Qualitative Study on Why Students Leave CSU

In the fall of 2021, IRP&E contracted with the Institute for Research in the Social Sciences (IRISS) to conduct a qualitative study to understand why undergraduate students leave CSU before graduating and what types of supports or policies CSU can implement to retain students through graduation. IRISS conducted interveiws with student-facing CSU staff and first-time […]

Summer Session and Student Success

These reports describe the association between summer session enrollment and student success (measured by persistence, graduation, GPA) among first-time, full-time (FTFT) cohorts at CSU. Overall, summer enrollment appears to be a positive academic behavior in terms of persistence and graduation, especially for students that struggle during the first academic year. Students that enroll in one or more […]

Financial Aid Response to the COVID-19 Crisis

During the COVID-19 pandemic, CSU received $43 million for direct student payments from the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEERF), part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES), Act. Students were required to apply for funds and must have had a FAFSA on file in order to be considered for the grant; funding was prioritized for […]

Expected Family Contribution (EFC) and Persistence

These reports investigate 2nd Fall and 3rd Fall persistence rates by Expected Family Contribution (EFC) for recent first-time, full-time (FTFT) freshman cohorts.  Analyses are conducted separately for Colorado resident freshmen and nonresident freshmen, and sub-groups of interest including First Generation students and minority students are analyzed in addition to the full cohort population. More recent analyses examine student success […]

Student Success and Financial Aid

These reports examine student success and financial aid by using a novel metric, the net cost ratio. The net cost ratio is the proportion of a student’s cost of attendance (COA) after “gift aid” (i.e., grants and scholarships that do not need to be repaid) has been applied. For example, a student’s COA was $26,900 […]