That is the major thrust behind a new report released Monday and meant to highlight the best ways to identify and assist students for whom a lack of cash is the only thing that stands in between the students and earning a degree.
Institutions have more than just altruistic reasons to help such students. By providing small grants that help students graduate, it ultimately boosts institutional completion rates and enables colleges and universities to keep the tuition money they might lose if a student dropped out, the report states.
In terms of service to students, the completion grants signal that institutions care.
“It’s important because it shows commitment to students who’ve been working hard and are close to graduation,” said Shari Garmise, vice president for the Association of Public & Land-Grant Universities’ Office of Urban Initiatives and the Coalition of Urban Serving Universities, which released the report.
“What these grants do is get them through to the end,” Garmise said.
Tiffany Beth Mfume, director of the Office of Student Success and Retention at Morgan State University—one of the institutions featured in the report—said Morgan State started issuing completion grants back in 2010 after university officials saw 30 to 50 students per year who had 90 or more credits, good GPAs and who had inexplicably stopped going to school.
