June 7, 2024

Faculty and Staff,

Last week I kicked off this series on UAF’s enrollment strategies. The topic for today’s message – graduation and retention rates. At a recent Board of Regents meeting, the Regents encouraged UA leaders to think critically about how to improve our retention and graduation rates. The Regents' direction opens up the conversation for us to think big and envision who we want to be as a university and what we need to do to get there.

Data on retention and graduation rates are critical to help us measure student success at UAF. These numbers are also interesting in that, while sometimes indicators of students' whole experience at our university, they are also directly tied to university admissions practices. Unsurprisingly, universities with high thresholds to entry have higher retention and graduation rates. Students who are admitted based on their high readiness for college are naturally most likely to complete their college degree in the most expedient manner.

At UAF, we are an open enrollment university (meaning we have no, or a very low threshold to admission). Due to the great work of our advisors and faculty, we boast a graduation rate above the national average for open-enrollment universities. We acknowledge that when students enter UAF who have a wide range of preparedness for college, we will have a wide range of retention and graduation rates. This is simply a result of the fact that not all students had the same opportunity to complete courses in high school that would have prepared them for a college curriculum.

For students who take pre-college classes as part of their college curriculum, time and cost increase. And while we have merit and needs-based scholarships at UAF, some students still delay their education for financial, personal, or other reasons. Any stop out or delay reduces UAF’s graduation and retention rate. Attracting a greater percentage of students with the academic preparation to enter at a college-ready level would have an immediate positive impact on our graduation. 

A question we have in front of us is; how do we continue to be an open enrollment university and one that achieves higher graduation and retention rates? One option is to separate our programs into tracks. This would be new to Alaska but is not uncommon in other states. If we were to start such a journey, we would want an open enrollment track that begins at our Community and Technical College and a 4-year and higher track that starts at the UAF Troth Yeddha’ Campus. We sort of have that already, but what we don’t have is criteria that say “4-year degree ready” go to Troth Yeddha’ and “1 year, 2 year, and 4-year degree prep” starting at CTC. We could implement this criteria by having a “4-year degree ready” admission standard cutoff for Troth Yeddha’, something already done at many university systems in the U.S.

In this way of thinking, no student would be denied admission to UAF. We would be open enrollment for sure. We would have a path for all students to 1 year, 2 year, 4 year and graduate degrees. Those who are 4-year degree ready would enter Troth Yeddha’, those who are not would enter CTC en route to their chosen degree. This would also make some added financial sense for those students entering CTC, as we have chosen to have a lower tuition rate at CTC.

As we continue to envision the future for UAF, there are just thoughts of using one tool (admissions standards) and a organizational pathway design to increase our service to Alaskans, to reduce cost to Alaskans, and to increase graduation and retention rates. 

This is just one potential path for UAF’s future, and in the coming months I look forward to engaging with our community on this discussion.

Let's talk more…

—Dan White, chancellor