Completion Assessment Tool

The items in this assessment tool reflect strong practices observed through Aspen’s research and direct engagements with excellent community colleges, which we define as those achieving high and improving levels of student success (1) both while in college and after graduation (2) overall and for students of color and low-income students. The assessment tool is organized into several domains of practice emerging from Aspen’s research and prompts users to rate their institution’s adoption of each item within each domain. Once complete, a summary of scores will allow colleges to identify strengths and weaknesses in specific practices aligned to each item and to observe which domains most need improvement. 

In this assessment tool, the term “student success” has the following meaning:

  • Success in college: Students (1) learn and (2) complete credentials.
  • Success after college: Students (1) get good jobs and/or (2) transfer and attain a bachelor’s degree.
  • Equitable outcomes and access: For Black, Hispanic, Indigenous, and low-income students, the college ensures high absolute rates and minimizes gaps in (1) learning and completion outcomes for students in college, (2) transfer and workforce outcomes for students after college, and (3) enrollment of different demographic groups relative to the college’s service area.

Directions: Assess the extent to which your college engages each of the following practices, according to the scoring rubric.

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Domain 1

Vision
College leaders have a clear, prioritized agenda for improving completion outcomes across the entire college.
The college’s prioritized agenda includes goals for students completing high-value programs, meaning those that lead directly to a good job or to seamless transfer in a major to a four-year institution.
The college’s prioritized agenda includes substantial components aimed at addressing inequities and improving completion outcomes for students less likely to complete, including students of color and those from low-income backgrounds who are enrolled.
The president and senior leadership have adopted a limited set of leading and lagging indicators associated with improving completion; review metrics disaggregated by race, ethnicity, income, age, and gender; and use the metrics frequently to craft and assess reforms aimed at improving completion.
The metrics college leaders use to assess progress on completion include measures of whether students are enrolled in and completing programs that lead to strong transfer/BA attainment and employment/earnings outcomes.
The board has adopted specific completion goals, understands the college’s prioritized completion strategies, and adopts policies and budgets with those goals and strategies in mind.
The president and senior team consistently communicate the importance of improving completion outcomes to others at the college (including faculty and staff).

Domain 2

Ensure Strong Programs
The president and senior leaders regularly evaluate the strength of programs by assessing students’ graduation rates and post-graduation success in transfer/bachelor’s attainment and workforce.
Each new program of study is designed with the end in mind: either transfer in a major to specific universities or a job that offers sustaining wages and benefits.
Each program of study has a clear program map that includes course sequences, learning goals, and co-curricular activities designed to prepare students for the program’s intended outcomes, including transfer to a four-year institution and bachelor’s attainment or entry into a job with sustaining wages and benefits.
The college has a system in pace to ensure that courses required for each program of study are scheduled at times and in formats that help students make timely progress toward completion.
The college has scaled developmental education reform in ways that increase access to and completion of gateway courses for all students, and ensure equity in completion by race/ethnicity, age, gender, and income level.
Program review is conducted annually for all programs (including liberal arts/transfer), includes data on post-graduation success, and is consistently used to improve/maintain program quality and alignment to post-graduation success.
Selective programs at the college (e.g., nursing) are regularly evaluated to assess equity in enrollment and completion rates as well as the completion and post-completion outcomes of students not admitted to those programs, disaggregated by race, ethnicity, gender, and income level.

Domain 3

Provide Program-Aligned Advising
College leaders have structured advising in ways that mandate (or otherwise make inescapable) a consistent set of advising touchpoints to help students get on and stay on a path to graduation.
In their first semester, every student gets help exploring career and program interests with the goal that every student will choose a program of study.
The college has a system of advising/coaching designed to ensure that, by the end of their first year, every student has created an individualized plan to complete a program of study.
Every student is assigned an advisor (ideally in their program area) who is trained and held accountable for monitoring the student’s progress on their academic plan and intervening when they show signs of struggling.
At key milestones every term, advisors proactively communicate with students to prompt them to schedule appointments, access support services, meet with faculty, etc.
The college follows a process for identifying students at risk of not succeeding and consistently follows up and that system is used by all/most faculty and advisors, and supported by technology (e.g., early alert system).
In students’ first year, financial aid advisors help students create a financial plan for their entire undergraduate education—including completion of a bachelor’s degree for students in liberal arts programs.
The college has a well-considered set of student supports to address those nonacademic needs that stand in the way of retention and completion (e.g., emergency aid, mental health referral, transportation, food pantry).
In designing and implementing its advising services, the college has considered the needs of different student groups, disaggregated by race/ethnicity, income level, age, and family status.
The college designs programs to support students of color and low-income students (e.g., minority male programs, TRIO, Upward Bound, emergency financial aid) to ensure those programs meet the needs of all students in those populations.

Domain 4

Build Institutional Capacity for Completion
The college has tied its strategies for improving completion to an overall prioritized agenda that includes a limited set of reforms aligned to improve student outcomes at scale.
The college has effective plans in place to implement completion strategies, including cross-functional teams that include senior team members and have clear charges and SMART goals aligned to completion priorities.
The president, senior team, and division and department leaders routinely monitor the impact of all major student success initiatives—disaggregated by race/ethnicity, age, gender, and income level—and make changes when appropriate.
College leaders routinely monitor how strategies that impact completion for all students (e.g., registration rules, mandatory advising, student success courses) impact different racial/ethnic, age, gender, and income groups, and use that information to revise strategies.
College leaders strategically allocate financial resources to advance completion goals and metrics (not just enrollment goals and metrics).
The college is implementing a human capital plan aligned to its completion goals that includes recruiting, hiring, onboarding, professional development, and incentivizing behaviors among staff responsible for completion outcomes.
All staff and faculty have individual goals that align with the college’s student success priorities, including completion goals.
The college has well-established, regular processes—such as surveys, secret shoppers, and focus groups—for understanding the experience of students, disaggregated by race/ethnicity, first-generation, low-income, and gender, and uses that information alongside completion data to strengthen programs and student supports.
Deans, directors, and others responsible for completion reforms are provided professional development on effective implementation, have incentives in place to meet goals and milestones, and are held accountable for achieving higher and more equitable levels of completion.

Completion Assessment Inquiry Guide

This guide aims to help community college leaders craft and review strategic priorities to improve student completion outcomes. The guide’s prompts and questions are designed to be considered alongside (1) data gathered by the college on student completion outcomes and (2) a summary of responses to Aspen’s completion assessment tool, built on research about effective practices in the field. While we anticipate users of this guide will gather additional quantitative and qualitative information, the data and assessment responses—together with this guide—will support leaders in developing specific areas for improvement.  

Completion Assessment Inquiry Questions

Where do you see stronger and weaker outcomes in student completion data?  Where are the largest differences in outcomes among different student groups?  What is improving, and what is not? 

What in your completion assessment results is strongest and weakest?

  1. In establishing a vision for completion that includes goals and strategies for improving completion in high-value programs? 
  2. In ensuring strong programs that inspire students and prepare them for success after graduation?
  3. In providing program-aligned advising that ensures students get on and stay on a path to completion in a high-value program? 
  4. In building institutional capacity for completion by investing in a culture of data inquiry and continuous improvement? 
     

How are your completion outcomes and assessment results connected? 

  1. Where are your completion outcomes strongest, overall and by program of study? Is there anything in your completion assessment responses that might explain those strengths? 
  2. Where are your completion outcomes weakest, overall and by program of study?  Is there anything in your completion assessment responses that might explain those weaker outcomes? What weaknesses seem most important to address? 
     

How are your leading indicators of completion (e.g., credit hour accumulation, gateway course completion, percentage of students with a full academic plan, etc.) and your assessment results related?

  1. Have trends in leading indicators of completion resulted in similar trends in graduation rates? Why or why not?
  2. What assessment results are strongest and weakest in relation to advising?  How might that explain your leading and lagging indicators of completion?
  3. How effective is your college at ensuring that students select a program of study and develop an individualized completion plan in their first semester or first year? How might that explain graduation rates (and other completion metrics)?
  4. What assessment results are strongest and weakest in relation to ensuring program strength?  How might that explain your college’s completion data?
  5. Which gateway courses have the highest and lowest completion rates? How does that relate to completion rates within each program?   
     

What are your primary completion initiatives? How do you know if they are effective and scaled to all students who could benefit?

  1. What are your most effective completion strategies for all students? Is there evidence your college could expand or strengthen those programs further?
  2. What are your most effective completion programs targeted to certain student groups? Is there evidence your college could expand or strengthen those programs further?
  3. What are your least effective completion efforts? For all students?  For certain student groups? 
     

Next Steps

  1. What are the 1-5 most important things you uncovered about your completion data? What do you most want to improve?
  2. What are the 1-5 most important things you uncovered about completion practices from your assessment tool and the inquiry questions above? Among the areas of weakness, what few changes would make the biggest positive difference? 
  3. What immediate next steps will you take to ensure progress on these lessons learned?
     

Completion Assessment Data Queries

First-year gateway course completion rates: What are the completion rates for critical gateway courses, including credit-bearing math and English in the first year and key courses for programs of study (e.g., introduction to psychology, business analytics, anatomy, and physiology)? 

Credit hour accumulation (“credit intensity”): What is the average number of credits attempted and completed by students each year?  How is that number changing over time? What percentage of students meet particular milestones (e.g., 15 credits or 30 credits a year)? 

Students with a full academic/transfer plan: What percentage of your students have an individualized academic plan to complete a program of study?  What percentage of students with a plan have one aligned to transfer or workforce success? At what rate do students who have these plans complete a certificate or transfer, relative to students who do not?

Graduation in 100% and 150% of intended time:

  1. College-wide: What is your graduation rate for all students (including part-time) in two and three years? How does it vary by subgroups? How does your three-year graduation rate for first-time, full-time students in IPEDS (150% time) compare to the national average and to the average among peer community colleges? 
  2. By program: What is the graduation rate in two and three years by programs of study? Which programs have the highest and lowest completion rates? Which programs have the most completers? How do these metrics vary by student subgroups? 
  3. By part-time status: What is the graduation rate of your part-time students? How does this compare to full-time students? Which student demographic groups are most likely to attend part-time?   
     

Credentials per 100 FTE: How do your credentials awarded per 100 FTE students compare to national averages and peer schools? Relative to other schools, is your credentials per 100 FTE rate better or worse? What does this tell you about the outcomes of full-time and part-time students? 

Time to credential: On average, how many terms does it take a student to complete a credential? How has this changed over time?

Credits per credential/excess credits upon completion: On average, how many credits has a student accumulated upon completion? How does this compare to the number of credits required?  How are these metrics changing over time?