Item saved to your backpack!

The Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education recently conducted a study examining DeVry University's support services for low-income, first-generation college students. (DeVry University is a client of Schools.com.)

The research, which was designed to catalog DeVry's academic and social support services and benchmark them against similar programs, included site visits to three Chicago-area campuses of DeVry University consisting of interviews with administrators, faculty and staff, and focus groups with students.

"We were very familiar with what successful support programs for low-income, first-generation students looked like at traditional schools, but since schools like DeVry University do not receive federal TRIO grants, we wanted to learn their supportive practices, which seemed to show the most promise for student success," Chandra Taylor Smith, Ph.D., vice president of research and director at The Pell Institute, said in a statement. "What we discovered was that many strategic academic and social student support services established in the literature as effectively supporting low-income students in other sectors are incorporated in the DeVry University structure."

According to the study's findings, nontraditional students at DeVry get high levels of both personal and academic support, which similar schools should consider replicating. The study found three key strategies behind that support:

• Approaching support services for students as customer service
• Providing early, in-depth, on-campus student opportunities
• Establishing and sustaining a shared sense of community

"What is most promising about these categories is the calculated investment that DeVry University has made to weave together the practices, and how they continue to develop and refine these practices to better support their students, the majority of whom are low-income and first-generation," the report states.

The report also makes several recommendations on ways DeVry University could better serve low-income, first-generation students, including the following:

• Expand the use of disaggregated data to track student outcomes
• Clarify and reconsider rigid attendance tracking policies
• Strategically acknowledge the contributions of faculty and staff who excel
• Establish greater transparency around student services and outcomes

The full report, entitled "Promising Practices Supporting Low-Income, First-Generation Students at DeVry University," can be viewed here [PDF file].

For related coverage from Schools.com, read:

• How to choose a career-focused education
• Mother knows best: Schools.com sanity guide for student-moms
• Budget deal protects Pell Grants for low-income learners
• Viacom-AP poll: Higher ed experts on how to narrow the college aspiration gap