National University received a $2.1 million federal grant to expand a successful program that supports students who are at risk of not completing their college degree.
The grant from the Department of Education expands on the success of the university’s Center of Excellence for Veteran Student Success, which offers peer-mentoring for at-risk students, and the Student Academic Success Center, which was created this year to assist the rest of the undergraduate population.
“At National University we are dedicated to providing our students with the support they need from the moment they join us to when they graduate,” said National University Provost Debra Bean. “This grant allows us to expand and more fully integrate the services we have been offering at-risk student populations to provide an even more comprehensive approach to addressing retention rates and increasing persistence.”
The new grant-funded project is called Pathways for Achieving Student Success, or PASS. The PASS program is a 360-degree, comprehensive support system for at-risk undergraduate students. The university will use the grant to systematically identify at-risk students and behaviors.
The university said thanks to the new programs, the percentage of students, many of them veterans, who have successfully exited academic probation has risen from about 10 percent to 40 percent.
Almost a quarter of National University’s student population includes active military or veterans.
