Student Barriers to Navigating Academic Life

Overview

In a new survey conducted by College Pulse and Coursedog, 1,500 students across the country share how well they’re able to navigate academic life and what barriers they experience. Specifically, students share to what extent they’re able to access the classes they need, navigate academic offerings, and plan out their degree paths. The results show how students overall feel, as well as differences by class year and students at two-year versus four-year institutions.

Key Learnings

• Which barriers most commonly prevent students from enrolling in the classes they need
• The impact of course access on students’ enrollment intentions
• How well students are able to understand degree requirements and navigate the course catalog
• How students leverage technology and advisors to plan their degrees

Difficulties in Enrolling for Classes

• 6 in 10 students say they have experienced difficulty enrolling in classes they need to meet requirements.
• A majority (55%) of students say they frequently or somewhat frequently experience difficulty enrolling in classes they need to meet requirements for their major or general education, compared to 45% who rarely or never experience difficulty.

• Four-year students are more likely to experience difficulty enrolling in classes.
• More than 6 in 10 (62%) students at four-year universities say they’ve experienced a class already being full when they tried to enroll, compared to 45% of students at two-year colleges.
• Two-year students are more than twice as likely as four-year students to say they’ve experienced none of the challenges listed(16% vs. 7%).

• 1 in 5 students say they will stop attending their current school if they are unable to enroll in the classes they need
• First-year students are twice as likely as seniors to say they will stop attending their current school or transfer if they’re unable to enroll in the classes they need (33% vs. 15%). Overall, 21% of students strongly or somewhat agree that they will stop attending their current school or transfer if that happens.

• Students who frequently have difficulty enrolling in classes are three times as likely to say it’s difficult to understand their degree requirements.
• More than one-third (35%) of students who frequently experience difficulty enrolling in classes say it’s somewhat or very difficult to understand their degree requirements, compared to 11% of students who never experience difficulty enrolling in classes.

• Students who frequently experience difficulty enrolling in the classes they need are more likely to consider transferring.
• Among students who frequently experience difficulty enrolling in classes, 42% agree that they will stop attending their current school or transfer if they’re unable to enroll in the classes they need, compared to 10% of students who never experienced difficulty.

• One-quarter of students strongly agree that their courses are teaching them relevant skills to land a job.
• A majority of students (70%) strongly or somewhat agree that the required courses for their degree are teaching them relevant skills to help land a job in their given field, while 26% strongly agree.
• Two-year students are more likely than four-year students to strongly agree (32% vs. 24%).

• Students who never experience difficulty enrolling in classes are more likely to say they rely on their advisor.
• Two-thirds (67%) of students who never experience difficulty enrolling in classes say they rely on their advisor to understand degree requirements, compared to 44% of students who frequently experience enrollment difficulties.

Technology for Academic Navigation

• One-quarter of students say their school’s online course catalog is difficult to navigate.
• Just 6% of students say their school’s online course catalog is very difficult to navigate, but another 21% say the catalog is somewhat difficult.

• Students who have difficulty navigating their school’s online course catalog are more likely to say they’ve frequently experienced enrollment difficulties.
• Almost half (45%) of students who say it’s very difficult to navigate their school’s online course catalog also say they’ve frequently experienced difficulty enrolling in the classes they need, compared to 11% of students who say it’s very easy to navigate their school’s online course catalog.

• Seniors are more likely to strongly agree that the technology their school offers helps them navigate their academics.
• Roughly one-third (32%) of seniors strongly agree that the technology their school offers (e.g., the course catalog and degree planning tools) helps them navigate their academics, compared to 30% of juniors, 26% of sophomores, and 22% of first-year students.

• Four-year students are more likely to use a degree planning tool offered by their school.
• Nearly 6 in 10 (58%) four-year students say they use a degree planning tool offered by their school to understand their degree requirements, compared to 39% of two-year students.

Advance Planning of Classes

• 9 in 10 students plan their classes more than one term in advance
• An overwhelming majority (88%) of students say they plan their classes more than one term in advance for all or some of their classes.
• Female students are more likely than male students to say they plan in advance for all of their classes (49% vs. 39%).

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Sampling Methodology

This survey was designed and conducted by College Pulse. Interviews were conducted in English among college students enrolled in two- or four-year universities (n=1,500).

The undergraduate student sample was drawn from College Pulse’s American College Student Panel™, that includes over 675,000 verified students and recent alumni representing more than 1,500 different colleges and universities in all 50 states. All panel members are recruited by a number of methods to help ensure diversity in the panel population, including web advertising and permission-based email campaigns. To reduce the effects of any non-response bias, a poststratification adjustment was applied to the undergraduate student sample based on demographic distributions from the 2019 Current Population Survey (CPS). The post-stratification weight rebalanced the sample based on the following benchmarks: age, race and ethnicity, and gender. The sample weighting was accomplished using an iterative proportional fitting (IFP) process that simultaneously balances the distributions of all variables. Weights were trimmed to prevent individual interviews from having too much influence on the final results.

The margin of error for this survey is ±2.9%. Margins of error are typically calculated on probability-based samples and are not technically correct for non-probability online samples. We supply them here to provide a general assessment of error ranges that may be associated with the data.

This survey was fielded between January 23, 2023, and February 2, 2023. For more information about our methodology, click here.

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