Pillar guide
Measuring student outcomes and co-curricular assessment
What to measure in student affairs, where co-curricular work sits among high-impact practices, and how to report outcomes a provost or accreditor will accept.
Most co-curricular assessment fails for one of two reasons: it measures attendance because attendance is easy to count, or it makes a causal claim that self-selected participation cannot support. The fix is narrower than a new platform. Choose three or four measures tied to numbers your institution already reports, define participation in writing before the term begins, record it somewhere durable enough to survive a staff departure, and report the limits of your comparison before anyone else points them out. This guide covers what to measure, where co-curricular work fits among the high-impact practices AAC&U has catalogued, how to build a co-curricular record, how to pick an instrument you will still be using in three years, and how to write the version a provost and an accreditor will both accept.
Scope
What to measure, and what not to bother measuring
The instinct in a new assessment effort is to measure everything, on the theory that data collected is data available later. In practice the opposite happens: a division measuring twenty things reports none of them well, and the annual report becomes a list of attendance counts nobody reads.
Pick a small number of measures and tie each one to something the institution already reports to a board, an accreditor, or the federal government. Persistence to the next term. Credit accumulation. Placement or continuing education. Sense of belonging, if you already run an instrument that asks about it. Anything not connected to a number someone else already cares about will lose its funding the first time budgets tighten, however elegant the design.
What to stop measuring is the harder half. Raw event attendance tells you about marketing, not about outcomes, and it rewards the large low-commitment event over the small program that changes a student’s trajectory. Satisfaction surveys measure whether students enjoyed a thing, which is worth knowing and is not an outcome. Headcount growth measures your calendar. None of the three is wrong; all three are routinely presented as evidence of impact, which is what makes them dangerous.
The measure most worth adding is the one almost nobody keeps: the gap between availability and use. Our State of Higher Ed 2026 research found 84.3% of undergraduates know their school offers career services while only 46% of those have used them. Just 38.8% of all undergraduates have engaged with something they already know exists. The 2025 findings show the same shape from the administrator’s chair: 62.4% of administrators said their students have a lot of internship opportunities, while only 17.2% of undergraduates reported having completed one. Availability read from the inside looks like sufficiency.
Career services: awareness is not the constraint
The NSLS State of Higher Ed 2026. A program reporting only the first bar looks healthy. The measure that changes a decision is the third.
The framework
High-impact practices, and where co-curricular work fits
High-impact practices are a specific, named set of teaching and learning practices that the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) has catalogued as showing evidence of significant educational benefit for students. AAC&U’s published list runs to twelve: first-year seminars and experiences, common intellectual experiences, learning communities, writing-intensive courses, collaborative assignments and projects, undergraduate research, diversity and global learning, service learning and community-based learning, internships, capstone courses and projects, ePortfolios, and open educational resources.
The term is worth using precisely, because it is doing real work in accreditation narratives and strategic plans. "High-impact practice" is not a synonym for "good program." It names practices with a research base behind them, and using the phrase loosely on your own campus makes it harder to use when it counts.
Notice what the list has in common. Every entry involves sustained effort over time, substantive interaction with faculty and peers, work with people unlike oneself, frequent feedback, and a public demonstration of what was learned. Those conditions, not the label, are what produce the effect.
Read that way, co-curricular leadership programming is not on the list, and satisfies most of its conditions. A structured leadership program is sustained rather than one-off, is built on peer interaction, produces a project and a public presentation of it, and generates exactly the reflective artifacts an ePortfolio is meant to hold. Several list entries are also directly reachable from co-curricular work: service learning and community-based learning are frequently run out of student affairs, and internships are often facilitated there.
The practical move is not to argue that your program should be added to AAC&U’s list. It is to describe your program in the conditions the list is built on, and to connect it to the entries you can genuinely claim. A capstone-style culminating project, a documented community partnership, a reflective portfolio requirement: each of those is a defensible link, and each is more persuasive to a reviewer than the label applied to itself.
The infrastructure
Building a co-curricular record
A co-curricular record is an institutionally validated record of a student’s verified out-of-class learning (leadership roles, service, structured programs, competencies demonstrated), maintained by the institution rather than asserted by the student. It differs from a résumé in that someone on staff has verified each entry, and from a transcript in that it carries no credit.
Most co-curricular record projects stall for a reason that has nothing to do with software: the institution never decided what qualifies. Without that decision, every advisor applies their own standard, the record fills with unlike things, and it loses the one property that made it worth building: that an entry means something specific.
So start with the taxonomy, not the platform. Decide on a small set of categories, write a one-sentence inclusion rule for each, and name the person who validates entries in each category. Five categories with hard rules produce a usable record. Twenty categories with soft rules produce a database.
Then decide what a student can do with it. A record nobody can use is an administrative artifact. The useful destinations are concrete: a document a student attaches to a graduate-school application, a source a recommender draws on when writing a letter, a structured input for an ePortfolio, and, if your registrar agrees, a notation alongside the academic transcript. Settle that before launch, because the answer determines the level of verification you need.
One design choice determines whether the record survives. Entries must be created as a byproduct of running the program, not as a separate data-entry task afterward. If completing a leadership program automatically writes an entry, the record stays current. If someone has to remember to type it in at the end of a term, it will be complete for two years and then stop, and the gap will be invisible until someone runs a report.
Instruments
Choosing an instrument you will still be using in three years
The instrument question gets answered badly because it gets answered ambitiously. A division picks the most comprehensive tool available, administers it once with enthusiasm, gets a poor response rate the second year, and quietly stops. A short instrument administered consistently for four years is worth more than a thorough one administered twice, because change over time is the only thing anybody wants to know.
Work in this order. Name the decision the data will inform: whether to expand a program, where to place staff, what to tell a provost. Then find the shortest instrument that informs that decision. Then check whether something already running on your campus asks the question, because a national survey your institutional research office already administers costs you nothing to use and comes with comparison data you cannot generate yourself.
Prefer validated instruments over homegrown ones where a validated option exists, and use it unmodified. Rewriting three items to fit local vocabulary breaks comparability with every other administration of it, which was the reason to choose it. If you need local questions, add them as a clearly separate block.
Collect the baseline first. This is the most common irreversible mistake in co-curricular assessment: the program launches, it goes well, someone asks for evidence, and the pre-measure that would have made the answer easy was never taken. A short pre-survey at orientation costs almost nothing and cannot be recovered later.
Also plan the response rate before you plan the analysis. Embed administration in a moment students are already present (a session, a required check-in, a program milestone) rather than sending a link and hoping. A 15% response rate from a self-selected slice of a self-selected program is not a result you can defend, however good the instrument.
Reporting up
Reporting to a provost and to an accreditor
Our retention guide sets out why participant-versus-average comparisons overstate an effect and what to do about it: define participation before the term, match your comparison group where you can, disaggregate, and report reach as its own result. This section starts from there and deals with the part that is harder: what to write when a matched comparison is genuinely impossible, and what each audience is actually testing.
A provost is testing whether you know the weaknesses in your own number. State the limitation in your own voice, in the same paragraph as the finding, before anyone raises it: participants opted in, the comparison group is the institutional average rather than a matched cohort, and the difference therefore includes a selection effect of unknown size. That sentence costs you nothing and converts the conversation from cross-examination to a shared problem. A claim presented without its limitation invites someone to find it, and they will.
Where no comparison group exists at all, three honest claim types remain, and all three are fundable. Reach: how many students from a named population the program engaged, and how many had no prior co-curricular involvement. Change within participants: pre-to-post movement on a defined measure, reported as movement among participants and nothing more. Implementation: the program ran as designed, at the intended scale, with these response rates. None of these requires a causal claim, and a specific reach number typically moves a budget conversation further than a contested effect size.
An accreditor is testing something different: whether you have a functioning assessment cycle rather than a favorable result. The cycle is what gets reviewed: stated learning outcomes, a measure aligned to each, evidence collected on a schedule, an interpretation, a documented change made in response, and evidence the change was re-measured. A modest outcome with a closed loop reviews better than an impressive outcome with no loop, because the loop is the standard.
Two practical notes. Give your comparisons a defensible reference point: for retention, the sector median rather than the national average, since median full-time retention is 71% across all US degree-granting institutions but 77% at private nonprofit four-year and 63% at public two-year institutions (IPEDS, Fall 2023). A 68% rate means opposite things in those two settings. And where you use a provider’s programming, use its assessment as an input rather than as your report. The NSLS includes annual program assessments, for example, and a vendor summary is evidence to interpret, not a finding to forward under your own name.
Go deeper
Supporting articles
Building a co-curricular record your campus will maintain
Co-curricular record projects stall on a decision, not on software: nobody defined what qualifies. Decide the taxonomy, the validator, and the destination.
Measuring outcomesChoosing a student assessment instrument you will keep using
A short instrument run consistently for four years beats a comprehensive one run twice. Name the decision first, and take the baseline before launch.
High-impact practices, explained for student affairs
High-impact practices are AAC&U's named set of twelve, not a label for well-liked programming. Here is what they share and how co-curricular work fits.
Measuring outcomesReporting co-curricular outcomes to a provost or accreditor
A provost tests whether you know the weaknesses in your own number. An accreditor tests whether your assessment loop closes. Two audiences, two documents.
Key terms
Definitions
- Co-curricular
- Co-curricular describes learning an institution organises alongside the academic curriculum: tied to stated learning outcomes, but carrying no academic credit.
- Co-curricular record
- A co-curricular record is an institutionally validated record of a student's learning outside the classroom: leadership roles, service and structured programs.
- High-impact practices
- High-impact practices are a specific, named list of teaching and learning practices catalogued by the American Association of Colleges and Universities.
- Persistence
- Persistence is the share of students who stay enrolled in higher education anywhere from one year to the next, even at an institution other than their first.
- Sense of belonging
- Sense of belonging is a student's perception that they are known, accepted and expected at their institution: the state campus involvement is meant to produce.
- Student affairs assessment
- Student affairs assessment is the systematic collection and use of evidence about what students learn through the programs a student affairs division provides.
Common questions
What are high-impact practices?
High-impact practices are a specific set of teaching and learning practices identified by the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) as showing evidence of significant educational benefit for students. AAC&U’s published list names twelve: first-year seminars and experiences, common intellectual experiences, learning communities, writing-intensive courses, collaborative assignments and projects, undergraduate research, diversity and global learning, service learning and community-based learning, internships, capstone courses and projects, ePortfolios, and open educational resources. What they share is sustained effort over time, substantive interaction with faculty and peers, work with people unlike oneself, frequent feedback, and a public demonstration of learning.
Is co-curricular leadership programming a high-impact practice?
It is not one of the practices on AAC&U’s list, and it satisfies most of the conditions the list is built on: sustained effort, peer and faculty interaction, work across difference, feedback, and a public demonstration of learning. Two list entries also commonly sit inside student affairs already: service learning and community-based learning, and internship facilitation. The stronger move in an accreditation narrative is to describe your program in those conditions and connect it to entries you can genuinely claim, rather than to argue about the label.
What is a co-curricular record?
A co-curricular record is an institutionally validated record of a student’s verified learning outside the classroom: leadership roles, service, structured programs, and demonstrated competencies. It differs from a résumé in that the institution has verified each entry, and from a transcript in that it carries no academic credit. Its value depends entirely on verification, so the first decision is what qualifies for inclusion and who validates it, not which platform to buy.
What is student affairs assessment?
Student affairs assessment is the practice of defining what out-of-class programs are meant to accomplish, measuring whether they do, and changing the program in response. In practice it means a small number of stated outcomes, a measure aligned to each, evidence collected on a repeating schedule, an interpretation, and a documented change. That last step is the one most often skipped and the one accreditors look for.
What should we measure for a student success initiative?
Choose three or four measures that connect to numbers your institution already reports: persistence to the next term, credit accumulation, placement or continuing education, and sense of belonging if you already run an instrument that asks about it. Stop treating raw event attendance, satisfaction scores, and headcount growth as outcome evidence. They are worth knowing, and they measure your marketing, not your impact. Add one measure most campuses lack: the gap between what is available and what students actually use.
How do we choose an assessment instrument?
Name the decision the data will inform, then find the shortest instrument that informs it, then check whether institutional research already administers something that asks the question. A national survey already in use costs nothing and brings comparison data you cannot generate yourself. Use validated instruments unmodified, add any local questions as a separate block, take the baseline before the program launches, and administer at a moment students are already present. A short instrument run consistently for four years is worth more than a comprehensive one run twice.
How do we report co-curricular outcomes to a provost?
Lead with the finding and put the limitation in the same paragraph: participants opted in, the comparison is the institutional average rather than a matched cohort, and the difference therefore includes a selection effect of unknown size. Benchmark against your sector rather than the national average: median full-time retention is 71% across all US degree-granting institutions but 77% at private nonprofit four-year and 63% at public two-year institutions (IPEDS, Fall 2023). A provost is mainly testing whether you know your own number’s weaknesses.
What can we claim when we have no comparison group?
Three claim types remain, and all are defensible. Reach: how many students from a named population the program engaged, and how many had no prior co-curricular involvement. Change within participants: pre-to-post movement on a defined measure, described as movement among participants and nothing more. Implementation: the program ran as designed, at the intended scale, with stated response rates. None requires a causal claim, and a specific reach number often moves a budget decision further than a contested effect size.
What does an accreditor want to see from co-curricular assessment?
A functioning cycle rather than a favorable result: stated learning outcomes, a measure aligned to each, evidence collected on a schedule, an interpretation of that evidence, a documented change made in response, and evidence that the change was re-measured. A modest outcome with a closed loop reviews better than a striking outcome with no loop, because the loop is what the standard describes.
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Sources
- AAC&U: High-Impact Practices (the twelve named practices) (opens in new tab)
- IPEDS EF2023D: retention rates, fall 2022 cohort returning fall 2023 (National Center for Education Statistics) (opens in new tab)
- The NSLS: State of Higher Ed 2026 (career-services awareness and utilization)
- The NSLS: State of Higher Ed 2025 (administrator opportunity perception, internship participation)
- The NSLS: program overview (annual program assessments) (opens in new tab)