Why Don't Colleges do More to Help Students?

A friend of mine sent her son off to a private college costing $65,000/year.  He knew what he wanted to major in and what school he wanted to attend based on that major. He was a smart young man-earned a 34 on the ACT and had a 3.0 GPA. He registered for the classes his advisor recommended during orientation and took the mandatory college success class. Whenever his mom asked how school was going, he said it was fine. When he returned home for winter break, he had earned one credit hour out of the 16 he attempted. Notably, the one class he passed, with an A, was college success. 

I worked with a young lady who struggled with ADHD when she was in high school.  I made sure that she went to the doctor before school started to receive an updated evaluation for her disability.  She never received the medical evaluation from her doctor, but she didn't tell me because she thought the doctor sent it to her school. Per HIPPA, doctor’s cannot share this information with schools, it has to go through the student. No report meant that no accommodations could be offered by the institution.  She didn’t realize she wasn’t receiving accommodations because her teachers were kind, and generally understanding of her learning challenges.  

Many schools do not require faculty to reach out to students who are not performing satisfactorily in their classes.  This means students far too frequently are failing and have no idea. I have seen many students experience a scenario in which a grade for an early assignment is entered during the first week or two of class, but the faculty may not input other grades in a timely fashion. In this scenario, students spend most of the semester thinking they have an A-because the early grade was almost certainly an introductory assignment that did not reflect knowledge gained-only to find out at mid-term (if they’re lucky) or after the course is over, that they in fact had a C, D, or F.   

One of my students asked for help in determining how she was doing in her classes. It took us four hours to review the 13 distinct platforms used across her five courses to determine what questions she needed to ask her professors in order to assess how she was doing.  Some platforms tracked submitted assignments, others only tracked graded assignments. Several times she had to reach out to her professor to confirm her assignment had been received since no grade was posted and submission status was unavailable. In four classes, she did not have any feedback on first tests or essays before sitting for or submitting second tests and essays. This is a common scenario at the college-level that limits student learning.