This imbalance in the national conversation is particularly troubling because community colleges disproportionately serve students from urban communities, first-generation students, working adults, and students from historically underrepresented populations. These institutions were created to expand access to opportunity. However, access without intentional preparation and sustained support often leads students directly into the very barriers higher education claims it wants to remove.
Recently, during a conversation with a Vice President of Enrollment Management and several academic deans, the discussion centered on why students were struggling in gateway courses such as mathematics, English composition, biology, and history. The conversation repeatedly returned to whether students were academically prepared for college-level work. At one point, two questions were asked of the administrators:
What are the top feeder high schools your students graduate from?
What work are you doing with those schools to prepare students before they arrive on your campus?
No one in the room could answer either question.
That moment represented a larger national problem in higher education. Institutions possess years of enrollment, persistence, and gateway course data, yet many fail to use it to build meaningful partnerships with the schools and communities from which their students come. Instead, colleges wait until students arrive underprepared, then attempt to remediate barriers after students have already begun struggling academically, financially, and emotionally.
Creating Institutional “Think Tanks”
One strategy I believe could significantly reshape this work is the development of institutional “Think Tanks” focused on educational transitions and student success ecosystems. These Think Tanks would intentionally bring together high school teachers, counselors, community college faculty and staff, university representatives, and workforce leaders to examine the full educational pipeline rather than isolated institutional outcomes.
Far too often, educational sectors operate independently from one another. High schools are blamed for inadequate preparation. Community colleges are criticized for low completion rates. Universities question transfer readiness. Employers argue graduates lack workforce skills. Yet very few spaces exist where these groups regularly sit together, analyze shared data, discuss barriers collectively, and develop coordinated strategies to improve outcomes for students moving through each stage of the educational journey.
These Think Tanks should not function as ceremonial advisory committees. They should be active working groups grounded in data, problem-solving, and strategic planning. Institutions should disaggregate enrollment, gateway course completion, persistence, transfer, and workforce outcome data to identify where students are struggling most throughout the transition process.
More importantly, Think Tanks could become powerful tools during peer evaluation and reaffirmation processes with accrediting agencies. Accrediting bodies increasingly expect institutions to demonstrate data-informed planning, assessment, collaboration, and measurable student success efforts. Think Tanks provide institutions with a clear structure to document cross-divisional collaboration, equity initiatives, and continuous improvement efforts tied directly to student outcomes.
Rethinking New Student Orientation
The issue extends beyond academic preparation. It also includes how colleges integrate students into the institution once they enroll. Many colleges continue to rely on outdated models of New Student Orientation (NSO) that overwhelm students rather than support them.
At many community colleges, orientation has become a one-day marathon of information overload. Students are taught how to use email, something many may never use again after that day, how to navigate learning management systems, about student activities, satisfactory academic progress (SAP) requirements — which many do not fully understand until they are no longer meeting them — academic standing policies often confused with SAP, tutoring services, and if they are lucky, they may get 15 rushed minutes with an advisor to adjust a schedule.
If you are tired after reading that packed day, imagine how students feel living through it.
Honestly, it reminds me of those long finalist interview days on a college campus where you are shuffled from stakeholder to stakeholder for hours answering questions about your vision and why you want the position. By the end of the day, even experienced professionals are mentally exhausted. Yet somehow, we expect first-semester students — many navigating college for the first time — to absorb all of this information in a single sitting and walk away feeling connected and confident.
The whole model of how we are integrating students into college is outdated and needs to be revamped.
Student integration must be viewed as a developmental process occurring throughout the first year, not as a one-day transaction. Rather than overwhelming students during orientation, institutions should rethink onboarding as an ongoing engagement strategy.
Colleges could implement:
- “First Six Weeks” transition programs focused on time management, academic expectations, and navigating campus resources.
- Three-week check-ins intentionally asking students about barriers they did not anticipate upon enrollment, including transportation, childcare, housing instability, food insecurity, employment demands, and mental health concerns.
- Embedded success coaches who proactively contact students showing early signs of academic or financial distress.
- Expanded cohort-based support programs for students with shared experiences such as minority male initiatives, parenting students, first-generation students, adult learners, and students receiving public assistance.
- Structured student engagement opportunities intentionally helping students build relationships with faculty, advisors, student support staff, and peers during their first semester. Students are more likely to persist when they feel connected to people within the institution rather than simply connected to services.
Reimagining the First Year Experience
Innovation within First Year Experience (FYE) programs is equally important. Ironically, many people do not realize that some of the foundational work surrounding first-year experience programs within community colleges trace back to faculty at Bronx Community College during the early 1990's. However, many FYE courses today have drifted away from that original vision and often operate with little consistency, engagement, or intentional pedagogy.
Institutions should stop viewing FYE as simply a one-credit academic requirement and instead rethink it as a student connection strategy.
Students do not build belonging through policy presentations alone. They build belonging through relationships.
One simple but powerful innovation could be replacing traditional orientation “passport stamp” activities with what I call “Take a Selfie With Me” engagement initiatives. Instead of students rushing around campus collecting signatures proving they visited offices, students would take selfies with advisors, department chairs, deans, faculty members, student support staff, librarians, and administrators. Faculty could participate in the experience by welcoming students into academic departments and introducing themselves in informal and engaging ways.
At first glance, this may sound small or symbolic. It is not.
Students are far more likely to seek help from individuals they recognize and feel comfortable approaching. A selfie becomes more than a photo; it becomes an introduction, a memory, and a point of connection. It humanizes the institution.
Colleges should also publicly celebrate new students in visible ways. Imagine institutions creating a webpage each semester highlighting incoming freshman and transfer students. Students could voluntarily share photos, hometowns, academic interests, transfer goals, or aspirations. Families would engage with it. Students would share it on social media. Most importantly, students would feel seen.
This is new age engagement.
Student Success Is an Institutional Responsibility
Most importantly, higher education must stop treating student success as solely the responsibility of the student. Colleges and universities must examine whether institutional structures themselves are contributing to student attrition.
Community colleges have long served as engines of opportunity. However, opportunities without intentional preparation, coordinated support, and institutional accountability is insufficient.
Student success begins long before the first day of class. It begins when institutions stop asking why students are unprepared and start asking what colleges themselves can do differently to prepare students for success.
Authors:
Dr. Jonelle Knox - Assistant Provost – Student Success and Retention – New Jersey City University and Associate Adjunct Professor – Bronx Community College. He currently serves as the President of National Council on Student Development
Audrey Glenn-Rose – Sr. Advisor – Bronx Community College
