequence these steps in ways that inspire action and maintain momentum. Paul Friga writes that the optimal approach to strategic planning today is “faster, simpler, stronger,”40 which in the context of student success is critical because the conditions and issues that impede student success must be addressed by urgent and swift action.

It is essential that institutions and their boards conduct an honest self-assessment. Jim Collins argues that “through confronting the brutal facts of an organization’s reality” it can make the “right decisions” that lead to better outcomes.41 Boleman and Deal’s Four Frame Model, which examines organizations through structural, human resource, political, and symbolic lenses, can help leaders gain a more holistic understanding of institutional strengths, weaknesses, culture, power, and authority.42 When coupled with frameworks such as Kotter’s 8-Step process, higher education leaders and board members can be equipped to not only design and implement change effectively but also assess the institutional context in which change is taking place. Further, these frameworks can help inspire movement, address resistance, and sustain transformational efforts that improve institutional performance and student success.

Finally, boards must identify and regularly review meaningful student-success metrics to ensure that their decisions are informed by evidence and aligned with mission.

By embracing these practices, governing boards can move beyond narrow measures of institutional health toward a holistic vision of success—one in which fiscal responsibility, stewardship of mission, and student achievement are interdependent. In doing so, boards not only strengthen their institutions but also fulfill their highest responsibility: advancing the success of every student they serve.

QUESTIONS FOR BOARDS

• What is the makeup of the institution’s student body? What is the mix of students from various nationalities and backgrounds—racial, socioeconomic, religious, and otherwise?
• Is the number of students applying and enrolling in the institution today increasing or declining? Among what groups—and why? What are the key needs of those different students, and is the institution meeting them?
• How many first-time students stay to graduate? How long does it take on average? What is the transfer rate? What are the retention and graduation rates by race, ethnicity, and gender? Have they been falling or rising?
• Has the board worked with the president and other top administrators to identify any key roadblocks students may confront in remaining at the institution and obtaining their degree—and how to work to remove those roadblocks?
• How much has tuition risen in the past five years, and how much might it rise in the near future? What is the average student debt for those who graduate, and what is the range? What is the average student debt for those who dropped out before completion of a degree?
• What percentage of students qualify for Pell Grants? How much institutional aid do we provide students, and what are our policies for providing it? Should those policies be reconsidered and in what ways? If the institution is a private one, is the discounting strategy clear and sustainable?
• Is the board prepared to explain the value and importance of a college degree to key current and potential constituencies, including students and their parents, donors, policymakers, and the public?
• Is the board encouraging the president and senior administrators to focus on improving the student experience and meeting the needs of a changing student population? Is the board overseeing the institution in ways that encourage it to be innovative when it comes to student services and success?
• How is the board overseeing the institutional response to the dismantling of affirmative action in admissions? Is it ensuring the institution has developed a strategy to achieve inclusive excellence goals and help every enrolled student stay in college and obtain their degree? What processes and policies may the institution need to implement or change to ensure it is pursuing equitable student success?
• Are the board and president united in their vision for market-responsive educational outcomes for all students? Are the board, president, and other institutional administrators discussing the best ways to offer more career-related programs and infuse job-related skills into more traditional disciplines, like those in the liberal arts? Does the board understand the current curriculum, including elements of work-readiness and career-readiness?

Excerpted from “Student Success, the Student Experience, and Campus Inclusion,” in Top Strategic Issues for Boards 2024–2025, (Washington, D.C.: AGB, 2024), 37.

QUESTIONS FOR CHIEF EXECUTIVES

• Are all our students—across race, income, first-generation status, and gender—equally likely to persist, graduate, and thrive after graduation?
• Where do inclusive excellence gaps exist, and what specific strategies are we using to close them?
• How do we define “student success” beyond graduation rates (for example, a sense of belonging, career-readiness, civic engagement, earnings, advanced degrees)?
• Do we have timely, actionable data on retention, progression, completion, and post-graduate outcomes?
• How often do we disaggregate student-success data, and how is it used to inform decisions?
• How do we measure the impact of key initiatives on both student learning and student well-being?
• What investments yield the greatest impact on student success, and are we scaling them?
• How do students experience our institution—academically, socially, and financially—and where are the pressure points?
• Are we listening to student voices in shaping our strategies?
• Are our budgets, staffing, and structures aligned with our stated commitment to student success?
• How are we engaging employers, alumni, and community partners to enhance student-success outcomes?
• Are our academic programs aligned with the skills and opportunities students need for the future of work? Are our academic programs aligned with future regional and state workforce needs?
• What innovations (in technology, pedagogy, partnerships) are most likely to improve long-term student success?

QUESTIONS FOR POLICYMAKERS

• Who is enrolling in our colleges, and who is being left out?
• Are students able to afford college without excessive debt, and do they have access to the supports needed to persist?
• Are students completing their degrees or credentials on time, and where are the points of greatest attrition?
• Do outcomes (retention, graduation, employment) differ by race, income, first-generation status, or geography—and what policies are in place to close those gaps?
• Are students gaining the knowledge, skills, and competencies that align with workforce and civic needs?
• What public policies are needed to address workforce gaps in critical areas of need?
• Are graduates finding meaningful employment, upward mobility, and civic engagement opportunities that justify their investment in higher education?
• How are colleges being held accountable for student success, and how are state or federal funds tied to outcomes?
• How has public funding for higher education affected the average price of college for students?
• Are higher education, K-12, workforce, and community systems aligned to create sustainable pipelines for student success?

CHECKLIST FOR BOARDS

• □ Ensure that completion goals are set in the context of institutional mission. Monitor progress toward goals regularly. Boards should not manage the processes for implementation of goals, but they should evaluate the results.
• □ Ask questions about the institution’s strategies to help ensure that students complete their degrees or credentials in a timely fashion. Ask whether institutional resources—people and funding—are being appropriately deployed to support completion goals.
• □ Include progress on completion goals in the president’s or chancellor’s annual assessment. Hold the president and senior administrators accountable for established goals related to completion and for implementation of effective policies and practices to enhance completion efforts.
• □ Allocate time on board and committee agendas to discuss institutional and public policy issues regarding college completion, as well as related opportunities and challenges.
• □ Ensure boards are structured to prioritize student success, with means that sustain commitment through chief executive or chief academic officer transitions.
• □ Designate one or more board committees to review completion efforts and results. Ensure that committees report to the board regularly on their findings. The full board should review data and engage in conversations about student access, retention, and completion.
• □ Insist on board-level summaries of institutional data on student progress toward certificates and degrees, retention rates, and student-transfer and dropout rates. Regularly benchmark performance against that of peer institutions and top-performing institutions, with an eye toward identifying best practices that can be implemented at the institution.
• □ Include educational quality in board discussions of completion. Monitor progress toward goals for student-learning outcomes.

Excerpted from AGB Board of Directors’ Statement on Board Responsibility for the Oversight of College Completion, Washington, D.C.: AGB, 2016, 11.

CHECKLIST FOR CHIEF EXECUTIVES

• □ Engage the board in discussions of the mission and values of the institution, the student body the institution serves, and the institution’s commitment to completion.
• □ Develop a context-specific definition of student success tailored to the institution’s mission and the diverse needs of the student population that it serves.
• □ Collaborate with the senior staff and board to establish clear goals for college-completion efforts that serve as benchmarks for the institution and as targets for performance assessments and accountability.
• □ Ensure that orientation programs for new board members highlight the board’s responsibility for the oversight of educational quality and college completion among the full set of responsibilities.
• □ Provide the board with meaningful board-level data and dashboard indicators related to student-retention and completion rates. Include data disaggregated by race/ethnicity, gender, family income, organizational involvement, and other categories that are appropriate for the institution. Include information about transfer students and articulation agreements with partner institutions. Engage the board in regular conversations about this information.
• □ Track and report trend data on debt, earnings, and additional educational attainment of graduates by program of study.
• □ Update the board on progress on goals from the last institutional accreditation visit related to student success.
• □ Ensure that there is a focus on high-quality degrees and credentials, not just more degrees and credentials. Regularly provide information on student-learning outcomes and progress on improvement of educational quality.

Excerpted from AGB Board of Directors’ Statement on Board Responsibility for the Oversight of College Completion, Washington, D.C.: AGB, 2016, 10.

QUESTIONS FOR BOARDS

• What is the makeup of the institution’s student body? What is the mix of students from various nationalities and backgrounds—racial, socioeconomic, religious, and otherwise?
• Is the number of students applying and enrolling in the institution today increasing or declining? Among what groups—and why? What are the key needs of those different students, and is the institution meeting them?
• How many first-time students stay to graduate? How long does it take on average? What is the transfer rate? What are the retention and graduation rates by race, ethnicity, and gender? Have they been falling or rising?
• Has the board worked with the president and other top administrators to identify any key roadblocks students may confront in remaining at the institution and obtaining their degree—and how to work to remove those roadblocks?
• How much has tuition risen in the past five years, and how much might it rise in the near future? What is the average student debt for those who graduate, and what is the range? What is the average student debt for those who dropped out before completion of a degree?
• What percentage of students qualify for Pell Grants? How much institutional aid do we provide students, and what are our policies for providing it? Should those policies be reconsidered and in what ways? If the institution is a private one, is the discounting strategy clear and sustainable?
• Is the board prepared to explain the value and importance of a college degree to key current and potential constituencies, including students and their parents, donors, policymakers, and the public?
• Is the board encouraging the president and senior administrators to focus on improving the student experience and meeting the needs of a changing student population? Is the board overseeing the institution in ways that encourage it to be innovative when it comes to student services and success?
• How is the board overseeing the institutional response to the dismantling of affirmative action in admissions? Is it ensuring the institution has developed a strategy to achieve inclusive excellence goals and help every enrolled student stay in college and obtain their degree? What processes and policies may the institution need to implement or change to ensure it is pursuing equitable student success?
• Are the board and president united in their vision for market-responsive educational outcomes for all students? Are the board, president, and other institutional administrators discussing the best ways to offer more career-related programs and infuse job-related skills into more traditional disciplines, like those in the liberal arts? Does the board understand the current curriculum, including elements of work-readiness and career-readiness?

Excerpted from “Student Success, the Student Experience, and Campus Inclusion,” in Top Strategic Issues for Boards 2024–2025, (Washington, D.C.: AGB, 2024), 37.

QUESTIONS FOR CHIEF EXECUTIVES

• Are all our students—across race, income, first-generation status, and gender—equally likely to persist, graduate, and thrive after graduation?
• Where do inclusive excellence gaps exist, and what specific strategies are we using to close them?
• How do we define “student success” beyond graduation rates (for example, a sense of belonging, career-readiness, civic engagement, earnings, advanced degrees)?
• Do we have timely, actionable data on retention, progression, completion, and post-graduate outcomes?
• How often do we disaggregate student-success data, and how is it used to inform decisions?
• How do we measure the impact of key initiatives on both student learning and student well-being?
• What investments yield the greatest impact on student success, and are we scaling them?
• How do students experience our institution—academically, socially, and financially—and where are the pressure points?
• Are we listening to student voices in shaping our strategies?
• Are our budgets, staffing, and structures aligned with our stated commitment to student success?
• How are we engaging employers, alumni, and community partners to enhance student-success outcomes?
• Are our academic programs aligned with the skills and opportunities students need for the future of work? Are our academic programs aligned with future regional and state workforce needs?
• What innovations (in technology, pedagogy, partnerships) are most likely to improve long-term student success?

QUESTIONS FOR POLICYMAKERS

• Who is enrolling in our colleges, and who is being left out?
• Are students able to afford college without excessive debt, and do they have access to the supports needed to persist?
• Are students completing their degrees or credentials on time, and where are the points of greatest attrition?
• Do outcomes (retention, graduation, employment) differ by race, income, first-generation status, or geography—and what policies are in place to close those gaps?
• Are students gaining the knowledge, skills, and competencies that align with workforce and civic needs?
• What public policies are needed to address workforce gaps in critical areas of need?
• Are graduates finding meaningful employment, upward mobility, and civic engagement opportunities that justify their investment in higher education?
• How are colleges being held accountable for student success, and how are state or federal funds tied to outcomes?
• How has public funding for higher education affected the average price of college for students?
• Are higher education, K-12, workforce, and community systems aligned to create sustainable pipelines for student success?

Project Staff

Kemal M. Atkins, EdD, is a senior consultant, AGB; director, San Francisco Bay University Board of Directors; author of the chapter “Advancing Student Success for Governing Boards” in A Guide to Strategic Board Retreats in Higher Education (AGB, 2025); adjunct associate professor, Delaware State University; and former vice president for student affairs and enrollment management, Keene State College. Atkins served as co-lead for this project.

Merrill P. Schwartz, PhD, is a consultant and senior fellow, AGB; director, University of Massachusetts Amherst Foundation Board of Directors; coauthor of Assessing Board Performance: A Practical Guide for College, University, System, and Foundation Boards (AGB, 2018); and former senior vice president for content and program strategy, AGB. Schwartz served as co-lead for this project.

Tanya M. Spilovoy, EdD, consultant, grants and strategic partnerships, AGB. With an extensive background spearheading initiatives in higher education at the institution, system, state, and multi-state compact levels, her focus at AGB has been on fostering strategic partnerships and managing grants to enhance educational opportunities.

Alasia Slade served as an AGB research assistant for this project and is an EdD candidate at Delaware State University. She is currently an education specialist for The Teen Warehouse in Delaware.

Ayanna Samuels-Francis served as an AGB research assistant for this project and is a doctoral student, PhD, University of Maryland College Park. She is currently a graduate assistant for policy training and prevention, Office of Civil Rights and Sexual Misconduct, University of Maryland College Park.

Gates Foundation

This work was funded by the Gates Foundation. The findings and conclusions contained within are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect positions or policies of the Gates Foundation.