UIA Membership Expansion

UIA Membership Expansion UIA Membership Expansion While college completion rates have risen in recent decades, the distribution of attainment has not been equitable, and gaps by race/ethnicity and income are widening. These patterns are rooted in centuries of societal and systemic racism, classism, and marginalization of underrepresented communities. This context catalyzed the UIAs launch. In 2014, the founding UIA board committed to an ambitious collaborative experiment and set a public goal to collectively award 68,000 additional undergraduate degrees in 10 years, with half to students from underrepresented backgrounds. The UIA has already granted 53,200 additional degrees in only six years and is on-track to exceed that original goal by 90%. UIA institutions have increased the number of degrees awarded annually to low-income students by 32% and students of color by 56%. As we celebrate this collective progress, we are poised to expand our impact even further by engaging additional likeminded institutions. The UIA is designed to build awareness and adoption of successful and promising student success transformation strategies across higher education. We do this by scaling proven interventions from our campuses across the rest of the alliance, equipping UIA Fellows with process mapping and design thinking skills they can apply on their campuses, diffusing what we learn through live conferences and online media, and leveraging strategic communications to elevate compelling campus stories and lessons learned. UIA members enroll a combined undergraduate population of 432,219; 165,037 (39%) are students of color and 125,451 (29%) are Pell recipients. These are the students the UIA is focused on serving. Our current list of prospective new members includes an average enrollment of 8,820 students of color and 6,327 Pell recipients. Early estimates suggest the UIA can reach over 35,000 additional students of color and over 25,000 additional low-income students by expanding membership to 15.