Cal State Northridge Studies Nearpeer, Finds Gains in Enrollment and Retention
Issue 1
Plus, IHE looks at faculty as recruiters. Plus, international student enrollment surges.
As I wrote in Forbes this week, California State University, Northridge completed a rigorous study of Nearpeer, the peer-to-peer community formation tool, and found that it did boost enrollment.
Not only did it increase enrollment overall, it also advanced enrollment among some key, targeted demographics such as Black and first-generation students.
From the announcement, repeated in Forbes:
“students who used the Nearpeer platform to develop peer relationships prior to and during their experience on campus were more likely to be enrolled on Fall census day (e.g. lower summer melt), but also to complete their first academic year (e.g. higher retention rate).” Among Black students, the Nearpeer test group was nearly 17% more likely to enroll and return, the report says. Among first-generation students, the Nearpeer group was up 4%. The boost overall was also 4%.
In enrollment, 17% is massive.
IHE: How Faculty Turned Around an Enrollment Decline
Inside Higher Ed has a story this past week from Evergreen State College, where enrollment had been in retreat. Their profile of what turned it around, is here:
International Student Enrollment Surges
Coverage in Forbes, though not from me, shows a very strong rebound of international students in US colleges and universities.
From the article:
China remains the number one source of international students coming to the U.S. even though its overall enrollment (289,526) dropped by .2% last year. Still, that was much less of a decline than the 9% decrease from China in 2021-22 and the 15% drop-off in 2020-21.
India was in the second spot, and contrary to China, was on the upswing, with a 35% increase in students (268,923) coming to the U.S. That represents the highest number of students from India in the report’s history.
