The Graduation Project

Mission

Graduation is the most important measure of institutional accountability. To ensure that the University of Arizona better serves its students and meets its commitments as a public, land-grant institution, the Graduation Project has been developed as an ongoing partnership between the Division of Undergraduate Education and Colleges. 

How It Works

The Graduation Project involves curricular analytics and information-sharing to identify common barriers to graduation and how they might be addressed through curricular offerings, advising, and policy. 

Focusing on so-called "near-completers," or students who have accomplished most of their degree requirements but who have not yet graduated, the Graduation Project has developed a student progress tracking dashboard, Cohort Analytics. This dashboard tracks the progress of various student cohorts relative to their degree requirements. 

With this dashboard in place, Colleges can identify and group students based upon their likelihood of graduation. Working in tandem with the Division of Undergraduate Education, Colleges then begin the process of reaching out to these students and offering various forms of support. 

Each new cycle of the Graduation Project will incorporate insights from the previous cycle. Through this iterative, data-driven approach, we will continue to update progress analyses and adjust methods of supporting students based upon historical data.  

Results

Over the last year, the University of Arizona has witnessed significant increases in the 4- and 6-year graduation totals and 4- and 6-year graduation rates. While the Graduation Project is one factor in this achievement, the partnership has already demonstrated that administrative and academic collaboration, curricular analytics, and dedicated staff can have an immediate impact on ensuring that all of our students graduate on time.