Holistic Student Support

Navigating the path to a certificate or degree can be difficult and costly, especially for students who face challenges accessing academic and financial support. For too many, the road ends before graduation.

COVID-19 is magnifying these challenges as students wrestle with job loss, financial worries, and changing plans for their studies. The pandemic is also magnifying racial and economic disparities among students, with students from low-income backgrounds, first-generation students, and students of color facing more and greater obstacles on their educational path.

Keeping students on the path to their goals requires support for the whole student. This includes advising that addresses students’ academic, financial, and other issues; credit transfer that helps students change institutions without losing momentum, and emergency aid that prevents unplanned expenses from derailing a student’s journey. 

Turning More Tassels

This study, conducted by NASPA: Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education along with the Boston Consulting Group, gauges the return on investment of broad-based advising reforms—those that affect all students in a particular class—focusing on four institutions that have a strong track record of implementing changes to enhance their advising programs.
Read the Study


Investment Priorities

Our investments in this area focus on connecting colleges and universities with the best available knowledge and tools for implementing a comprehensive student advising strategy, one that includes stronger emergency aid and credit transfer policies and practices.

Implementing and Scaling Advising Redesign

Support partners in providing direct assistance for implementing and scaling advising redesign; continue to build a knowledge base on effective policies and practices.

Building Comprehensive Policies and Principles

Build demand and support for adoption of comprehensive state- and system-level policies and principles of best practice at the campus level.

Boosting Partner Capacity

Boost partner capacity to support institutions implementing and improving their emergency aid programs; expand knowledge base about effective aid design and delivery.