Recently, I visited Harris-Stowe State University in St. Louis, a campus that reflects both the promise of higher education and the work still ahead for a system navigating a critical inflection point.
Harris–Stowe is a public historically Black university, offering a range of majors, minors, and certificate programs across education, business, and the arts and sciences. It serves a largely first-generation student population and plays a critical role in advancing degree attainment and economic mobility for students of color in the region.
Like many institutions, it is navigating shifting enrollment patterns, evolving student needs, and rising expectations about what a college degree should deliver.
What stood out most was the progress I saw on campus.
Since 2017, Harris-Stowe has increased its six-year graduation rate from 6.9 percent to 32.4 percent, a significant improvement.
That kind of progress reflects intentional institutional transformation, redesigning how the university supports students from enrollment through completion, so they stay on track and graduate.
Why College Value Matters More than Ever
The conversation around higher education has evolved from a focus on access and affordability alone to a deeper question of whether students who enroll are able to complete their degrees and graduate with credentials that hold real value in the labor market.
That means students and families are asking harder questions: Will this degree lead to a good job, create real opportunity, and offer a better future? At its core, this is about whether our systems are designed to support student persistence and completion, not just entry. The data suggests we still have work to do.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, about 64 percent of students at four-year institutions graduate within six years. Meanwhile, roughly 43 million Americans have some college experience but no credential, highlighting the need to focus not just on access, but on completion and outcomes.
Students are also navigating more complex realities. According to Today’s Students Coalition, many students work while enrolled, nearly 70% hold jobs, and about one in five are parents, often balancing family responsibilities alongside their studies.
Yet too many institutions still operate in ways that don’t fully reflect or effectively serve the needs of the students they enroll.
From Urgency to Transformation
At Harris-Stowe, that challenge became impossible to ignore.
As President Dr. LaTonia Collins Smith told me, the university recognized that too many students were falling off track, not because they lacked ability, but because the systems around them weren’t built to support their success.
“We knew we had to do a Rescue 911,” she said.
Through its partnership with Complete College America (CCA), one of six organizations in the Gates Foundation’s Transformation Intermediaries initiative, Harris-Stowe began examining where students were getting off track so that interventions could be implemented sooner.
As Provost Dr. Dimetri Horner put it, “We’ve been able to utilize CCA as a mirror to look inward and reflect.”
That reflection led to something more difficult, but more important: a fundamental redesign of how the institution supports students.
What Transformation Looks Like
At Harris-Stowe, advising has shifted from a transactional model to a proactive, coaching-based approach, with advisors regularly checking in, using real-time data to monitor progress, and intervening early.
A central part of that effort is what President Collins Smith calls “15 to Finish,” a commitment to ensuring that students enroll in at least 15 credit hours per semester so they can stay on track to graduate on time.
Developmental math education courses have been redesigned to better support students’ needs, reducing the cost and time burden of non-credit-bearing coursework that too often delays progress and strains students’ financial resources.
Data is used to identify where students are getting off track and respond earlier, before small challenges become barriers, and this work goes beyond individual roles.
President Collins Smith has led efforts to cross-train staff across functions, so that every interaction a student has with advising, financial aid, or academic departments is aligned around removing barriers, answering questions, and helping students move forward.
As she put it, “Leadership is not all the bells and whistles; it’s leading with the right thing to do.”
Over time, these changes have become embedded not just in programs, but in the organizational culture, shaping how decisions are made and how students are supported every day.
Why Partnerships Matter
Through the Transformation Intermediaries initiative, organizations like Complete College America, alongside the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU), the American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC), Excelencia in Education, Growing Inland Achievement, and UNCF, are working with hundreds of colleges and universities to accelerate large-scale transformation.
These organizations are helping institutions move from knowing what works to actually doing the work by strengthening decision-making, aligning systems, and supporting sustained implementation.
As CCA President Dr. Yolanda Watson Spiva has emphasized, the goal is not just to identify effective strategies, but to ensure they take hold and endure.
Because transformation doesn’t happen through isolated programs. It happens when institutions rethink how every decision can and should support student success.
What Students Experience and What Comes Next
The impact of this work at Harris-Stowe is most visible in students’ experiences. They describe clearer pathways, stronger advising relationships, and more opportunities to connect their learning to careers that lead to real economic mobility, all within a culture that is intentionally designed to support them at every step.
Nearly 78% of Harris-Stowe graduates now enter career fields aligned with their studies within six months of graduation. That outcome reflects real progress for the university.
Improving postsecondary outcomes at scale requires institutional transformation, redesigning how colleges and universities operate to consistently support students from enrollment through completion.
Harris-Stowe shows what delivering for students can look like. The work ahead is to make it the expectation, not the exception.
For higher education, the question is no longer just whether students can access college; it’s whether our systems are built to ensure they graduate with real opportunity and economic mobility on the other side.