Improving Retention

In partnership with 30 colleges and universities, the National Center for Academic Transformation (NCAT) has proven that it is possible to improve quality and reduce cost in higher education. Course redesign using information technology is key. Primary Findings  Twenty-five of the 30 projects showed a significant increase in student learning. (The other five showed learning equivalent to traditional formats.)  Eighteen of the 24 projects measuring retention reported a decrease in drop-failure-withdrawal rates, and an increase in course-completion rates.  All reduced costs by 37% on average (ranging from 20% to 77%) and produced a collective annual savings of about $3 million.  Collectively the 30 courses enroll about 50,000 students annually.  Other positive outcomes included improved student attitudes to the subject matter and increased student and faculty satisfaction with the mode of instruction. AMERICAN COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES are continuously challenged to increase access to higher education, improve the quality of student learning, and control or reduce the rising cost of instruction. These challenges are interrelated. As tuition costs continue to rise, access is curtailed. When high failure rates prevent students from successfully completing courses and programs, promises of increased access become hollow. Solutions to these challenges appear to be interrelated as well. Historically, either improving quality or increasing access has meant increasing costs. Reducing costs, in turn, has meant cutting quality, access, or both. In order to sustain higher education's vitality while serving a growing and increasingly diverse student body, it must find a way to resolve this familiar—and seemingly intractable— trade-off between cost and quality. Many colleges and universities are discovering exciting new ways of using information technology to enhance teaching and learning and to extend access to new populations of students. For most institutions, however, new technologies represent a black hole of additional expense. " Many colleges and universities are discovering exciting new ways of using information technology to enhance teaching and learning. .. "