Overview

Many community college students stop attending classes before they complete degrees. Understanding how to reengage, reenroll, and graduate these former students who have made considerable progress toward their degrees is vital to helping them achieve their academic and economic goals. In addition, improving this facet of the community college experience—that is, re-engaging students who have left and supporting them across the finish line—could provide significant return on investment for colleges and communities seeking to improve graduation rates.

The Re-Enrollment And Completion Team (REACT) intervention adapts a variety of evidence-based components designed with students’ needs in mind and intended to increase reenrollment, persistence in college, and degree completion among students who stopped attending community college just a few credits short of earning a degree or credential, with a focus on sustained financial support and student services.

This intervention targets students seeking associate’s degrees who need 15 or fewer additional credits to graduate. It has three components:

• Tuition waivers for up to 15 credit hours (the equivalent of about five courses) if students re-enroll, offered for up to five semesters (including summer semesters)
   
• Student support services including case management–style advising in which advisers take the initiative to reach out to students, along with personalized degree mapping from an adviser dedicated to these returning students throughout the five-semester program period
   
• Messages that are delivered in multiple modes (that is, text, email, etc.) and that continue to be delivered over the program period, offering tuition waivers, encouraging reenrollment in college, and encouraging students to make use of support services

MDRC is conducting a random assignment evaluation to examine the effectiveness of the REACT intervention in four colleges in Florida. The evaluation will consist of an impact analysis, implementation research, and a cost study. MDRC is partnering with Justin Ortagus, associate professor of higher education administration and policy and the director of the Institute of Higher Education at the University of Florida. The current study of REACT builds on a previous study he led.