Episode 30: Helping Students Achieve Their Dreams by Preparing Colleges Better feat. Laurie Heacock, Senior Advisor, Achieving the Dream

The pandemic taught us that businesses and organizations, including colleges, can pivot almost overnight and start operating in an entirely different way. But it also taught us that countless students were woefully underprepared and ill-equipped to get the most out of their college experience during this time through no fault of their own. The real-life impacts of real life are no longer invisible.

In this episode of Illuminate Higher Education, Kiran welcomes guest Laurie Heacock, Senior Advisor at Achieving the Dream (ATD). Laurie began her work with ATD as a Data Coach, working with colleges to help them build data strategies, conduct analysis, and formulate strategic plans based on data-driven insights. She is passionate about student success and how data can help create more equitable opportunities for all students.

Explore a few highlights from their conversation in the following Q&A, then listen to the full podcast for a deeper dive into the power of data in a learning environment.

What is Achieving the Dream?

Achieving the Dream (ATD) is a nonprofit organization headquartered in Maryland, just outside of the Washington, DC area. Since 2004, ATD has served open-access institutions like community colleges and tribal colleges and universities. Institutions like these have highly diverse student populations in terms of age, socioeconomic background, education levels attained, race, and language, not to mention external commitments like jobs and family and access to learning resources.

With these challenges in mind, ATD seeks to prepare community colleges to serve diverse populations by better understanding the holistic student experience through data analysis. Data can help inform colleges about achievement gaps, systemic barriers to success, and risk factors that could prevent students from achieving their desired goals. ATD also helps identify solutions and deploy them at scale.

What metrics help you determine student success?

Over time, research has uncovered several predictive metrics that can help colleges and universities measure success. This is particularly challenging in such a diverse student body. Performance metrics, such as attainment of a degree or achieving a grade in a course, are important but do not tell the whole story.

We focus on a set of “early momentum” metrics that predict a student’s six-year completion with a high percentage of accuracy. Those metrics include credit accumulation rates in the first year, completion of college-level English and math courses during the first year, first-term to second-term persistence, etc.

We also look at completion differently, too. For example, we do not look at completion as an end or a milestone. If you complete a credential but it does not lead to a career move, wage increase, or other desired outcome, it is not really a success.

What predictions can you make about the future of higher education in the coming years?

We must continue to see a strong focus on social and economic mobility. We need to be able to articulate for students what the return on their investment will be. This will require stronger partnerships with community-based organizations for mental health, childcare, and other support services. Colleges and employers will need to be aligned on in-demand skills and abilities to ensure students are prepared for the next step.

Listen to the full podcast episode for more details.

Connect with Laurie Heacock on LinkedIn and follow her on Twitter @Laurie_Edu.

Learn more about Achieving the Dream on LinkedIn, on Twitter @AchievetheDream, or by visiting AchievingtheDream.org.

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This episode is brought to you by N2N’s Illuminate App, the iPaaS for Higher Education.

About N2N Services

Founded in 2010, N2N is committed to serving educational institutions and helping them figure out how to serve their students, faculty, and staff using the most innovative technologies and solutions available in the marketplace. Over the last decade, N2N has served over 300 academic institutions and enabled their student success journeys.

N2N Services Inc. is a leader in enterprise application integration and strategic advisory services for higher education, At N2N, we are committed to providing the highest quality solutions and collaboratively building student-centric solutions.

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