Moving the Needle on College Student Basic Needs: National Community College Provost Perspectives, United States, 2020

Through the Holistic Measures of Student Success (HMSS) project, funded by the Educational Credit Management Corporation (ECMC) Foundation as part of their Basic Needs Initiative cohort, the researchers unpacked and explored how student success has traditionally been defined and measured within the community college sector and what new metrics and data collection processes can be developed to more holistically reflect the community college student experience. Therefore, this project aimed to (1) establish a shared understanding of current institutional practices in defining student success, and (2) measure the sector's openness to new approaches, especially those focused on students' basic needs. To shed light on the challenges and opportunities associated with the collection and prioritization of a broader set of student success metrics, especially those focused on a more holistic set of student experiences and challenges like food and housing security, the research team surveyed community college provosts across the United States in fall 2020. The survey examined national provost perspectives on college priorities and influencing factors, traditional data collection practices, emerging data collection processes on student basic needs, and the role of data disaggregation for advancing equity.