From Setback to Success: Meeting Comebackers Where They Are: The California Competes organization recently published a report as a guide for helping institutions support and recruit more comebacker students: individuals who left college with no credential and later returned to and completed postsecondary education. In California alone, over 6 million adults have participated in postsecondary education but have yet to earn a credential. Researchers spoke with over 52 adult learners who dropped out, reenrolled and went on to earn a degree.
The following list details some key strategies that institutions can employ to help these students:
- Remove reenrollment barriers by providing priority registration status upon return, offering credit for prior learning and forgiving institutional debt.
- Provide ongoing support initiatives like adult-focused advising, accessible online resources and communities of support with other comebackers.
- Adapt to shifting student needs by offering increased access to shortened-term programs and fully online courses.
- Conduct outreach to students who stopped out of college about the reenrollment process, use inclusive marketing materials and provide more academic probation flexibility.
How States and Systems Can Support Practitioner Efforts to Strengthen Dual Enrollment: The Community College Research Center recently published a report in conjunction with the College in High School Alliance that provides evidence-based recommendations for states and systems on how to strengthen dual enrollment (DE). Experts provide insights into three areas of DE improvement: increasing access, strengthening on-ramps to postsecondary education and building strong partnerships.
Some top insights and recommendations are below:
- Set statewide DE goals and provide easy-to-use public data platforms for practitioners to track recent progress.
- Reform eligibility requirements for DE to reduce barriers to participation, including shifting away from placement testing to high school grades to increase access.
- Reduce tuition and non-tuition costs for low-income families through public funding and emphasize the potential cost savings of DE toward postsecondary tuition.
- Prioritize open access to navigational supports to increase postsecondary-going motivation, especially for underrepresented students.
Strategies to Advise Students on Multiple Postsecondary Pathways: A recently published report by the Education Strategy Group in collaboration with the Walton Family Foundation provided insights to practitioners on how to support multiple postsecondary pathways and information for students and families to help them understand the full suite of career pathways that can lead to success after graduation.
Researchers identified key challenges of data, capacity and partnerships. They also provided the following recommendations:
- Employ technology for disseminating messages at scale and for increasing capacity to individualized supports to communicate with students and families where they are.
- Directly engage students to ensure that messaging resonates with real-world learners.
- Re-conceptualize who can serve as an advisor to students and provide training.
- Incorporate and analyze data on local labor market opportunities, needs and student outcomes to ensure high-quality advising.
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