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Rethinking Metrics in Higher Ed: Moving Beyond Persistence and Retention
For too long, higher education has defined its success through procedural indicators such as persistence, retention and transfer rates. While these measures have their place, they tell us little about whether students learn. Counting how many remain enrolled or cross the graduation stage does not reveal whether students have developed critical thinking skills, honed analytical abilities or that they can apply theoretical knowledge to real-world challenges. By treating procedural benchmarks as stand-ins for genuine educational achievement, we misrepresent success, distort institutional priorities and ultimately fail to serve students and society.
A Crisis of Confidence in Higher Education
It’s not a mystery that today’s policymakers, employers, students and the broader public increasingly question whether colleges and universities deliver on their fundamental promise: preparing graduates to engage meaningfully in work and further education. Underlying the public’s skepticism is a simple but crucial question that traditional metrics cannot answer: What do students actually learn in college? While institutional data may tell us how long students stay to complete a degree or how many students persist through the system, this data stays silent on whether they emerge as capable, informed and adaptable thinkers.
If the goal of higher education is to cultivate intellectual growth, nurture skill development and build a foundation for lifelong learning, then metrics must shift from counting how many students remain on the roster to measuring what those students know and can do as a result of instruction. Without meaningful learning assessments, we rely on imprecise proxies such as grades, retention figures or attendance rates that do not speak to the depth or quality of student learning.
The Trouble with Traditional Metrics
While traditional metrics dominate conversations on every campus, they provide only a narrow perspective on what truly defines institutional effectiveness. Retention or completion data may indicate that students find ways to pass through a system, but these measures cannot confirm that they have mastered concepts or refined their reasoning skills. Even revered frameworks such as the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) or Achieving the Dream, while emphasizing broad development and holistic growth, rarely tie these ideals to concrete and measurable student learning outcomes.
This overemphasis on what can be easily counted distorts priorities. Consider the case of a dentist being evaluated solely on the number of patient visits, a measure that says nothing about whether the dental work improved patients’ health. In higher education, funding and programming decisions often hinge on simple numerical targets rather than on evidence that students are developing the skills and competencies they need to succeed after graduation. Accountability to external stakeholders thus becomes a box-checking exercise rather than a meaningful effort to improve the quality of teaching and learning.
Grades: The Illusion of Mastery
Another limiting factor in our current system is the traditional grading model. A B+ in a course may confirm that a student completed assignments and exams, but does it guarantee mastery of essential skills and concepts? Too often, grades reflect compliance, effort or test-taking ability rather than genuine intellectual growth. Without well-defined learning outcomes tied to clearly articulated competencies, neither students nor faculty can confidently describe what a given grade represents. This ambiguity has consequences. Diplomas, the ultimate credential that higher education confers, must stand for something tangible evidence of a student’s readiness to contribute productively to their chosen field. If grades cannot affirm what a student knows and can do, they lose their authority as indicators of educational quality.
The Faculty Factor: Central to Learning
At the heart of any transformative learning experience is the faculty member, the educator who designs curricula, guides discussions, challenges assumptions and inspires intellectual curiosity, yet faculty voices and expertise are often sidelined under traditional metrics. When institutions chase improvements in retention or compliance-based outcomes, faculty priorities such as pedagogical experimentation, richer assessments and deeper engagement with students receive short shrift. Without credible data on learning, faculty input tends to be replaced by administrative mandates or donor preferences that may have little to do with teaching quality. Technology upgrades and programmatic add-ons can drain resources from the classroom without yielding any influence on skill and competency attainment. By marginalizing faculty, we lose a critical link between institutional policy and the actual learning process.
A Path Forward: Make Student Learning Data Paramount
Higher education is at a critical junction. Continuing to rely on metrics like attendance, persistence and graduation rates rather than actual evidence of what students learn will only deepen public skepticism and erode confidence in the value of a college degree. To move forward, institutions must redefine success around measurable learning outcomes. For faculty, it involves rethinking course design, examinations and classroom practices to better capture skill and competency attainment. For administrators, it requires aligning institutional policies, strategic plans and resource allocation with a genuine commitment to improving student learning. However, none of these efforts will truly take hold unless learning outcomes data influence how colleges and universities receive funding. Currently, performance-based funding models reward procedural metrics, such as enrollment, persistence and transfer rates, while actual learning remains financially invisible.
As the saying goes, we measure what we value. Without a direct funding mechanism tied to student mastery and skill development, there is no material incentive for institutions to invest in robust student learning assessment practices. In other words, if learning outcomes do not translate into tangible financial support, the push for more meaningful education risks becoming an afterthought. We must ensure student learning is not just an academic ideal but also an institutional priority that funding mechanisms acknowledge, support and sustain, leading to the resource allocation based on student learning needs, not just because there’s a need to upgrade computers in the library.
Empowering Faculty and Students Through Student Learning Data
Focusing on student learning data does more than improve accountability. It revitalizes the educational mission itself. When institutions commit to clearly defined learning outcomes, faculty gain the feedback they need to refine their teaching, experiment with new methods and share best practices. Students, in turn, gain clarity about their own skills and competencies, progress in their attainment and areas for growth. Rather than working toward grades for their own sake, students understand what each grade signifies and how it moves them closer to their academic, professional and personal goals because of skills and competencies they acquire, not just how well they navigate the system. Measuring learning fosters transparency and honesty. Graduates can carry forward a well-documented set of competencies, assuring employers, communities and themselves that their time in college was more than a tally of courses and credits; it was an authentic transformation.
By redefining success in terms of what students know and can do, institutions can reaffirm their true purpose: preparing the next generation to think critically and innovate boldly in the world beyond the classroom. Let us envision a future where solid evidence of student learning guides every institutional decision, curriculum design, faculty development and resource allocation.
If student presence on campus is evaluated solely based on throughput metrics as measures of institutional accountability, it raises a critical question about the true responsibilities of educational institutions.
References:
- Achieving the Dream. (2023). Knowing Our Students: Understanding & Designing for Success. Retrieved from https://achievingthedream.org/knowing-our-students-guidebook/
- National Survey of Student Engagement. (n.d.). Evidence-Based Improvement in Higher Education. Retrieved from https://nsse.indiana.edu/