Improving Educational Outcomes for Minority Male Community College Students

Eleven North Carolina community colleges took part in the Minority Male Success Initiative (MMSI), a study designed to improve minority male student outcomes. MMSI had two main components—success coaching and a technology-based retention solution from Watermark called “Student Success & Engagement.” These two components, what we refer to as “technology-enabled success coaching,” paired the individual attention of success coaches with the insights provided through automated student success and engagement tools. Designed as a longitudinal cohort study, the study compared course completion and persistence rates of minority males in participating cohorts in contrast to cohorts observed historically. Results suggest that the use of dedicated success coaches and a technology-based retention solution improves the course completion and persistence rates of minority male students, especially at those institutions that maintained consistent coaches for each student and were highly engaged with the software. These results have important implications for how all colleges can improve minority males in participating cohorts in contrast to cohorts observed historically.