Speakers Urge Colleges to Go Beyond Access and Help Students Complete Degrees

Besides providing access to higher education, colleges must do more to help more students finish, Hilary Pennington, director of special initiatives for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, said at the American Council on Education annual meeting here on Monday.

Colleges should be accountable if their students fail to graduate, Ms. Pennington said, speaking at a plenary session. “Once we cash a student’s tuition check, we must accept responsibility for their success.” she said.

Colleges must make it possible to earn a degree in a reasonable amount of time at a reasonable cost, she said, and institutions need to look at their structure to see if it best meets the needs of students entering college today.

The Gates Foundation supports various programs focused on improving college-completion rates, including a new project in which the nonprofit group Complete College America will work with 17 states on putting new policies in place to meet that goal.

At a panel discussion here on alternative methods of helping students, several college leaders said they had seen success in providing flexible schedules with online courses that start as often as every week or every other week, and in collaborating with other colleges, communities, and businesses to offer programs that match the job market in that area and can be offered at low cost.

Rio Salado College, in Arizona, for example, is setting up what it calls “communiversities:" In buildings shared by several colleges and universities, students follow “educational pathways” to degrees that may include cheaper introductory courses from community colleges along with upper-level classes from four-year institutions. Chris Bustamante, interim president of Rio Salado, believes these types of collaborations will become more popular as colleges seek to educate more students who are working and raising families, and need more-flexible class schedules.

Colleges must stop competing with each other and work together to help more students graduate, said Roger Sublett, president of Union Institute & University, which focuses on adult learners and has campuses in Ohio, California, Florida, and Vermont. He cited efforts in Ohio to ease transfers between the state’s colleges as an example of a collaborative effort intended to raise the number of state residents with a college education.

“Collaborative, not competitive, leadership is critical,” Mr. Sublett said. And make decisions based on what students need, he said. “Focus on service and the needs of learners, not the needs of your faculty, your staff, or your administration.”