Higher Ed State of the Sector: Navigating Four Fronts of Upheaval
EAB’s latest State of the Sector research, examining the fronts of upheaval redefining higher ed.
Leading Learning in Times of Change: Readiness Insights for Institutions and Organizations
What does “readiness” mean in today’s landscape of digital transformation & nonlinear career paths?
Applications have closed.
Thank you for your interest in the Student-Centered Course Scheduling project supported by The Ascendium Education Group. A cohort of 20 institutions will be selected for this 24-month project to begin September 2025 and end in December 2027. In order to be considered for participation, please complete the following application. Institutions will be selected based on how well the goals of this project align with institutional priorities, current or identified future work, readiness for change, and the capacity to fully participate. Please follow the instructions outlined in the questions below, and submit your completed application by September 15, 2025. A copy of your responses will be emailed to you after submission.
Thanks for submitting your application.
You will receive a confirmation email shortly with a summary of your submission and information on next steps.
Notifications will be sent by September 30, 2025.
For questions or further information, please contact Lisa Hunter or Samantha Raynor. Thank you for your interest!
Student-Centered Course Scheduling: Removing Hidden Barriers to Student Success
With funding from Ascendium Education Group, AASCU is helping regional public universities redesign course scheduling systems to accelerate student progress and completion—and share proven strategies with the field.
View participating institutions. Access tools & resources.
OVERVIEW
A National Effort to Make Course Scheduling Work for Students
The Student-Centered Course Scheduling initiative supports 20 AASCU member institutions in transforming how courses are offered, sequenced, and staffed—so students can get the courses they need, when they need them, to stay on track to graduation.
Participating Institutions
- Funded by a $2.4 million grant from Ascendium Education Group
- Includes 20 regional public universities across the U.S.
- Technical Assistance provided by Ad Astra
- Builds on the proven success of an 11-institution pilot (2022–2024)
Guam
Puerto Rico
U.S. Virgin Islands
Why It Matters
A Hidden—but Critical—Lever for Student Success
At many institutions, the course schedule has become a structural barrier to completion. Misaligned offerings, scheduling conflicts, and outdated policies can delay graduation and increase costs for students. AASCU’s work helps colleges use data, policy, and collaboration to make the course schedule a strategic driver of completion and retention.
46%
Fewer than half of students at 4-year public institutions graduate within 4 years, with each additional semester of enrollment adding thousands in tuition and living costs, pricing many students out before they can finish their degree. (National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), 2024)
1.5x
Students who work 20+ hours per week are 1.5x more likely to delay a required course than peers who don’t work. (National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), 2022)
30%
Nearly one in three students report being unable to register for at least one required course each term, delaying their progress to graduation. (Ad Astra Institute, 2023)
20%
Roughly one in five courses at regional public universities operate below 70% of capacity, while others are overfilled—showing deep misalignment between course supply and student demand. (Ad Astra, 2022)
“The course schedule is the engine of degree completion. You simply cannot drive better outcomes without a course schedule designed with student success in mind.”
Our Approach
From Structural Barriers to Student-Centered Systems
AASCU, with technical assistance from trusted partners, supports participating institutions through four key strategies to improve degree velocity and student success:
- Elevate course scheduling as a student success strategy. Engage key stakeholders, including executive leaders, in a structured change management process that positions course scheduling as a cornerstone of student success.
- Implement sustainable policies and procedures. Conduct policy inventories and audits to ensure schedule-building practices and related policies align with institutional goals and priorities.
- Design student-centered, data-informed schedules. Use real-time data and degree velocity metrics to identify actionable improvements such as adding sections for high-demand or overloaded courses, resolving conflicts between required courses, or reducing high-DFW course combinations in the same term.
- Embed continuous improvement. Build long-term capacity by integrating ongoing reflection, measurement, and refinement into the scheduling process from the start.
IMPACT
Results from the Pilot
From 2022–2024, AASCU worked with 11 regional public universities in an earlier pilot project to test and refine this approach. The results were clear: smarter course scheduling leads to faster student progress and higher completion.
12%
increase in students completing first-year English and math courses (Fall 2022–Fall 2024)
1.4
credit increase in average productive credits earned per student annually (an 8.1% improvement)
In addition to these overall gains, individual institutions achieved measurable improvements in areas such as course access, classroom utilization, and student momentum. Examples include:
- Texas A&M University increased students taking 15+ credits per semester by 22 percentage points.
- Western Kentucky University improved their Overloaded Course Ratio by 25% in first-year courses .
- Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi boosted classroom utilization by 5% and reduced primetime compression by 11%.
- Texas A&M University-San Antonio increased overall primetime classroom utilization and reduced off-grid waste by 3 percentage points.
Explore the Course Scheduling Playbook for clear definitions of the key metrics used throughout this initiative.
“Whether it’s the Dean, the Chairs, the Registrar, any stakeholder, they now understand the importance of course scheduling and how it impacts a student’s ability to not only enter the university in a seamless manner, but also persist and eventually graduate.”
“This work has given us the data we’ve needed. Having data from an external source has added credibility, opened up very different ways of looking at our data, and helped us identify additional data we need moving forward.”
“Being part of the cohort gave me access to additional ideas and ways of thinking I may not have otherwise had. It gave us the tools we need to position ourselves for future success.”
Resources
Course Scheduling Playbook
The playbook, created as a result of a previous initiative, is a guide for any institution interested in levering their course schedule as a strategy for improving student success. It introduces project phases designed to drive innovation and momentum, project management strategies, and relevant metrics, to support the teams empowered to do this work.
Student-Centered Course Scheduling Webinars
This webinar series shares practical tools, templates, and lessons from the Student-Centered Course Scheduling initiative to help institutions strengthen how schedules support student progress. Each session introduces a concrete resource you can take back and apply on your campus. While developed with AASCU member institutions, these webinars are open to all colleges and universities working to advance this work.
Student-Centered Course Scheduling: Making the Case
Apr. 27, 2026
2:00PM-3:00PM ET
Webinar
Register today.Student-Centered Course Scheduling: Gathering Student and Faculty Input
Jun. 12, 2026
1:00PM-2:00PM ET
Webinar
Register today.Student-Centered Course Scheduling: Using Data to Drive Decisions
Jul. 30, 2026
1:00PM-2:00PM ET
Webinar
Register today.Student-Centered Course Scheduling: Communicating to Support Adoption, Culture Change, and Impact
Sep. 3, 2026
2:00PM-3:00PM ET
Webinar
Register today.Supported by:
In partnership with:
Have questions about Student-Centered Course Scheduling? We’d love to hear from you.
Our team is here to support institutions exploring course scheduling reform and to connect those interested in future learning opportunities or resources from this work.
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Bridging Student Readiness Gaps
Join experts from EAB for a discussion on the student readiness crisis.
AASCU’s Toolkit for Measuring and Advancing Belonging
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Pulse Strategies for Measuring and Advancing Belonging for All
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Leading for Democracy
A call to action for leaders and institutions to foster civic learning and democratic engagement.
2025 American Democracy Project Summit Call for Proposals
Submit proposals by March 18.Meeting theme
Full Participation
AASCU invites submissions to present at the American Democracy Project Summit, happening July 13-14, 2025 in Indianapolis, IN. We seek a diversity of perspectives and experiences, and we especially encourage presentations that include students and feature teams.
Democracy can be frustrating, slow, and contentious. Often, the civic engagement work done on a campus can feel isolated and be un- or under-appreciated. This meeting will change that narrative by showcasing that, through AASCU’s American Democracy Project, there are resources and a community that exists to help build and grow civic engagement within higher education.
Meeting details.Proposal formats
Topical Sessions (45-minute sessions): Presentations, which could be led by an individual or a group, designed to share best practices and/or facilitate conversations about the practical application of civic and community engagement projects. If accepted, you may be paired with another concurrent session to share the 45-minute time block.
Ignite Talks (5-minute sessions): Designed for individuals to share compelling, innovative practices on a large stage, ignite talks use 20 slides that automatically advance every 15 seconds and requires speakers to be concise, prepared, and dynamic.
Poster Sessions: Textual and graphical presentations of civic engagement projects or research.
Proposal topics
We recognize how interconnected the field of civic engagement is. This topic selection allows us to maintain a diverse portfolio of options.
What are the key features of the thriving democracy we hope to enact and support through our work?
- Navigating legislative challenges
- Incorporating and supporting student voice
- Redefining political engagement
- Incorporating diverse voices in our work
- Higher education’s democratic responsibility
- Honoring community voices and wisdom—especially for indigenous-serving institutions
- Exploring/understanding foundational, democratic documents and their relationship to current affairs
- Understanding interrelated concepts of civic engagement, democratic engagement, civic learning service learning, activism, and advocacy
What knowledge, skills, and dispositions contribute to a thriving democracy, and how do we embed this in our work?
- Voter engagement work and results
- Increasing civic engagement beyond social sciences; encouraging interdisciplinary efforts
- Practicing/modeling difficult conversations/dialogues
- Digitial literacy
- Bringing curricular and co-curricular efforts together
- High impact practices
- Experiential learning
- AI possibilities
- Address the colonization of our educational system
How can we build the institutional culture, infrastructure, and relationships needed to support learning that enables a thriving democracy?
- Institution-wide collaboration and building campus stakeholders
- Collaborating with other campuses
- Building leadership supports for civic engagement
- Aligning institutional mission/values with civic engagement
- Integrating campus and community efforts
- Building regional support structures
- Understanding different campus models for student engagement
- Implement and assess institution-wide civic learning objectives
