A recent study has found that White students visit academic advisers less often than nonwhite and international students but see greater benefits in terms of graduation rates and GPA. The research, led by Hua-Yu Sebastian Cherng, a professor at NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, analyzed data from 2017 to 2021 at a large US university.
“Academics, practitioners, and policymakers alike have purported that academic advising is a powerful mechanism to close some of these gaps and that marginalized students attend advising meetings the least. In many ways, we find the opposite of these arguments,” said Cherng.
The study looked at student achievement measures such as grades and graduation rates along with demographic factors like race/ethnicity, income level, international status, and whether a student was the first in their family to attend college. It also examined how often students met with academic advisers.
Researchers found that nonwhite and international students—except those identifying their race as “other”—met with advisers more frequently than White domestic students. Despite more frequent meetings, nonwhite students gained fewer advantages from these sessions. For instance, White students who attended one advising meeting had GPAs about 0.05 points higher than those who did not meet with an adviser; this effect was not seen among Latine students. While several groups experienced some GPA improvement from advising (with the exception of Latine students), only White students showed increased graduation rates linked to adviser meetings.
In terms of social class differences, first-generation college students were seven percent less likely to meet with advisers compared to peers whose parents attended college. These first-generation students also graduated at lower rates. However, there were no significant outcome differences between low- and high-income student groups.
The findings are published in Educational Researcher.
“Our study highlights the importance of advising: it does have an impact, but the question now should be for whom,” Cherng said. “Efforts should be paid to the substance of advising and how advisors work with different groups of students. Only in this way can advising fulfill its purpose as an equalizing force.”
The research team included Junhow Wei from Princeton University and Martha Moreno from New York University. The Spencer Foundation funded the study.
