CCF Briefing: Terrance Wiggins' story

On September 10, 2021, IHEP hosted the Supporting Our Shared Future briefing about the #CollegeCompletionFund. The CCF is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to promote completion in a thoughtful, evidence-based, equity-centered, student-focused, innovative, and comprehensive way, and - alongside investments in college affordability and in critical institutions - to address longstanding inequities in college access and success.
As part of that briefing, Terrance Wiggins, a fourth-year student at Georgia State University (GSU), shared how advising helped him stay on track in college and called for the CCF to support more colleges and universities provide the support students need in order to complete their studies and cross the degree finish line.
GSU implemented a strategic proactive advising approach that relies on analytic data to flag concerns early and help get students back on track. The system analyses 800 analytics for 30,000 students every day, identifying issues quickly and facilitating meetings with advisors to help get students receive the support they need to get back on track and graduate on time.
Since its introduction at GSU in 2012, the university has improved overall graduation rates by 9 percentage points and eliminated all gaps in graduation rates based on race, ethnicity and income level. When implemented at 11 large public universities (including GSU) through a large-scale study called MAAPS, this approach has been shown through a rigorous evaluation to have a small but persistent impact on credit success and GPA among students.
This is the type of capacity - human, financial, and technological - that a CCF could support.