Conclusions and Implications for Practice and Research

In the proposal, the aims for the project were formulated as follows.

The overall aim is to interpret the modelling and case studies to provide actionable knowledge to universities to better understand the combinations of difficulties faced by low SES students to enable the provision of suitable support services to facilitate the achievement of successful outcomes. This will lead to the development of actionable knowledge for governments, university leaders, discipline heads and program directors to boost the retention, success and completion rates of low SES students.

The function of this concluding chapter is to distil out from the overall project the actionable knowledge needed by universities to boost retention and success. We also intend to go beyond the provision of a body of knowledge to proposing approaches for effective support strategies and suggesting ways to implement them.

The importance of the project was underscored by the Productivity Commission report (2019 p. 2).

The growing risk of students dropping out of university requires attention. On average, the additional students need greater academic support to succeed. While universities had strong incentives to expand student numbers, the incentives for remedial support are weak.

This quotation points to the key directions for the implications and guidelines drawn from this project. The Productivity Commission is essentially saying that universities have become very good at admission, but not so good at support. Universities have become good at opening the door to low SES students and expanding the intake, but it has been a revolving door. The key findings from the project are, therefore, those about providing forms of support which boost retention and success.