The Association of Frequency of Utilizing Student Services on Student Success at a Community College

As colleges work to meet performance standards, staff have been placed in key service areas to help students be successful. With the majority of the seven million community college students attending part-time, needing developmental education, and not graduating on time, it is vital that students take advantage of services such as academic advising, financial aid advising, tutoring, career counseling, student organizations, disability services, and military/veteran’s services (American Association of Community Colleges, 2019a; McClenny, 2016; Tippett & Kahn, 2018a). Students who utilize some of these services have been retained and had higher grade point averages (GPA) than students who did not use these services (Bremer et al., 2013; Drake, 2011; Habley et al., 2010; Hatch & Garcia, 2017; McClenney & Dare, 2013; Nakajima et al., 2012; Smith & Allen, 2014). By making use of the provided services, students were more successful, but the frequency of visits to these services has not been analyzed in-depth. Using data from one institution’s Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE), this study set out to determine if there was an association between the frequency of use of a service and the student’s GPA or intent to return to that college for future semesters. The research questions that guided this study ask if there is a relationship between the frequency of service utilization and student success. By using an analysis of variance to examine the data, it was determined that the reported frequency of using financial aid advising showed a statistically significant difference in the student’s GPA. The research did not find any statistically significant differences in a student’s GPA for the use of multiple services nor a statistically significant difference in a student’s intent to return based on the use of services. Based on this study, community colleges will want to determine the individual services offered by financial aid advising and how to best adapt a financial aid advising program to assist those students who are visiting more often and not seeing academic success.