Put student voices first: make colleges student-ready, give students agency over educational choices, and provide wraparound supports for basic needs¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · no claims cited

Description¶

A funding and program-design strategy in which institutions center students rather than merely enrolling them. Panelists argued colleges should be "student ready" — focused on supporting students and helping them graduate — and that "programs should give students agency to make their own educational choices, rather than prescribing set paths." The strategy includes wraparound supports such as emergency student aid, culturally responsive mental health resources, mentorship, technology access with support, and programs addressing food and housing insecurity.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Institutions must listen first and foremost to students themselves and consider how students' identities inform how they learn and engage with course matter.

Constraints¶

• The report notes the pandemic exposed alarming rates of food and housing insecurity and compounded challenges for already vulnerable students.

Target Learners¶

• Black, Latino, and Indigenous college students
• students from low-income backgrounds

Target Learning Goals¶

• student success and graduation through responsive, student-centered program design

Related Strategies¶

• Build cultural competence and humility: engage and listen to communities before acting, using funded advisory boards and listening sessions
• Define emergencies with flexibility and trust rather than rigid proof-based criteria

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Byon, A. H., & Elliott, K. C. (2022). Equity First: Priorities for Higher Education Partnerships and Investments. The Education Trust. https://edtrust.org/resource/how-to-end-the-hunger-and-homelessness-crisis-among-college-students/