College Profiles

Zane State College Profile

Background

Zane State College in Zanesville, Ohio, serves residents of three rural Appalachian counties—Muskingum, Guernsey, and Noble—in the east-central part of the state. The region’s unemployment and poverty rates are above the state average, and average educational attainment level is significantly lower than the rest of Ohio.

Zane State shares a campus with an Ohio University regional campus. Its 28 technology programs emphasize experience-based learning in a supportive educational environment. Most of Zane State’s students are first-generation college attendees and 70 percent of students receive financial aid.  Each year approximately two-thirds of the incoming students require one or more developmental courses. Most of the students who take developmental classes go on to complete subsequent general education courses successfully. The college has a six year average graduation rate of 43.4% and an increasing number of its students are transferring to four-year institutions.

Achieving the Dream Interventions

Math Advising Intervention

The Math Advising intervention identifies those students who test two levels below college-level math and monitors their participation in developmental math courses through enrollment in and completion of a college-level math course. Any student not attending or dropping out of the developmental math course will be advised separately and encouraged to continue sequential developmental courses and college-level courses. Coupled with this approach are intervention referrals from faculty and an early alert system to initiate advising and follow-up advising as necessary.

Results

Although a larger percentage of students placed into Developmental Math in 2007-2008 than in the previous year, a higher percentage of these students completed at least one developmental math course in their first year.

Developmental Education Enrollment and Completion