"At a panel on using course scheduling as a retention tool, I came away with one insight, one statistic and one phrase. The insight was that schedule optimization works best at scale; the smaller the scale, the less room to move. That's especially true at multicampus or multilocation institutions. As the rep from Ad Astra put it, "It's not helpful to offer things partway.""
"The statistic was that the major jump in retention occurs among students who take at least 18 credits per year. Lower than that and retention drops precipitously; higher than that and the gains are incremental. Eighteen seems to be the magic number. Finally, someone (my notes fail me) termed some students whose courses were at inaccessible times or locations "unintentionally part-time.""
Schedule optimization works best at scale; smaller scale reduces flexibility, especially for multicampus or multilocation institutions. Offering courses partially or inconsistently is not helpful for student access. A major retention improvement appears when students take at least 18 credits per year; below that retention drops sharply, while above that the gains are incremental. Students with courses at inaccessible times or locations become unintentionally part-time, a condition that can mirror workforce scheduling constraints. Context significantly affects how academic policies influence student retention, and geographic sparsity complicates proximity and scheduling trade-offs.
Read at Inside Higher Ed | Higher Education News, Events and Jobs
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]