Benedict College is celebrating a 104 percent increase in its four-year graduation rates compared to its historical baseline. While the average rate sat at a modest 13.7% between 2007 and 2017, recent cohorts (2019–2023 and 2020–2024) have surged to over 28 percent, effectively doubling the number of students finishing their degrees on time.
Despite the "unprecedented disruptions" of the COVID-19 pandemic, the institution maintained its upward trajectory. The 2021–2025 cohort still reflects a 24 percent graduation rate, which represents a 75 percent improvement over the historical average, signaling that the college’s new support systems are durable even under external pressure.
The college attributes these gains to a shift toward "student-centered" innovation. By focusing on data-informed decision-making and removing administrative or academic barriers to "persistence," the administration has transformed the campus culture into one of academic triumph — a feat UNCF leadership suggests makes the college a high-value target for further philanthropic investment.
While these graduation rates seem low on the surface, Benedict’s recent surge to 28 percent “four and out the door” rates, as Dr. Roslyn Clark Artis, Benedict's president refers to as the goal of getting students’ degrees in hand within four years, are actually higher than the national average when controlling for population. Data from the National Center for Education Statistics show that for institutions with high Pell shares (60 percent or higher), that rate typically settles between 20-27 percent. Similarly, while the six-year graduation rate for less selective schools is around 53 percent, the four-year rate for these same institutions is historically half that amount.
Typically, graduation data is reported on a six-year cycle, but as Artis pointed out in a recent interview, “most of our students are low-wealth kids, and they can’t afford to be here on the five- and six-year plans.” “We’re not playing” about getting students out in four years, she said. “Charging poor students more than they can afford to pay [serves no one],” she said, adding that Benedict went through a tuition reset in 2018 that led to a 26 percent reduction in tuition – and the institution’s discount rate sits at an additional 26 percent above that.
“We are very, very, very committed to affordability, because what we saw during COVID-19 when we had the ability to provide additional support to our students – they needed it,” Artis continued, saying that institution leaders were reminded that “a flat tire will take a poor kid out of school. A medical bill will take a poor kid out of school.”
“Money can solve myriad problems. If you have the resources, your students will be successful,” Artis added. The irony is that Benedict, a small, private, historically Black university in Columbia, S.C. doesn’t have the resources that other institutions have, though leaders across higher education continue to praise their ability to do more with less.
In addition to considering the ability of their students to afford to persist beyond financial barriers, there were a number of other tangible changes the university implemented that Artis credits with playing a part in boosting student success outcomes.
For one, after having been an open enrollment institution for many years, the university's leadership team decided in 2018 that students needed to have “a documented minimum level of preparedness” to attend.
They also re-evaluated the general education curriculum and realized that Benedict was requiring more classes than peer institutions, so they overhauled the curriculum to streamline learning and help get students to the finish line faster. They started encouraging heavily the “15 to finish” plan, urging students to enroll in a minimum of 15 credit hours each semester. This also meant leaders needed to join a core sharing consortium hosted through Acadeum to help ensure students can take the classes they need to stay in sequence, in the event it isn’t offered at Benedict.
Artis said leaders are also being "very responsive to how and when we communicate with students,” adding that the institution has added midnight chats, recognizing most college students are night owls.
They are also embracing technology like chatbots to help fill in the gaps where they don’t necessarily have the human capacity – and where a staff member’s time might be better spent advising and helping students, not just providing basic answers to questions that can be found on the university’s website.
“This is a moment where although the tech can be expensive and it can be scary, this is a moment where we absolutely must leverage the” tools that are available to increase efficiency on campus, said Artis.
