Impacting the Future of Higher Education

There is a crisis in higher education. Fewer students are attending traditional four-year colleges and universities, and increasing numbers of those who do aren’t completing their degrees. Tuition and fees continue to increase, and even students with degrees have challenges finding good-paying jobs to help them pay off their student loans. Enter Colorado State University–Global Campus (CSU-Global). CSU-Global is the nation’s first and only 100 percent online, nonprofit, independently accredited state institution. It successfully serves students without state financial support and has not increased tuition in more than six years. CSU-Global meets or exceeds industry benchmarks for student retention and graduation rates, and salary data and employer surveys reveal its students’ success on the job. What is the CSU-Global secret? In this insightful book, CSU-Global President Becky Takeda-Tinker throws open the university’s playbook and reveals everything from the wealth of data it collects to how it works to provide students a return on investment. In the end, however, Takeda-Tinker always comes back to this: Colleges and universities that know who they serve and serve them well can retain and graduate students who will be successful in today’s economy. Restoring American competitiveness in a global marketplace depends on our getting this right.