Opinion: Arizona colleges must help students finish

Nearly 770,000 Arizonans have some college credit but no degree, according to the Arizona Board of Regents. Behind that number are hundreds of thousands of students who started down the path toward a credential, but for some reason didn’t finish.

Arizona is rightly investing in bringing these students back. But we should be equally focused on understanding why students disengage, and reaching them before they do.

For colleges, that presents a challenge: the students who most need support can also be the hardest to hear from.

A student struggling to pay rent may not walk into a financial aid office. A first-generation student questioning whether they belong may never tell an advisor. A student balancing classes, work and family responsibilities may stop responding. By the time an institution sees the clearest signal that something is wrong in a missed semester or withdrawal, the opportunity to help may have passed.

If Arizona wants more students to not only enroll in college, but to persist, complete their education, and enter the workforce, we need to get better at identifying challenges earlier and faster. This requires us to listen.

Too often our understanding of the student experience comes from the students who are easiest to hear: those who complete surveys, attend office hours, seek out an advisor, or know where to get help.

Those voices matter enormously, but they don’t necessarily tell us what is happening with the student working 30 hours a week, is the first in their family in college, or who doesn’t know that a campus resource exists or how to access it.

The question we should be asking is: How do we build a student-support system that doesn’t require students to raise their hands before we know they need help?

Part of the answer is creating more frequent and accessible ways to listen.

Technology gives colleges new opportunities to check in with students, understand what they are experiencing in real time, and identify challenges that might otherwise remain invisible. At Pima Community College, tools like EdSights help capture student voice at scale and understand the challenges students are navigating, including students we might not otherwise hear from.

But technology by itself isn’t a student-support strategy. Its real value comes when better information strengthens relationships. An advisor who knows a student is struggling financially can have a different conversation. A campus that sees students reporting the same barriers can examine whether a policy needs to change. And institutional leaders with a clearer picture of what students are experiencing can make better decisions about resourcing.

This is particularly important for communities that colleges have historically struggled to serve. Listening to students cannot mean hearing primarily from the most engaged. If we are serious about expanding opportunity, we need to hear from students who are less connected, less comfortable asking for assistance, or juggling responsibilities outside the classroom.

There is also an opportunity to build a stronger bridge between what institutions are hearing and the decisions Arizona makes about higher education.

Policymakers look at measures such as enrollment, persistence, graduation and workforce outcomes. Those measures tell us about what happened. Student voice can help us understand why.

What barriers are students encountering? What makes them consider stopping their education? Which resources are helping? Where are students falling through the cracks?

A stronger feedback loop among students, institutions, community organizations and policymakers can help Arizona answer those questions earlier and respond effectively.

This matters far beyond individual campuses. When students leave college without completing a credential, the consequences impact families, employers and communities. When more students persist, graduate, and enter the workforce, the benefits extend across Arizona.

Arizona has an opportunity to build a more connected approach to student support in which colleges and universities, policymakers, community organizations and technology play a role.

The state is rightly asking how we bring more Arizonans back to college. We should also be asking how we hear students early and clearly so fewer leave.

That begins with a simple idea: Before we can effectively support students, we have to hear them.

And we need to make sure we are hearing from all of them.