Redefining Student Success in Higher Education: Beyond Grades and Graduation Rates

The old scorecard for student success in higher education was simple: graduate on time with good grades. But in 2025, that definition feels as outdated as a flip phone.

Today’s colleges and universities are wrestling with a more complex question: What does student success mean in an era where traditional 18-year-old first-year students are no longer the norm and when career paths look more like jungle gyms than ladders?

In the 2025 Effective Practices for Student Success, Retention, and Completion study, RNL asked student success and retention professionals to define student success in their own words.

Their answers reflect how profoundly higher education has evolved and tell a fascinating story about how institutions adapt their missions, metrics, and support systems to serve an increasingly diverse student population.

Gone are the one-size-fits-all definitions of decades past, replaced by nuanced frameworks that acknowledge the complexity of modern student journeys. All institutions, regardless of their type, flavor the conversation. Private institutions emphasize personal growth and character development. Public universities tend to speak the language of data and systems, focusing on measurable outcomes. Two-year institutions? They’re the ultimate pragmatists, defining success through real-world impact – whether landing a job or successfully transferring to a four-year program.

But here’s what’s interesting: beneath these surface differences, five core themes kept showing up:

The completion conversation has changed

Gone are the days when graduation rates were the only metric that mattered. Yes, completion still counts—but institutions are getting more nuanced about what that means.

A community college student who completes a certification and lands a better job might be just as successful as one who transfers to a four-year university. Private institutions look at how graduation connects to personal transformation, while the public tracks how different pathways to graduation affect long-term outcomes.

Consider these representative definitions:

• Private: “Student retention, graduation, and subsequent placement with a transformative experience.”
• Public: “Students who successfully persist through their progression points in a timely manner”
• Two-year: “Curriculum completion rates evaluated along three separate avenues: graduation rates, credit accumulation, and persistence”

Holistic development takes center stage

Universities finally acknowledge what employers have said for years: technical skills alone don’t cut it. Success increasingly means developing the whole person—emotional intelligence, adaptability, cultural competence, and even that buzzword-worthy quality: resilience.

Consider these representative definitions:

• Private: “Our university defines student success as thriving in various aspects of life, including engaged learning, academic determination, positive perspective, social connectedness, and diverse citizenship”
• Public: “Students being successful in all aspects of their well-being – academically, socially, emotionally, financially”
• Two-year: “Achievement of academic, personal, and professional goals by students”

Career outcomes matter more than ever

With student debt in the spotlight and ROI under scrutiny, institutions are paying closer attention to what happens after graduation. But it’s not just about salary data anymore. Schools look at career satisfaction, professional growth, and how well graduates adapt to changing industry demands.

Their definitions reflect this priority:

• Private: “Students complete their degree program and become gainfully employed in a field related to their degree”
• Public: “End up with a career path that is rewarding and supports the desired lifestyle of the student”
• Two-year: “Either secure employment and/or transfer to a four-year institution”

Student goals drive the definition

The most significant shift is recognizing that each student’s success looks different. A single parent completing their degree part-time while working full-time might have very different metrics for success than a traditional full-time student. Institutions are learning to flex their support systems accordingly.

As these institutions expressed:

• Private: “Student success is defined differently for each student and their identified goals”
• Public: “Student success is different for each student – for some, it may be passing a test or a course, and for others, it is completing their degree”
• Two-year: “That the student achieves their goals (i.e., transfer to 4-yr, enter the job market, expand skills)”

Reimagining support systems

The most thoughtful definitions of success in the world mean nothing without the infrastructure to support them. Schools are rethinking everything from academic advising to mental health services, creating more integrated and accessible support networks.

The most thoughtful success definitions emphasize the institution’s role in providing support:

• Private: “Giving students the support they need to achieve their goals while identifying and helping them overcome barriers to persistence”
• Public: “Creating environments and opportunities that contribute to retention while providing academic and social services”
• Two-year: “We define student success as helping students clarify, define, and reach their educational and career goals”

The road ahead

Measuring success becomes more complex when you are tracking personal growth alongside GPA. Resource allocation gets trickier when success means different things to different students.

But here’s the exciting part: this new way of thinking about success might help more students succeed. When we expand our definition of success, we create more paths to achievement. We acknowledge that the 22-year-old who graduates in four years with a 4.0 GPA isn’t the only success story worth telling.

The institutions that will thrive in this new landscape can balance accountability with flexibility and standardization with personalization. They are building systems that can adapt to changing student needs while delivering measurable results.

What this means for higher education’s future

The shift in defining student success reflects a broader evolution in higher education. We are moving away from a one-size-fits-all model toward something more dynamic and responsive. This isn’t just about keeping up with changing times – it’s about creating an educational system that serves today’s students.

For institutional leaders, the message is clear: your definition of student success shapes everything from strategic planning to daily operations. It’s worth taking the time to get it right.

For students and families, these changes mean more options, support, and responsibility to define what success means for them. And for society at large? We might finally be moving toward a higher education system that measures what truly matters—not just what’s easy to measure.