APLU Announces 2024 Degree Completion Award Finalists

Washington, DC – As part of its ongoing efforts to support public research universities’ efforts to increase degree completion, the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) today named the University of Kentucky, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley as finalists for its 2024 Degree Completion Award. The annual award works to identify, recognize, and reward institutions that employ innovative approaches to improve degree completion while ensuring educational quality.

The Degree Completion Award is open to all APLU members. A panel of outside reviewers examined the applications to determine the finalists. The award winner will be announced at the APLU Annual Meeting, November 10-12 in Orlando, Florida.

Congratulations to this year’s Degree Completion Award finalists,” said APLU President Mark Becker. “A college education is life-changing for students and their families, and we’re thrilled to spotlight institutions that are knocking down barriers to degree completion and ensuring more students complete college.”

More details on the Degree Completion Award finalists’ efforts are below.

The University of Kentucky
Seeking to boost student retention and completion rates, the University of Kentucky (UK) launched an effort in 2015 focused on four components of student success – belonging, wellbeing, academic success, and financial stability – to address critical moments in students’ educational journey that can knock them off the course to a degree. In 2015, UK set the goal of increasing the six-year graduation rate from 60 percent to 70 percent and the first-to-second Fall retention rate from 80 percent to 90 percent. UK launched a new student success analytics team charged with building a predictive model for identifying students at risk of stopping out of school and providing tailored resources in the four areas the university identified as primary drivers of student success and provide tailored support in those areas. The university also bolstered its advising support for students for more cohesive advising, messaging, and accountability along with professional career tracks and professional development opportunities. Finally, the university launched the UK LEADS (Leveraging Economic Affordability for Developing Success) program, which gives students one-time need-based grants to address unexpected financial barriers don’t prevent students from completing degrees. UK exceeded its student success goals, with first-to-second Fall retention rate reaching 86.7 percent and its six-year graduation rate surpassing 71 percent.

The University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Looking to boost student success, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) launched a strategic plan in 2015 with goals for increasing retention rates, graduation rates, and closing disparities in student success outcomes across populations. The university launched a mandatory first-year seminar to foster students’ transition to college life, with clear impacts on retention. The university also created dedicated Retention, Progression, and Completion Coordinators in each college to monitor students’ progress and ensure they have support to ensure their continued enrollment throughout the student journey. Additionally, UNLV created Student Outreach Specialists who focus on students who are identified as being at risk of dropping out and provide just-in-time support to students encountering academic or non-academic hurdles to their completion. These efforts contributed to UNLV increasing its four- and six-year graduation rates by 14 and seven percentage points since the 2012-2013 academic year – all while narrowing disparities in outcomes across populations.

The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV), formed from two former universities, opened its doors in Fall 2015 with a distributed campus across a three-county region in South Texas’ Rio Grande Valley. UTRGV prioritized a holistic student success strategy rooted in a shared responsibility for student success across the institution. The university created a Graduation Help Desk to provide concierge-like support for students facing barriers to progress toward a degree and graduation. The Graduation Help Desk sparked the creation of the Degree Progress and Graduation Initiatives unit to work across the institution and intervene when students encounter graduation obstacles. These include academic challenges, financial constraints, course availability, denied appeals, and personal issues. To address financial barriers facing students, UTRGV launched the Plus Tuition Advantage grant, covering the cost of tuition and fees for students with unmet need who have a family income of $125,000 or less. The university’s four-year graduation rate has increased nearly ten percentage points in just five years.