Northeast Ohio Community College Redesigns Student Experience to Boost Student Success

ELYRIA, Ohio, May 23, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Lorain County Community College (LCCC),  nationally-acclaimed for its focus on student success, today announced the latest results of a multi-year campaign to improve student success by helping students successfully navigate clearer pathways to a degree. Using Civitas Learning's integrated student success platform and suite of applications, LCCC identified common barriers to student persistence that occur during registration, scheduling, and academic advising. More important, however, they were able to use deep data analysis, personalized predictive models, and unified applications to support the redesign of student pathways, power advisor guidance, and inform students' choices along their journeys, resulting in a 11.9 percentage point increase in full-time student retention.  

In recent years, the greater Cleveland area community college has received numerous honors for their efforts to improve student outcomes and experience, including the top student-success honor from the American Association of Community Colleges in 2018.

"The hard work of our faculty, staff, advisors, and students is reflected not just in growing national recognition, but, more importantly, in the improved outcomes of striving students year after year," said Marcia J. Ballinger, Ph.D., President of Lorain County Community College. "Civitas Learning has been a powerful partner in this work, enabling us to reduce the sort of friction and barriers that historically prevented students from achieving their potential."

Drawing on sophisticated data science and technology through the Civitas Learning platform, LCCC gained access to important insights into what was working well and what was causing challenges for their increasingly diverse student populations-especially key issues around time to degree, working-student barriers, and transfer-student needs. These insights informed policy changes and the creation of new student support programs that streamlined the college's academic pathways. Because the platform and apps help LCCC educators better understand and support each student and not push for one-size-fits-all support for all students, LCCC advisors were also able to more effectively scale and personalize student outreach and support.

LCCC also used insights and technology powered by the Civitas Learning platform to streamline the registration and academic planning process for students. For example, instead of sorting through 2,500 potential schedules, students can use Civitas Learning tools to select courses and pathways that will get them to completion most effectively. With more efficient academic planning, LCCC students have achieved $3.1 million in tuition savings from reduced credits.

The combination of streamlined academic pathways and personalized support sparked a dramatic improvement in student outcomes - an 11.9 percentage point increase in retention, an 89.9 percent increase in awarded degrees and certificates, and a 254 percent increase in the IPEDS graduation rate.

"Lorain has more than solidified its place among the nation's most visionary community colleges. Dr. Ballinger and the team at Lorain are trail blazers in their focus on student experience, using data to increasingly simplify and better inform student choice, accelerate completion, and improve transfer," said Dr. Mark David Milliron, Co-Founder and Chief Learning Officer at Civitas Learning. "We're proud to support their work and look forward to continuing to help even more Lorain students achieve their dreams."

Lorain County Community College is part of a community of more than 375 colleges and universities worldwide using the Civitas Learning platform, solutions and services to engage and nudge students, guide course planning and class scheduling, and support case management by advisors and faculty.

About Civitas Learning®: Civitas Learning's student success intelligence platform leverages each institution's unique data to help them chart the best course to improved outcomes for students. The platform is grounded in unparalleled work in data science, built into workflows with integrated applications, and implemented on site with seasoned strategic service teams. Today, Civitas Learning is a strategic partner to 375 colleges and universities, serving nearly 8 million students. Together with our growing community of partners, Civitas Learning is making the most of the world's learning data to help graduate a million more students per year by 2025.

SOURCE Civitas Learning