Ensuring we graduate the future Cyclones the world will need

Story by Susan Flansburg

“Dad, I’m not sure what to do.”

Olivia Chiodo remembers the conversation perfectly. She had called her father, David, a police officer in Des Moines, to let him know she needed help paying her outstanding tuition bill.

He paused before he answered. “I’m not sure either.”

Olivia was stunned. Scheduled to graduate from Iowa State in a few months, she knew if she couldn’t pay her tuition, she wouldn’t be allowed to graduate. Her younger brother Xavier, an Iowa State sophomore, might not be able to register for classes.

It was a one-two punch for them. Their mother, Lisa, had just died, leaving the family to grieve even as they struggled to cover the medical bills that had piled up. Funeral expenses added to the burden.

Now, money for school was simply… gone.

The Chiodo siblings are not alone, nationally or at Iowa State. When financial stress leads college students to leave school, it contributes to a growing societal risk: the loss of a generation of untapped human potential at a time when we can least afford it.

The challenge is multifold. So are the solutions – and it will take all of them if we’re to graduate the future Cyclones the world will need.

The workforce risk

Today, America faces an unprecedented skilled labor shortage. According to the Department of Labor, as of October 2019, the U.S. economy had 7.3 million job openings – 65 percent of which require postsecondary education in areas ranging from healthcare to technology.

Combined with a looming dip in college enrollment during this decade – along with new uncertainties that the pandemic and resulting worldwide recession present, as well as trends toward online instruction and declining international enrollment – the future looks even more grim. At the current rate the United States is producing college graduates, the country is expected to face a shortfall of 11 million skilled workers to fill those jobs over the next 10 years, according to a study by Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce. In Iowa, the center projects that by 2025, 68 percent of jobs will require education and training beyond high school – 3 points above the national average of 65 percent.

A SKILLED WORKFORCE CLIFF

To ensure Iowa State students, both today and in the future, fill the workforce pipeline and fuel the economy, Iowa State is tackling this challenge from numerous sides, delivering relevant degree programs and building an ecosystem that nurtures the 21st century skills of innovation and entrepreneurship that will be needed more than ever in the future workforce.

“We’re developing degree programs with an eye toward workforce needs,” says Jonathan Wickert, senior vice president and provost at Iowa State. “New degree programs in business analytics, data analytics, actuarial science and cybersecurity are great examples. When you fold in a focus on innovation and entrepreneurship, the result is a high-quality educational experience that combines practical and critical thinking skills, and is consistent with our land-grant mission to serve our nation and world.”

At the heart of this ecosystem is the recently completed, 140,000-square-foot Student Innovation Center. Within the leading edge facility, made possible with $40 million in state funding and more than $44 million in donor support, students across disciplines can collaborate to pilot projects and engage in unscripted, hands-on learning.

The achievement risk

Excellent programs and facilities that enable Iowa State to compete for a shrinking enrollment pool, however, are only part of the solution. Keeping students here is key.

The good news is, last year, Iowa State’s graduation rate outperformed similar American universities by 16 points, with the four-year graduation rate the highest ever and the average time-to-degree the lowest. Yet, while graduation rates for students in some multicultural populations set similar records, there persists a gap for historically disadvantaged or underrepresented groups, including first-generation students and those from low socioeconomic households, veterans, and ethnically diverse and non-traditional-age students.

Iowa State University President Wendy Wintersteen has made closing this “achievement gap” one of her top priorities as part of the university’s membership in the University Innovation Alliance, an 11-member organization dedicated to expanding opportunities and improving our nation’s economic potential by helping more students from all socioeconomic backgrounds graduate from our nation’s leading public research universities.

For example, to bring the six-year graduation rate for underrepresented, low-income, first-generation and multicultural students at Iowa State to within 5 percent of other students, the university would need to retain just 20 more students a year collectively from these groups to narrow the gap.

The financial risk

Students come to Iowa State with a plan for achieving their dream of earning an Iowa State education. But if their financial need changes or an unforeseen event occurs – job loss or medical bills, either for them or their family members, even something as simple as unexpected car repairs – that dream may be lost.

Trevor Eder-Zdechlik was facing that reality. Diagnosed with chronic myelogenous leukemia in 2013, the junior from Stillwater, Minnesota, must take chemotherapy medication daily and periodically travel to Minneapolis for blood tests. He also must work to pay his bills. Last fall, those bills threatened to overwhelm him.

“My parents have struggled to help pay for me and my siblings’ college expenses,” he says. Midway through the semester, the money saved from Trevor’s 40-hour-a-week summer job was nearly gone. His off-campus job netted nowhere near enough to cover books, rent, food and tuition. Trevor began to think about adding another job.

Financial hardships created in part by events out of anyone’s control – the Chiodos’ mom’s death, Trevor’s illness – can undermine a family’s financial solvency overnight. Director of the Financial Aid Roberta Johnson says such crises happen all the time and, without intervention, can result in students leaving Iowa State, either temporarily or permanently.

“Each story is unique,” she says. “Parents sometimes die without any life insurance, leaving students to pay for funerals. Families have been displaced by Puerto Rican hurricanes, California wildfires, western Iowa flooding. They often lose their livelihoods and can no longer help. We’ve seen them all.”

The connection risk

For many students, their financial picture is made more precarious by a lack of preparation for navigating the university’s systems, and unintended barriers that prevent them from being effective advocates for themselves and maximizing the resources available to them. They also often have difficulty building the connections and community at Iowa State that would not only provide them with a system of support and network of resources, but would make their educational experience more meaningful and personally rewarding.

The experts will tell you that the most effective retention strategies either help prevent or successfully mitigate those feelings.

“We want to make sure all our students feel welcome, safe, included,” says Erin Baldwin, interim senior vice president for student affairs at Iowa State. “This is the job of the entire campus. We try to meet students where they are, in multiple ways.”

She says Iowa State’s top-ranked learning communities are among the most effective ways to enhance feelings of belonging. These groups form an intentionally connected cohort of shared majors, interests or demographic characteristics, giving students a place to find others like them.

“Imagine a first-generation college student who comes from a small town with a high school of maybe 100 students,” Baldwin suggests. “She walks into a lecture hall with 250 students. Her parents and friends can’t offer any encouragement because they never had the experience. Nobody she knows can help her. If she’s a student of color, she might also be experiencing micro-aggressions – indirect or unintended discrimination. As a member of a learning community, she can talk to her new peer friends about it.”

Learning communities have proved their worth on Iowa State’s campus, with an 87.7 percent retention rate and a 75 percent six-year graduation rate. For the 13 percent who decide not to join a learning community, a university-wide coordinated care network is proving invaluable. It uses data to identify students who are showing increasing signs of stress – dropping grades or low attendance, for example – so that advisers and instructors can reach out to offer assistance.

“The system allows us to resolve minor issues before they escalate,” Baldwin says.

The ultimate gains

While certain factors contributing to the financial stress that current students face are new, for many Iowa State alumni who came from modest means or were the first in their families to attend college, the personal situations are perennial.

Sally Rapp Beisser, classes of 1971, 1977 and 1999, can relate. She was halfway through her sophomore year when her dad was diagnosed with leukemia and died in a matter of weeks. He had no insurance, and the family had no livelihood without him. Neighbors helped with crops that year.

“I decided to stay home and help my mom,” says Beisser, now the Levitt Distinguished Professor of Education at Drake University. “She encouraged me to go back to Iowa State and make it work. I returned, devastated by grief, and found help through an anonymous scholarship. It wasn’t a lot, but it was enough. I wouldn’t have been able to complete my education without it. Along with two jobs on campus, I was able to successfully complete my undergraduate degree with honors.”

Beisser’s experience foreshadowed the philosophy behind the grants that Olivia, Xavier and Trevor received. Thanks to a Cyclone Success Grant made possible by Iowa State Athletics, Olivia was able to graduate in December 2019, while Xavier, also a Cyclone Success Grant recipient, and Trevor, who received a Douglas and Deborah Troxel Award, were able to register for spring semester.

“I was overwhelmed when I received the award,” Trevor says. “It means I can stay at Iowa State. I am seriously so grateful.”

“All I could think was, I can graduate,” Olivia says. “It helped keep me on track. I’m focused on grad school now.”

Indeed, keeping students like Olivia, Xavier and Trevor in school through graduation is critical to addressing the looming workforce shortage. More important, helping all students succeed serves both the economic and greater social good.

Because, as Johnson points out, “You never know who is going to find the cure for cancer or develop a product that helps people around the globe.”