Northern gains national recognition for economic mobility

Montana State University-Northern now has another accolade to boast about after a report by Zippia named Northern the top school in the state for economic mobility and 15th in the country.

Zippia obtained its data from Opportunity Insights, which is a non-profit organization located at Harvard University. The study focused on a college or university's students who started at the bottom 20 percent of income distribution and have now reached the top 20 percent.

"Being designated as the number one school that gives those types of students the ability to succeed and then exceed is huge," Northern Chancellor Greg Kegel said. "That, to me, is the biggest win this little institution could ever have. That's who we are, that's who we want to be."

Kegel said one of the things they looked at were students who came in at risk, "mostly social and economical-type at risk," and what each institution does with those different classes of students.

Kegel said each institution's profile has varying statistics when it comes to the number of students who meet the "at risk" criteria.

Northern, Kegel said, has a population of students who fall in to the "at risk" category financially and about 85 percent of the students are involved in some form of financial aid. The social part, he added, is that a very high percent of Northern's students are at risk because their parents have never attended any form of higher education.

Kegel said if a student comes from a family where both parents have gone to college, it provides that student with the resources financially rather than a student who is trying to figure out if they can make payments and go to school.

"It's an issue for a student because it puts stress on them," he added. "They're thinking about that instead of thinking about studying for a test."

Kegel said Montana Department of Labor did an economic impact study of the university system last year and found that Northern graduates were out-earning graduates of the other universities within in Montana. The study also showed that 85 percent of Northern graduates stay within Montana.

Northern has co-op education programs that allows students to go to work at companies between their freshmen, sophomore and junior years, Kegel said. He added that he was told Wednesday the average salary for the students participating in those co-opd is the highest in the country. A group also came to Northern and offered more than 20 dollars an hour to co-op students to come work for them.

"Those are huge things for our program," he said. "It shows that industry is tied in; the industry likes this type of student. Generally, they tell me they have very, very good work ethics, their soft skills are where they need to be, they know how to say 'thanks' and 'yes sir,' they come to work on time. They're just good employees."

Kegel believes every student is somewhat at risk regardless of the institution and it's just some students are more at risk because there are more factors involved in making them more at risk.

Kegel said sometimes students are wary of being caught up in the huge campus atmosphere and may need a smaller, slower pace to help them succeed.

"I think Northern offers that," he added. "Our ratio of students to faculty is lower. The pace of the campus is a little bit slower. So that gives them the ability to get their feet on the ground."

Kegel said that within the first three weeks of a new student's first year at Northern, they are coming in to contact with various people and organizations that are available to offer assistance. Kegel believes that is part of the reason why Northern has achieved the success it has.

"I always tell everybody, 'You got to stay focused, and you got to want it, and if you do, you're going to get the ticket,'" Kegel said. "The ticket, of course, is the degree, but, 'we need you to be a completer. You can't dropout, you can't lose sight, you can't lose track. You got to come to us and let us help you.' Students are starting to do that more."

Northern has been aware of the student needs and specific groups are on campus to help the at risk students be successful, Kegel added.

"The beauty of it," he said, "when they are successful, when they do get the degree, we have 100 percent placement where everybody is getting a job. The satisfaction reports we get back from our industry partners are 'this is the type of student we want in our organization.'"

More than 50 industry partners are Northern's campus throughout the year recruiting students and those are the type of students they're looking for, Kegel added.

Northern utilizes the TRIO program, which is a federally funded program that helps assist at risk students, as well.

Kegel said Northern also has realigned its tutoring and advising to "be more student-based." Students can navigate through the system more easily.

Kegel added they track down students who are struggling to try and get them the right type of counseling or advising to help them succeed.

"Our work is never done," Kegel said. "Right now, we're in the middle of putting together a very comprehensive strategic plan for the university. What we do is we check all the data. We're trying to do all of our decision-making through analytics; taking the data and looking at what the data is telling us and then making changes accordingly."

Northern has been doing some variation of this already by looking at best practices. For example, the Little River Institute was established to help Native American students and has been highly successful. Kegel said they are looking at the Little River Institute and what is making it such a success so they can create other programs like it.

Kegel added they also study what other institutions are doing for their at risk students and seeing what works.

Assistance varies by each generation as well, Kegel said. He added they have to pay attention to what is successful for them and how they act. They need to be mindful of the student, but also making sure the student is aware of how they should act in the workplace.

"We can improve a lot," he added. "We will continue to morph around the needs of industry and the needs of our students."

The goal for Northern is to grow its student numbers to where it can be healthy and vibrant like any other university. Kegel said they have redone a lot of the residence halls and parking around the residence halls. They've added pedestrian walkways and security lighting.

Kegel added they are currently working on various projects such as a new stadium for Northern. The stadium will have three levels and will have education offerings and health promotions. He said they are also looking to upgrade facilities for soccer and softball and a complex for their equine program.

"All of those are student life components that make it interesting as a university for a student when they're looking at where should I go, and then, once they get here, keeping them here, making sure that they're happy here on our campus," Kegel said.