Skip to content Skip to navigation

Columbus State University-[node:field-date:custom:Y]--15-to-Finish

Category: 
15-to-Finish
Strategy/Project Description: 

Goal 2.1 Change institutional culture to emphasize taking full-time course loads (15 or more credits per semester) to earn degrees “on time.”

A review of institutional data indicated that many students were not enrolled in a minimum of 15 credit hours each term. In Fall 2013, 3,680 undergraduate students were taking less than 15 credit hours per term. This group had an average overall GPA of 2.81. During the same term, 1,015 were enrolled in 15 or more credit hours. The average overall GPA of that group was 3.12. A campus-wide initiative was implemented in Summer 2014 to provide new students beginning in Fall 2014 with 15 hour schedules for their first term of study. These schedules were developed in advance by academic advisors with input from the students.

We provided information on the 15-to-Finish campaign to incoming students through our orientation presentations and to faculty staff advisors through our advising training sessions throughout fall and spring semesters. 

Strategy 2.1 Change institutional culture to emphasize taking full-time course loads (15 or more credits per semester) to earn degrees “on time.”

Goal

Increase the number of students enrolled in 15 or more credits per semester.

High-impact strategy

Focus on changing the institutional culture and educating stakeholders.

Summary of the Activities
  • Used orientation survey to determine preference of course times and courses for incoming freshmen.
  • Preregistered most entering FT freshmen with a schedule of 15 or more credits (90%+).
  • Did not create videos to educate students/faculty about the importance of 15-to-Finish (GPA higher, loan debt less, fewer life emergencies) since USG already had an excellent 15-to-Finish video available on YouTube. This video was shown to students at every orientation.

Baseline Status
  • Metric 2.1: Does the institution have a well-defined program to encourage on-time graduation? It does now due to the preregistering of freshman, the use of videos to encourage full-time enrollment, and the use of program maps (see next goal).
  • Fall 2013: 1,951 students enrolled in 15 hours or more.

Interim Measures of Progress
  • Creation of videos by early Spring 2015—Not completed since an excellent quality video was already available on YouTube.
  • Increased number of students at all levels enrolled in 15 or more hours.

Measures of Success

Increased number of students enrolled in 15 hours or more—increase of 4.3% from Fall 2013 to Fall 2015. (Our goal was 10 %.)

Fall 2013: 1,951 (27.8%)

Fall 2014: 2,115 (30.7%)

Fall 2015: 2,228 (32.1%)

See Appendix I for cohort progression of earned credits.

Lessons Learned

Anecdotally, we discovered that few students change a schedule if one is given to them at orientation.  Using the orientation survey and preregistering students appears to have had a significant impact on full-time enrollment.