CSUN’s Graduation Initiative 2025 proposal, written in July 2016, focused on enrollment management, advising, data capability expansion, first year for freshmen and transfers, and retention. CSUN’s efforts in each of these areas align with the six pillars of the CSU Graduation Initiative 2025: Academic Preparation, Enrollment Management, Student Engagement and Well-being, Financial Aid, Data-Driven Decision Making, and Administrative Barriers.
Graduation Rates and Opportunity Gaps
In Fall 2016, colleges and departments were given graduation rate and opportunity gap goals for their majors. Colleges were asked to reevaluate graduation plans for freshmen and transfers and engage faculty in a process of reviewing curriculum and pedagogy in order to increase course completion while maintaining academic rigor and a commitment to equity and inclusive excellence. Deans who succeed in improving graduation rates will be prioritized for added tenure-line faculty positions.
Outcomes
At the university level:
One-year retention for FTF increased from 77% among the Fall 2015 cohort to 80.7% among the Fall 2016 cohort. This was the first time we have surpassed 80%
This was largely a result of narrowing opportunity gaps. The one-year retention rate between Latinx and White students declined from 11 percentage points to 7 percentage points. The gap between African American and White students declined from 17.95 percentage points to 11.5 percentage points.
Six-year graduation rates increased as well. 49.9% of FTF in the 2010 cohort graduated within 6 years, compared with 50.9% of FTF in the 2011 cohort. Six-year grad rates increased for better served and underserved students, but at just about the same rates, so the graduation rate gap narrowed only slightly (from 15.8 percentage points to 15.6 percentage points).
At the college level:
All eight colleges observed increases in one-year retention rates for FTF in the 2016 cohort ranging from .6 of a percentage point to to 15 percentage points (the average increase was 5 percentage points). The gaps in retention rates between better served and underserved students narrowed in 5 of the 8 colleges.
Six colleges experienced an increase in six-year graduation rates for FTF in the 2011 cohort. Of those six colleges, three narrowed the six-year graduation gap between better served and under served students.