Public Agenda launched our investigation of institutions that are successfully catalyzing economic mobility for low income students because we believe that our country will be at its best when every individual and family—no matter their income level—believes that by working hard to learn and develop, students can set themselves on a course toward a better life. And if we want people to believe that, it has to be true.

We started with the premise that learning how success is achieved could help us provide practical guidance to colleges and universities that want to contribute to economic mobility. We have shared what we learned in this resource, but we know that every institution must walk its own path to change. What follows are questions that can provide starting points for people who would like to jumpstart economic mobility through their institutions.

Who can answer these questions? The simplest answer is that only those who know from experience can answer them. That means that they cannot be answered by one individual—no matter how senior—sitting alone in an office. These questions require the perspectives of a range of administrators, staff and faculty members, students, and parents. They aren’t a test to be completed by one person but an invitation to engage in conversations with a diverse range of people whose individual perspectives can join together to fill out a rich picture of where you are—which is the first step in a process of figuring out how to get where you want to go.

We’d be glad to help. Public Agenda has a long history of bringing people together to explore questions and identify solutions. If you’d like our help as you take on a change process to become an economic mobility success story, please reach out to Maggie Grove at [email protected].

Getting started. We’ve compiled this set of questions based on the experiences of four-year institutions that have achieved success in contributing to the economic mobility of low-income students. We offer them as a guide to begin planning.

Click the topics below to open the questions.

Are senior leaders hearing routinely from student-facing staff and faculty about the barriers to student success?

  • If so, in what settings?
  • Does everyone know they are welcome to be in those places and to share their ideas?
  • How do you know they know they are welcome—not only to be there but to share unorthodox ideas?

Do student-facing staff and faculty have evidence that senior leaders listen to them?

  • Are there visible changes that have resulted from insights and suggestions shared by frontline staff?
  • Have affirmative steps been taken to inform people of those changes and let them know whose ideas inspired them?

Do staff members feel safe making suggestions about areas outside their direct authority, such as curriculum and academic policies?

  • Are academic advisors encouraged to provide input on the impact of scheduling, requirements, and other faculty-controlled areas on students? Are they invited into meetings on such matters?
  • Can you point to decisions that would not have been made without the input of academic advisors or other student-facing professionals?

Does the institution take action based on a data-informed approach to supporting low income students?

  • Does a cross-functional team monitor student progress weekly? Do they collaboratively plan interventions as necessary?
  • Is there a system for immediate intervention and support for individual students that fail to enroll or who are struggling academically?
  • Is there a system for making changes to course sequencing, payment policies, or other structural challenges revealed by enrollment and retention data?
  • Are there systems (formal and informal) for learning about social circumstances impacting students (i.e. loss of housing, transportation, childcare)? Are there dedicated funds and other types of support to bridge gaps and keep students enrolled and progressing?
  • Are institutional researchers and other data specialists encouraged to identify ways their data can be used to support an economic mobility agenda? Are they encouraged to think of themselves not as report-producers but as problem-solvers?

Does the institution provide resources and support to encourage faculty and staff members to build community engagement into academic and co-curricular programs?

Do your faculty and staff members share similar experiences and backgrounds as your students?

  • Do you employ people who come from the same communities as your students? How many? In what roles? Do students know that people from their communities work at the institution?
  • Do you employ alumni of your institution? First generation alumni? How many? In what roles? Do students know that first generation alumni work at the institution?

Are your teams cross-trained (particularly with financial aid experience)? 

  • Do faculty and staff feel comfortable directly connecting students to resources outside of their professional areas, helping students access the registrar, financial aid, advising, etc. Does this happen?

Do members of the senior leadership team define their roles through the lens of success for low income students?

  • Is your CFO’s job defined to include building a financial model that enables the university to enroll a high proportion of low income students without an expectation that they pay?
  • Is your chief enrollment officer’s job defined to include ensuring that, say, more than half of incoming students are from low income backgrounds?
  • Are the jobs of your government affairs officer and development chief defined to focus on securing resources to enable low income students to attend and succeed?
  • Are senior leaders recruited based in part on their capacity to connect with the experiences of low income students, along with a demonstrated commitment to low income student success?

Is your student recruitment strategy focused on competing for students who have decided to go to college or connecting with students so that they choose college?

  • How are you reaching students who would not otherwise go to college?
  • At what stage in their education do they first learn about your institution?
  • What opportunities do students have to build connections to your institution before the college application process begins?
  • Do you have a strategy for engaging adults who have not completed a college degree?
  • Do you have defined approaches for engaging active duty military and veterans?

How are you engaging families?

  • Can you reach families in the language most comfortable for them?
  • How are you communicating with families about the long-term benefits of higher education?
  • Does family engagement continue past matriculation? How are families included throughout the course of students’ education?
  • Do residents in communities surrounding the campus routinely see evidence of productive partnerships between their community and the university (for example, students volunteering, community-engaged learning and research, etc.)?

How have you smoothed pathways to enrollment?

  • Is there seamless transfer of credits from community colleges?
  • Is it possible for students to apply once to both a community college and the university?
  • Is there technical assistance for course enrollment?
  • Are you engaged in partnerships that enable incarcerated people to enroll and earn credits?
  • What investments in K-12 partnerships do you have? 
  • Do you have enrollment goals connected to specific community college and K-12 partners and do you monitor progress against those goals?

Have you made attendance free for low income students?

  • If yes, are you including tuition, fees, food, housing, books and other materials?
  • Do you have an upper limit on how many low income students you are seeking to enroll? Or would you take every qualified low income student you can find?

Are there tradeoffs you would need to make to achieve a much higher level of low income student enrollment while keeping college free for those students?

  • What are those tradeoffs? Are you willing to make them?
  • If not, what’s standing in the way? What would have to change for you to recruit the largest possible number of low income students while keeping college free for them?

Does the university have a strategy for contributing to the development of a local and regional economy that will create job market demand for your graduates?

  • Does your institution coordinate with other higher education institutions in the region to improve pipeline development in support of shared prosperity?
  • Does your institution partner with elected officials and other regional leaders in advocacy efforts in support of regional economic development?

In developing new degree and certificate programs—and redeveloping existing ones—does the university incorporate insights from its regional economic development strategy?

Are first generation alumni actively engaged in building job pipelines for graduates?

Is the college a major employer of alumni?