Higher education leaders should use historical data to gauge graduation rates among diverse student groups for whom graduation is less likely so they can make institutional improvements that help those students defy the odds.

That’s one of the key recommendations made by the lead researcher of a new report being released today by UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institution, or HERI, that urges college and university administrators to reassess how they go about the business of getting their students to earn a bachelor’s degree in four to six years.

“Once you really have an understanding of how well you’re doing, that’s when you can have a real-world conversation about what needs to be done,” said Dr. Linda DeAngelo, CIRP (Cooperative Institutional Research Program) assistant director at HERI, and lead author of the report “Completing College: Assessing Graduation Rates at Four-Year Institutions.”

Among other things, the report urges institutions to create or use a “degree completion calculator,” such as one that HERI designed, to determine a predicted graduation rate for a given group. Once the predicted graduation rate is determined, DeAngelo said, the objective should be to achieve higher graduation rates for those groups with graduation rates that are predicted to be relatively low.

DeAngelo said while it is easy to blame tough socioeconomic conditions or the K-12 system for academic non-preparedness that leads to low graduation rates, the challenge is to help students from diverse groups succeed irrespective of the lack of financial resources or a quality K-12 experience. The assistance can come through the formation of well-focused study groups to greater financial assistance to help students avoid taking out huge student loans during their first year, which she says has also been shown to negatively impact graduation rates.

“The fact of the matter is these students arrive at our door,” DeAngelo said. “We have a responsibility to work with them and create an environment that is conducive for them to succeed.”