The official graduation figures at the University of Texas at El Paso are nothing to write home about. Only 39 percent of those who started in the fall of 2007 as first-time freshmen went on to graduate within six years.
So how did UTEP land in the No. 7 spot on a national rankings list, between Stanford and Harvard?
UTEP ranked high on Washington Monthly’s latest list of colleges that act “on behalf of the true public interest” because it takes low-income students—nearly 80 percent of whom are Hispanic—and graduates far more of them than one would expect. The rankings are based on colleges’ performance in three categories: social mobility, research, and service. UTEP took the top spot in the social-mobility category, which recognizes colleges where graduation rates are higher than predicted on the basis of incoming students’ standardized-test scores and the proportion who receive Pell Grants.
The university’s success, say top administrators and some independent observers, comes from rigorously analyzing its own data to identify interventions that can help more students earn degrees. “They’re using institutional data to address persistence to completion,” says Deborah A. Santiago, chief operating officer and vice president for policy at Excelencia in Education, a national organization that maintains a list of college programs that help Latino students. “They learn what students need and then make changes to achieve success.”
For students who started in the fall of 2005—the period covered by the rankings—the six-year graduation rate at UTEP was 37 percent. That rate, while below the 51-percent national rate for Hispanics, is above the 30.1 percent figure for Hispanics at open-access colleges like UTEP.
In analyzing its data, the university found little correlation between incoming students’ standardized-test scores and subsequent graduation rates, but a strong correlation between high-school class rank and graduation rates. UTEP students in the third quartile of their high-school class—from the 50th to the 75th percentile—were far less likely to earn UTEP degrees than were students who graduated in the top half of their high-school class.
So the university set out to systematically provide more help to the lower-achieving students by providing summer programs and more academic support during the first semester.
The provost’s office has also embraced strategies that bubble up from the faculty. When Charles Ambler, a history professor, returned to the classroom after a decade as an administrator, he noticed that many of the students who failed his U.S.-history course would later drop out of college.
First-year courses like his, which can have as many as 350 students, were once considered gatekeepers, weeding out students who weren’t up to snuff. But Mr. Ambler came to believe that the class’s impersonal feel—not students’ ability—was the real factor leading to failure.
“It just struck me that what was missing for students was a real connection to the class,” he says. “What I needed to do was build that connection.”
He started hammering students with slogans emphasizing that he expected them to succeed. He told them that failure on the first exam was impermissible—anyone who flunked would get an additional assignment. The approach worked, but it was also time-intensive and draining. So Mr. Ambler looked for technological help. Using a grant from the University of Texas system, he began working with a for-profit company on software that allows professors to divide groups of students into segments using an electronic gradebook, and then send email blasts to only those who, say, had failed to turn in the latest assignment. For the 40 or so students who were dangerously close to failing near the end of the semester, he sent a series of emails urging them to study for the final.
“The amazing thing is how well it worked,” Mr. Ambler says. “I typically had between 25 and 30 percent of students who got D’s or F’s or withdrew. I took that down to 12 to 15 percent.”
The product, Zoom In, has since been used by about 20 other professors at UTEP, and a study of 1,500 students has found that it has a positive impact on grades and student engagement.
More than half of UTEP’s students are among the first generation of their families to go to college. The university’s large number of Hispanic students face several hurdles, says Donna Ekal, associate provost for undergraduate studies. First they must want to go to college, and they must develop the skills to succeed. They have to figure out how to pay for tuition and a way to get to the campus. (Students from Mexico are eligible for in-state tuition at UTEP if they can show financial need.)
Those who make it past the hurdles still face plenty of challenges. “Life gets in the way for our students,” Ms. Ekal says. “They’ve been working since they were 15 or 16 years old. Their job contributes to the family financial situation. They do sometimes have to choose whether to go to work or to school.”
UTEP doesn’t pay much attention to official graduation rates, she says. The university awards nearly 3,200 bachelor’s degrees per year, but only about 30 percent of those students start and progress in a way that allows them to be counted in official figures. “Our students start at community college, they swirl, they stop out,” Ms. Ekal says. “We don’t fit that metric.”
The university prefers to track bachelor’s degrees awarded—a number that has risen significantly for all students, including Hispanics, over the past decade. UTEP graduated 2,552 Hispanic students in 2012-13, up from just 1,367 a decade earlier.
Simply keeping students closer to the campus is another important strategy, Ms. Ekal says. UTEP has increased its student-job budget so that they can get to classes more easily.
In her first year at UTEP, Vianey Alderete worked at a JCPenney portrait studio. But Ms. Alderete, a journalism major, had trouble getting time off from work for tests and classes or to pursue stories for the campus newspaper. Now, in her second year, she’s working in the provost’s office. “They emphasize that school comes first,” she says.
Ms. Alderete grew up just across the border, in Mexico, with her father before moving to El Paso at age 11 to live with her mother. After eighth grade, she signed up for an Early College High School program, which UTEP officials say contributes to the strong growth in its graduation numbers.
The university graduates low-income students in large numbers by identifying what they need to succeed.
The program allows high-school freshmen to attend one of six schools where they can simultaneously earn high-school diplomas and associate degrees from El Paso Community College in four years. Students who then enroll at UTEP can earn bachelor’s degrees in two to two and a half years. The university has more than 500 graduates of the program on its campus this year.
Ms. Alderete thought she would be graduating this spring, at the age of 21, but she had overlooked four required liberal-arts courses. That will push her graduation date back to December—and she’s determined to help other students avoid similar mistakes.
Her main job in the provost’s office is working on “graduation maps,” showing Early College students with various majors what courses they need to take to graduate within two years. “My job is to help them make an easy transition,” she says.
UTEP is also reaching out to students who are close to earning degrees. The provost’s office sends deans and department heads lists of all students who are 30 or fewer credit hours away from graduation, so faculty members can meet with them to make sure they’re taking the right courses.
“Some time taking that extra step, and advising one last time on the back end, will make all the difference in whether a student graduates this summer versus next spring,” says David Ruiter, a former chairman of the English department who now works on academic and retention issues for the provost.
Who knows? If enough students make it through, might UTEP one day surpass both Stanford and Harvard in the rankings?
“We like the neighborhood we’re in,” Ms. Ekal says.
