Using Curricular Analytics to Sustain Student Success Amid Policy and Funding Uncertainty

As colleges and universities face tighter budgets and intensifying demands for accountability, sustaining their student success initiatives requires new approaches. This presentation shows how the Association for Undergraduate Education at Research Universities (UERU) worked with 30 of its member institutions to reform curricular structures using Curricular Analytics, an approach that reveals the structural barriers to degree completion and how to overcome them. Such structural reform is a powerful but underutilized lever for institutional resilience during times of political and financial complexity. Drawing on a national policy perspective (articulated in Curricular Analytics in Higher Education: Analyzing a Hidden Barrier to Student Success, forthcoming from Routledge in 2026), the session demonstrates how reducing unnecessary curricular complexity can measurably improve retention and time to degree without compromising learning outcomes or program quality. Research documenting an inverse relationship between curricular complexity and student success challenges longstanding assumptions that equate academic rigor with extensive prerequisite chains and high credit loads. In an environment defined by career readiness mandates, declining public trust, and affordability concerns, Curricular Analytics gives institutions a practical way to optimize degree programs for learning outcomes and student success. The presentation will conclude by sharing UERU’s ongoing Curricular Analytics Project (CAP) Community of Practice, a collaborative space supporting practitioners who are applying curricular data to reform degree pathways and sustain student success amid evolving policy and funding landscapes, and the forthcoming UERU Leadership Summit in August 2026, featuring an expert workshop on Curricular Analytics and transfer student success.