The Science Behind Succeeding This Semester

Millions of college students are now in their first semesters. Unfortunately, a quarter of the students at four-year colleges and a third of those at community colleges won't make it to their second year, according to data from the US Department of Education. 16.6 million people now have student loan debt but no degree.

What can you do early on to increase your chances of staying in school? Some things are obvious, like going to class and studying in the library. To go beyond the obvious, you can use the practical insights from decades of research on student success to find belonging, set goals, seek support, manage time, make an impact, and find your career path.

Get involved with a group that accepts you:?A sense of belonging is a strong predictor for continuing in college. Data from the National College Health Assessment show that about a third of students don't feel like they belong. Joining a club or team, meeting with professors, working at a campus job, and going to spaces like a Pride Center, Multicultural Center, or Student Veterans Center are all good ways for you to get involved.?

Set task-based goals for yourself:?Goals can be powerful motivators, but the kind of goal matters. A study by economists at MIT of more than 4,000 students?found that task-based goals like “I will do 10 practice tests” work well but performance-based goals like “I will get a B in calculus” don’t.?

Take advantage of services that can support you:?Colleges provide services to help all students study, conduct research, make presentations, write, analyze data, improve health and wellbeing, and explore careers. Too few students take advantage of these despite their benefits. One example: a randomized trial of more than 10,000 students?found that students who met with success coaches were 9% more likely to stay in college.?

Manage your time and distractions to succeed online: Even before the pandemic, 36% of undergraduates took at least one course online. This will keep increasing. One sign of what’s to come: there are now more graduate students getting their MBAs online than on campus. In online courses, students need to set their own time and place to learn – the ability to manage their time and minimize distraction predicts their success.

Help a community group with your class projects: Class projects can take you beyond the classroom to do things like creating a social media strategy for a local non-profit, testing water quality, or documenting local stories. These provide chances to make an impact in a community, meet people, and see what it’s like to work in a field. They also provide a proven leg-up for future employment: finding jobs faster and getting paid more.

Find a mentor who’ll encourage you:?Early interactions can identify your future mentors – professors, advisors, employers, or community leaders who can offer advice, encouragement, and maybe even an example career path. These relationships pay off. Gallup’s research with Purdue University?found that students who had mentors were 1.9 times more likely to both think their education was worth the cost and to be excited by and committed to their work after graduation.

College is where you forge your identity, find your community, and chart the course of your career. To get the most out of college, you need to stay in school and graduate.?This depends not only on choices like what college you attend and what you major in, but in the everyday decisions you make in your semester about finding community, seeking support, and making an impact beyond the classroom.