The California State University (CSU) unveiled a new Student Success Framework this fall that supersedes and expands the system’s Graduation Initiative 2025 (GI 2025). Whereas GI 2025 focused on increasing graduation rates and closing equity gaps, the new Framework embraces a broader systemwide vision for student success that spans students’ entire academic journeys from enrollment through post-graduation. The Framework also presents more expansive metrics to help identify progress and challenges along the full student experience.
The Network welcomes the Framework’s expansive approach and will collaborate with the Chancellor’s Office to continue to support middle leaders in advancing equitable student learning and success.
What is the new Framework?
The Framework was unveiled to the CSU Board of Trustees in September and introduced to the system’s 22 universities during the final GI 2025 Symposium in October. It was developed based on the system’s Year of Engagement, which sought input from students, faculty, staff, administrators, and alumni through workshops, surveys, working groups, and committees.
At the heart of the Framework is a “CSU Promise” stating that “every CSU student will graduate with the opportunity for a first career job and/or a clear path to further study” (see Figure 1). According to the plan, this promise is to be realized through several commitments by the CSU, including: an affordable total cost of a CSU degree; personalized journeys for students to reach their academic and career goals; adaptive and responsive teaching and learning environments; and opportunities for experiential learning to support the development of practical skills and work-based experience. In supporting experiential learning (including internships), the Framework seeks to engage alumni and other community partners to build professional networks for students.
Figure 1: Framework Structure
Source: Student Success Framework Final Report.
The Framework’s metrics are focused on students and feature disaggregation of data to help track and understand equity gaps. They also include progress tracking along the student experience. The measures include retention rates, graduation rates, student satisfaction, net cost of attendance, experiential learning participation, alumni engagement, graduate school placement, career earnings, and socioeconomic mobility.
According to CSU Chancellor Dr. Mildred García, “As our students have changed, so must we… Our new Student Success Framework reimagines the way we educate and work.”
According to Dr. Dilcie Perez, CSU deputy vice chancellor for Academic and Student Affairs, the Framework’s goals and metrics for student success are aligned with a new systemwide strategic plan called CSU Forward. In addition, the Framework seeks to build from and align with two other new systemwide efforts:
- A Strategic Enrollment Management Plan focuses on attracting students to the university and providing smooth transitions into it. The Framework seeks to create a seamless student journey from enrollment and into curricular and co-curricular pathways.
- An Information Technology Strategic Plan seeks to support the Framework’s goals by ensuring that all digital tools and systems work cohesively across the student experience.
This integrated approach at the system level seeks to encourage CSU campuses to embrace holistic and comprehensive approaches to student learning and success.
The Framework’s implementation timeline begins with two transformational years in 2025-26 and 2026-27. The plan calls for the new metrics to kick in with the incoming class of 2027, with the tracking of milestones at two-, four-, and six-year windows.
The Network’s role in continuing to support campuses in advancing equitable student learning and success
Since its inception in 2016-17, the Network has always supported CSU middle leaders—that is, students, staff, faculty, and administrators—as they embrace their power to imagine, plan for, and implement systems and practices that advance equitable student learning, engagement, progression, and completion. In this capacity, the Network welcomes the CSU’s vision and goals as articulated in its Student Success Framework, and looks forward to continuing to partner with the Chancellor’s Office in supporting middle leaders on campuses in advancing equitable student success.
These elements of the Framework are especially promising:
- The Chancellor’s Office’s process of engaging with CSU students, staff, faculty, administrators, and alumni to develop the systemwide Framework;
- The Framework’s guiding principles to steer implementation and decision-making in ways that are student-centric, equity-driven, data-informed, collaborative, and transparent;
- The Framework’s emphasis on the student experience along the full student pathway, from enrollment and affordability to teaching & learning, personalized supports, graduation, and career fulfillment;
- The Framework’s pledge to integrate its multiple vision statements and goals—that is, the systemwide strategic plan, enrollment plan, and IT plan—into a single set of implementation goals and metrics; and
- The CSU Promise to students and the Framework’s commitments to adapt university systems to meet the needs and experiences of today’s students throughout their academic journey.
The Network acknowledges the extent to which transformational change across the largest public university system in the nation will take time and resources. We’ve begun to hear questions about budgetary challenges; implementation supports; and data collection, sharing, and use. We’ve also heard from many who are encouraged by a systemwide vision that derives from and seeks to engage CSU students, staff, faculty, and alumni in advancing student learning and success across the full student experience. With its nearly 10-year history of supporting CSU middle leaders to break down silos and build cross-functional and cross-campus relationships to advance change, the Network is well situated to support such efforts in the context of the Framework.
“The Network is enthusiastic about the opportunities presented in the Framework to center and advance equitable student learning and success in the CSU, and we’re particularly excited about expanding student success metrics beyond retention and graduation rates,” said Dr. Adam Petersen, the Network Advisory Board chair and assistant dean of undergraduate studies at California State University, San Marcos (CSUSM). “This has always been the heart of the work we do, and we are already making plans to support middle leaders in working together to understand how their great work supporting student learning and success can shine within the context of the new vision.”
Over the past decade, the CSU’s 22 universities made important strides in addressing the ambitious goals of GI 2025. The new Student Success Framework seeks to offer a more holistic and coordinated vision for the road ahead. The Network is dedicated to supporting middle leaders in this effort.