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On the campus of Houston Baptist University, many students are the first in their families to go to college. Itâs a distinction that makes the private university want to ensure that their students completely understand what is expected of them before the first day of classes.
Those expectations extend beyond academics, from knowing the exact cost of attending to university to making certain every form and application is signed and delivered.
Houston Baptist calls the initiative Project Day One, and theyâre hopeful that itâll lead to increases in retention.
âWe knew there were several barriers to entry and frankly issues that were keeping students from being successful,â said James Steen, vice president of enrollment management at Houston Baptist. âWeâre a really diverse campus, but we serve a low socioeconomic group and obviously a private education is expensive, so what we found is financial settlement is a big problem. We had a lot of students carrying balances from term to term, and we had to do something.â
Houston Baptist is a Hispanic-serving institution, with about 41Â percent of its coming freshmen identifying as Hispanic, Steen said. About 80Â percent of students are from the Houston metropolitan area.
âThe whole point of Project Day One is to get everything buttoned up and completed by the first day of class, and it isnât intended just for new incoming students, but also current students,â he said.
In order to simplify the paperwork for students, Houston Baptist deployed a mobile financial aid program through CampusLogic that allows students to track each step in their aid process.
âThis generation may not be as disciplined as we are about checking email, but we know more than 95Â percent of students have a smartphone in their pocket, so we had to figure out a way to get to them,â Steen said.
Steen said the college is not asking students to have their tuition completely paid by the time classes start, but to have their paperwork and financial aid turned in to the college, and to have a plan and communicate with the college about the costs.
In some cases, HBU has been able to help students fill the gaps in financial aid, especially if theyâre doing well academically, he said, adding that this can be especially difficult for international students who may have a hard time paying tuition when the money is coming from out of the country.
âThe hard conversation is sometimes we just canât help this student,â Steen said. âSometimes there are students who are not making academic progress and theyâre borrowing a lot of money to close the gap, and the best thing for them frankly is to say, âThis is not a good fit for you.â Those are the hard conversations, but theyâre in the studentâs best interest.â
Project Day One goes beyond financial aid, though, Steen said, adding that there are plenty of other boxes that incoming students have to check that can be burdensome if theyâre new to college -- like sending in high school transcripts, completing immunizations or tracking down transferred course work.
Colleges have been working for years to try to streamline the entry process, especially when it comes to financial aid, said Karen McCarthy, director of policy analysis for the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators.
Itâs why many of them have pushed for a simplified Free Application for Federal Student Aid process or prior-prior year data, she said.
âYou want everything to be all set and ready to go when school starts so you can focus on the academic side,â McCarthy said. âSo much of it is timing, training and education for students.â
Complications like verification can derail students, which is why information sessions to avoid mistakes and a more streamlined process help, she said.
Many colleges have taken the position that students who havenât paid the semesterâs tuition in full arenât allowed to register or move into dorms, said Zakiya Smith, strategy director at Lumina Foundation.
âPaperwork, or just in general the process of coming to school and getting courses in order ⊠can be a barrier for students, if youâre a first-generation college student or someone who doesnât have mentors or support,â Smith said. âItâs often a challenge to get them on the right foot, but the colleges that are looking to help students have those supports in place to get the financial aid done, those colleges that do that are largely successful.â
In the three years since Houston Baptist started Project Day One, the university has seen increases to its retention, but they also readily admit there have been some setbacks, which they attribute to the economy.
Undergraduate retention from first year to second year grew from 74.7 percent in 2015 to 76.4 percent in 2016, according to a report from the universityâs office of institutional research and effectiveness. In that same time, minority retention grew nearly two percentage points, however, new freshman retention was down 2.6 percentage points, to 67.3 percent.
âWeâve seen some nice increase in retention, and a lot of it stems from the fact that students are more aware of the process,â Steen said, adding that students who donât establish payment plans or settle tuition bills risk losing their schedule, although itâs a policy they donât enforce. âWe added the stronger language and we thought it would improve our yield in a way, but theyâre flat and slowed down, and thatâs because weâve been so much more up front about it and students have opted out.â
In some cases, Steen said, students have made the decision that they canât afford the college.
âAnd thatâs OK, because weâd rather have them figure it out on the front end than come here for a semester and get in over their head from a financial perspective and transfer out anyway,â he said.