Tuesday, October 23, 2007

10 Steps To Better Customer Service You Can Start Today

As part of the marketing for a video web seminar Boosting Enrollment and Retention Through Customer Service on November 12 ,,2007 I did for Magna Publications, they sent me the following 3 questions. They are fairly common and I thought the answers might be helpful as well as the list of 10 Things You Can Start Today to Improve Customer Service on Your Campus. (I have been told copies of the seminar on dvd are available from Magna.)

1. About how many of the 150 colleges that you’ve worked with have struggled to provide adequate customer service?
2. Is providing customer service on a college campus different from providing customer service at a mall or in a corporation?
3. Can you give us one example of something every campus could do to improve its customer service?

Here is my response along with the Ten Steps You Can Start Today to Improve Customer Service on Your Campus. I’ll be writing on each in the next week or two.

My Summary Response

Of the 151 schools, colleges and universities I have worked with since 1999, approximately 150 have struggled with customer service. The other school just gave up and decided that losing enrollment and employees was inevitable. For them it was. They did not care about customer service.

Students not Customers - More like Patients

The struggle begins with the very idea of customer service for most colleges. The term is one that academic communities feel is wrong for them. “Students aren’t customers after all” is a phrase I hear quite often. And there may be some truth to that since students are not customers but more like our clients. Clients are actually different from customers. A customer is an individual who is interested in making a purchase and then moving on. A client is seeking improvement and enhancement or repair so they can move on. Sort of like when a patient sees a doctor. And in education we are really in the role of doctor (PhD or not). Our students are our patients/clients coming to us to improve their intellectual and occupational health.

And like some doctors who view their patients as cases and income, some schools see students as people who need to be taught so they can receive the revenue they need to be able to do what they really care about. These schools struggle not only with customer service but with retention, revenue and fund raising. The indifferent, supercilious, doctor ends up spending too much time and money on both malpractice suits and attracting new patients. Schools do too. Colleges and universities that struggle rather than embrace academic customer services spend a major amount of time and money recruiting replacement students and employees as well as the “morale malaise” rather than meting the mission and goals of the institution.

Mickey U?
There are some schools that try to engage the campus in customer service as defined by Disney, Enterprise, Starbucks, or another corporate entity. They are finally and most unfortunately doomed to disappointment. This is because though they can make some good service and courtesy adjustments the reality is that though some of our characters could pass for Goofy, Donald or even Mickey or Cinderella, a college is finally a different sort of Futureland. Academia may indeed be a wonderland but not one in which our clients just come for a week of fun and rides or a store in which students are just interested in buying a pair of shoes and leaving.

A retail store or hospitality service provider serves its customers for a short period of time and for a limited purpose. At a Disney for instance, a customer is there to get away from reality and just enjoy oneself for a day to a week. Their goals are narrow and simple. Make me smile. Make me forget work, reality and my cares. Help me escape my life.

A student attends a college for almost opposite reasons. The goals are broad and long-term. They include engaging reality and learning about it. They are in a university or school to embrace a goal of career, a place in the real world. Students seek not to be made to smile and be happy all the time but to be challenged with ideas and intellectual stress that might cause angst and discomfort that will allow them to engage the world. Sure they wish to enjoy their years of study and customer service like smiling and providing good directions can help. But finally it is the preparation for the world outside of academia that is the real client service we provide. And our client service needs to be directed to that goal and our higher education world.

Academic Customer Service
As for retail customer service, attending a college is not at all like buying a pair of jeans. When someone buys jeans, he or she has a singular objective to accomplish. Get a pair of jeans and leave. One does not buy a zipper, pick out denim, choose buttons, stitch or hem style and level of pre-wear then take it all home to put it together. No. You go to a store, look at what is provided, choose a pair, pay for them and leave. It is easy to be nice to a person who is just picking out a pair of jeans, bringing it to your register and leaving. “Thank you very much. Have a nice day”. In college, students have to construct the jeans themselves and have to interact with many people and office to get all the pieces needed. Each course is a part of the final pair. Each course is purchased separately over a period of many years. Every day, every class becomes a buying decision. Should I go to classes today? Do I want to buy Algebra today or just skip it? And it is the student’s job to stitch all the course material together to create a final education and future.

10 Steps You Can Start Today to Improve Customer Service on Your Campus
Here are a few things every campus can do to improve its customer service very quickly.

  1. Use the 15 Principles of Good Academic Customer Service. Don’t just put them on the wall. Use them. If you would like a copy, click here
  2. Everyday is day 1. Make everyday the first day of classes, a new decision day for students.
  3. Turn your school into Cheers University where everyone knows your name and everyone’s glad you came.
  4. Smile and at least make believe you like students. It sooner or later becomes a reality.
  5. Orient for success. Provide students skills they will need to succeed at the school.
  6. Throw out lifelines. Make sure students know where and how to use help like counselors and advising. Don’t have your own, hire an external group like Student Resource Services to do it.
  7. Do or get a customer service audit of your campus and then make needed changes to improve.
  8. Listen to students and all employees. Not just faculty and administrators.
  9. Make customer service training and recognition a constant on the campus. If you don’t have the capabilities to do it yourself, hire someone. It is cheaper than losing students and/or employees.
  10. Attend seminars, speakers and read about academic customer service on campus then implement the ideas that fit. like Boosting Enrollment and Retention Through Customer Service on 11/12.
AcademicMAPS is pleased to provide the information, research reports and techniques for improving customer service, retention and enrollment through this blog. AcademicMAPS also provides colleges and universities speakers, training, campus audits, customer service surveys, and facilitators to improve the success of schools. Just ask us about what we can and will do for you. www.GreatServiceMatters.com info@greatservicematters.com or 413.219.6939

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Hierarchy of Student Decision Making Step 5- Will I Like it?


This is the final installment on the Hierarchy of Student Decision Making.
Introduction How they Choose click here
Installment 2- Can I Get In?
click here.
Installment 3 - Can I Afford it?
click here
Installment 4 - Can I Graduate? click here
Installment 5 -Can I Get a Job click here




The Hierarchy of Student Decision-Making Step 5

Will I Like It?

When the four other hierarchical steps/decisions are satisfied in one or another way, the final enroll/stay question comes into play. This is a question that is less practical perhaps but becomes the primary concern for students once issues 1-4 are resolved. This decision question - Will I like it?

Colleges and universities almost always make the answer a rather simplistic statement of a fairly complex issue. Most schools boil the enjoy issue down to one of two words – satisfaction and/or enjoyment. And they then implement these through activities the institution provides such as events or spectator sports. The belief is that if students enjoy things, they will be satisfied. But what one person likes or enjoys may not be what another does. What a school does in the belief that “they will enjoy it” often, nah, usually misses the mark by a wide margin.

Satisfaction?
Is the student satisfied? As it was put so well so many years ago by the Rolling Stones “I can’t get no satisfaction” no matter what I try. Part of the reason is that no one knows what satisfaction really is. And when found, it is quite fleeting. What is satisfying to one is not necessarily satisfying to another. Could it be pleasure? But pleasure too seems so momentary and hedonistic. Like eating a good meal or even making love. When it is being eaten or being made it may be pleasurable but when done… It’s over. Satisfaction? Fleeting at best. Not what one wants to base a service program on but so many will settle for it because it sounds right and there are even surveys that can “measure” it. So maybe satisfaction is a good indicator of….

But to give it its due, satisfaction is an important concept in customer service. We even have it in one of the 15 Principles of Good Academic Customer Service. (Click here to request a copy) It’s number 12

12. Satisfaction is not enough and never the goal.

Why not?

I’ll give a personal example. I travel a great deal as I work with schools, colleges, universities and businesses that wish to improve their customer service and success. When I returned home after a ten day trip out, my wife who is a great cook made a fantastic meal. It was an Asian delight. Hot and sour soup. Green onion pancakes. Fried dumplings. Peking pancakes with meat topping and a vegetable stir fry. This was a meal that she had really putchkeyed over; cutting the vegetables, filling the dumplings, sautéing the meat, rolling out the dough and just putting a great deal of work, preparation and emotion into it.

At the end of the meal with the sink full of pots and pans that would need attention, she asked me “How was it? I smiled and said “quite satisfying”.

I have been eating out a bit more than I used to now. (BTW, this is an imagined experience that would be true if it ever happened. Even though I was a college president, even I am not that dumb)

Shouldn’t satisfaction be more long lasting than a great meal anyhow? Well, maybe it really is happiness which we know even less about?

In his book Satisfaction: The Science of Finding True Fulfillment (Henry Holt and Company; 2005) Gregory Berns writes:

Seeking satisfaction is distinct from chasing pleasure. Satisfaction is an emotion that captures the uniquely human need to impart meaning to one’s activities. When you are satisfied, you have found meaning, which I think we all agree is more enduring than pleasure or even happiness…(p.244)

Most schools believe that intercollegiate athletics are a draw; something that will retain students since they enjoy watching sports. But the studies do not support this in most schools. For the football and basketball powerhouses, there is some entertainment value certainly but when one drops below the top tier, the stands are often empty.

Let Them Eat Football
Living in Columbus, OH, it is clear that OSU football is the center of life. When there is a home game, the city is fully animated. It would appear that students love going to a football game. Look at how the Horseshoe fills up completely every game with mostly non-students. Football tickets are for the non-student population. Football is not for the students. It is for the alumni, donors, significant supporters and administrators. In fact, when OSU was playing Florida for the national championship, only 1000 of the 16,000 OSU tickets were set aside for students. Only band members were assured a ticket. The team may have built school pride I suppose but that eroded a bit after the loss. Moreover, there was no satisfaction at all with the team’s performance and loss in the championship. And the retention numbers were not affected. Football is not a true customer service for students or the campus community as the recent testimony before the Knight Commission indicates.

Sports can indeed add to the school’s image and help with recruitment. For instance, when I was Associate Provost at the University of Cincinnati, the basketball team made it into the Final Four. The University president, Joe Steger, said we could cut the marketing budget for the next year. The sport’s success would attract more applications. And he was correct. But it did not have any effect on the retention at the University. When I was the Chancellor of a three-campus career college, I increased the number of intercollegiate sports teams from 4 to 13. Why? Because students wanted to play collegiate sports. It increased enrollment by over 140 students a year. Athletics helped our intake enrollment but did not help us with retaining population in general just as the Bearcats in the Final Four did not help UC retention. Activities like athletics do not add to retention unless the students are on the team, the band, a cheerleader or somehow involved with the team or activity.

The Engaging Feeling of Activity
There is that word activity again. And it is worth stating many times for that is the key to student’s liking or not liking, enjoying or not enjoying their collegiate experience. It is the level of engagement a student feels that really counts, but not as defined by the NSSE which looks at academic engagement alone.

Whether a student will like being at a school and likely stay has to do with how well the individual feels the institution actively engages him or her. Actively here means involving him or her in the institution is a way that makes the student feel valued and significant. That engagement that makes someone feel valuable can be as basic and as very powerful as our Good Academic Customer Service Principle 1

EVERY STUDENT WANTS TO ATTEND
CHEERS UNIVERSITY AND EVERY
EMPLOYEE WANTS TO WORK THERE!

“where everybody knows your name
and they’re awfully glad you came”

Just recall the Cheers TV show for a moment. People who came into the bar were made to feel as if they mattered; as if they had value. The simple act of welcoming Norm by calling out his name made him feel valued and important in the bar. Maybe nowhere else but there, he was NORM! The same is true for students. A school may not have everyone line up and shout out students’ names as they enter a building of course for two reasons. First, most people would feel dumb and awkward doing that. And two, we generally do not learn the names so we would get them wrong. The wrong name. Not a great welcome.

But it would be possible to at least recognize each student and employee/colleague. Not every character on Cheers received the Norm greeting but they all did get a “Hi” or Hello”, ‘Good to see yuh” and the such. Every student can and should be given a “Hi or Good Morning. How are you today?” as we pass them in the halls or on the campus. And then we should actually listen for the response and even react to it. (This is discussed in greater depth.) This simple activity creates engagement and leads to a person feeling a part of the university no matter what size it is. The more hellos from those identified with the college or university, the greater the active imprinting on the student. The result is that students become happier to be at the college and that improves their sense of liking it. They feel a valued part and thus are greatly inclined to stay where they feel appreciated and respected.

Those Who Can Engage - Do
As I have studied all levels and types of schools, another key retention factor comes through. Students who are actually active in the school through activities such as work-study, part-time jobs, band, athletics, newspaper, frats and sororities, volunteering, and clubs tend to like the college more than those who don’t. They are happier. These are all activities that provide the hello as well as an obligation and giving something. The responsibility is important since it ties the student to the activity and the activity to the school. It makes the activity important and in so doing makes the student more important. Even if the part-time job is sweeping a hall, that hall becomes “my hall.”

In fact, providing students part-time jobs to make tuition money is a better way to spend dollars than even scholarships. Scholarships may attract the student at first and help answer hierarchy concern 2 Can I afford it, but the beneficial effect of a scholarship is short-lived. Once in, it is passé. If a school gave some scholarship in the form of part-time work, and even better, part-time work that could relate to major, that investment is one in retention and happiness. Imagine a chem. major helping in a lab. A soc major assisting a sociology prof and so on. These activities would connect the students to the school much more than an initial handout.

In Mistakes Were Made (but not by me) (Hartcourt:2007) Tavris and Aronson discuss the virtuous circles that can create a spiral that starts with a deed that helps another or an organization and increases another’s attachment to the person or organization.

When people do a good deed…they will come to see the beneficiary of their generosity in a warmer light. Their cognition that they went out of their way to do a favor for this person is dissonant with any negative feelings they might have had about him. In effect, after doing the favor, they ask themselves: “Why would I do something nice for a jerk? Therefore , he’s not as big a jerk as I thought he was – as a matter of fact, he is a pretty nice guy who deserves a break.” (p.28)

Students who work at or participate in the university will also feel the institution is a positive place to be.

The truth of this can be seen and heard in what Jeffrey Docking, President of Adrian College in Michigan did to increase enrollment at the school. He added activities such as band, athletics and other co-curricular activities that would attract and retain students. Pres. Docking also did give every activity an enrollment goal which made it important for the coaches for instance to create a Cheers atmosphere in the Division III, no scholarships college. Without scholarships, the coaches had to use personal attachment and customer service to attract students so they could meet their goals. The result, a 91% increase in freshman enrollment that also translated into retention.

While some feared academic standards would suffer, the effect has been the opposite. The freshman class has a higher academic profile, and the percentage of freshmen who returned to second semester jumped from 77 to 93 -- the highest retention rate in the school's history.

Adrian is providing students the opportunity to engage in something they enjoy and the college at the same time. They get something out of playing sports, being in the band, writing the newspaper and so on. They invest in these activities. These activities also engage them in service to the activity and school thus increasing their ties to the college.

So, there is one customer service that colleges can provide the students that will also increase retention and happiness. That is the service of being active in the school and being able to serve it.

Thursday, October 04, 2007

Hierarchy of Student Decision-Makine Step 4 Can I Get a Job?

This is the fifth installment on the Hierarchy of Student Decision Making. Introduction to the Hierarchy How they Choose click here
The First Step in the Hierarchy- Can I Get In?
click here. Installment 3 - Can I Afford it? click here
Installment 4 - Can I Graduate? click here


The Hierarchy of Student Decision-Making Step 4

Can I Get a Job?
Now we come to one of the more divisive and hypocritical issues on a campus. It goes to the heart of the mission of an institution and why society supports higher education. It is an issue that many in higher education fault our students for holding. This is also one of the highest order concerns of all students and is a major deciding factor to attend or stay at a college or university. If students can answer it positively, they will attend and stay. If not, they will go elsewhere. Simply put “Can I Get Job”.

Or to rephrase it as I have heard it from students “If I pay the money to go to this place, do the work, jump through the hoops it requires for me to graduate, will I get a job. A good job?”

The Job-Orientation of Students

The figures show that what motivated us to attend a college is still what motivates today’s students to choose a school. And even more so. The annual study called The American Freshman National Norms by the Staff of the Cooperative Institutional Research Program at UCLA has been following the attitudes, motivators and beliefs of incoming freshmen for over 40 years. In the latest available report, 2006 freshmen indicated the

Top reasons noted as very important in deciding to go to college

All Men Women

To learn more about things that interest me 76.8% 72.1% 80.6%
To be able to get a better job 70.4% 70.4% 70.4%
To get training for a specific career 69.2% 64.8% 72.7%
To be able to make more money 69.0% 71.9% 66.6%
To gain a general education and appreciation of ideas 64.3% 57.5% 69.9%
To prepare myself for graduate or professional school 57.7% 51.0% 63.1%.


Three out of the top five motivators to go to college focus specifically on a job resulting from going to college. The first motivator is also focused on jobs for students since they will major in areas of “things that interest me” and that major is most often the area in which they wish to work after college.

Again the 2006 CIRP shows the importance of a job from attending a school.

Table 2. Reasons for Attending this College by College Choice (percentages)

“Very Important” Reason for Attending this College

1st 2nd 3rd 4th Choice Choice Choice and lower

This college has a very good academic reputation 63.0* 49.9* 41.1* 30.5*
This college’s graduates get good job
52.7* 44.9* 3 39.2* 31.3*.

Source (http://www.epi.elps.vt.edu/Perspectives/06CIRPFSNorms.pdf)

Reputation is an extremely important aspect that leads to the initial choices and getting a job is a close second most important reason. In fact, the second most important stated reason for choosing a school is that graduates get good jobs. There is indeed a relationship that students believe between getting into a name rand school (reputation) and getting a good job because one graduates from the name brand institution. It is thus hard to separate out the first and second primary motivators since in the students’ eyes, there are two parts of the same motivator – getting a good job.

Once the student is in a college, when deciding to stay or leave “this college’s graduates get good jobs” rises right to the top after preceding concerns – affording, graduating – are answered. If a student is attending a school with a reputation for getting graduates good jobs, the student will do all he or she can to stay there. Even if they are not able to respond to the final step in the hierarchy of decision-making “Will I enjoy it?” with a positive answer. If the student is even hating the school but believes graduating from it will lead to the good job or grad school, he or she will most normally tough it out. As a student I interviewed at a name brand school told me “I hate this place. I wish I had gone somewhere else but if I can just make it through another f---ing year, the name on the diploma will open doors. I can handle another year to get the job and money I want.”

I got in. I can pay for it. I can see my way to graduation. Now, will it get me to where I want to go? Will I get a job, a good job after I graduate. If the answer is yes, students will be strongly motivated to stay as long as their corresponding motivation to get that job remains strong. We in higher education need to realize that. Students attend our colleges, our universities and our classes to do what they must to get a job. We need to accept that reality at some level at least so we do not discourage students from staying at the institution or rejecting what we do. We should not denigrate students for doing what we did so we could get the position we sought in higher education. This was out professional goal. As it is theirs but maybe not to go into education.

So it is important that colleges help keep students focused on college as a pathway to the job they want. More on the how to later.

Is College the AAA League Preparing Students for Jobs?

We in academia know that attending college is a crass, unintelligent motive for going to school. To get a job! That’s not what we are here for! Not why I went to school. The corporatization of colleges and universities is demeaning the role and value of education. If we were to agree to that as acceptable we would be lowering the value of higher education to become just a minor league for business, corporations and the economy.

Higher education has been corrupted enough by the business-like attitudes of administrators and trustees. Trustees we can understand somewhat. They are form outside. Business people and corporate big shots who buy their way onto the boards. And the presidents just suck up to them and what they want done. The models presidents and chancellors use and the way they make decisions are straight from the latest business best seller. The fad of the day. We’ve had them all. Trying to run the institution like it is a business and money and budgets are the most important thing around here. The salaries senior administrators pull down. No wonder they think of themselves as CEO’s and not college presidents. They are the ones who make this place feel so corporate as they suck up to corporations and business for donations. Administrators care more about bringing in money than the faculty or students. They seem to put their own interests before students and teaching.

And maybe a few science professors who spend their time looking for breakthroughs they can patent and make a fortune on. But…Oh yes, and athletics. Nothing but a big business with coaches making huge salaries and sponsorship deals. Maybe some TV and radio too. And well, the athletes are just interested in getting into the pros and making fortunes. But they do bring us school pride when they win. But the rest of us, NO! Well okay, maybe some chem and bio folks who do research paid for by big pharmaceuticals to find what they need to sell some pills and stuff. And yes, I guess some tech folks who write programs, widgets, invent stuff and processes and run their own companies when not in the classroom. The law and med profs need to stay abreast of the real field so I suppose when they have their own practices and work as expert consultants, they are expanding their expertise and should be paid for it. The psychology, sociology and anthro people who do that too. Not for the money or reputation of course. The business folks too. They use their real world consulting and businesses to strengthen their students’ understanding of the real world of business.

But let’s realize they do not take time away from students either since their classes are covered by T.A’s of adjuncts. Granted the T.A’s and adjuncts may not be as good as the experts but at least we are able to get them some work teaching courses for the name and faculty whose names and pictures in the brochures attracted students to the school. So they play an important role that way too. By bringing students to the school where they will be taught by others…. They are sort of the marketing bait to hook the students. They still get good education from the T.A’s and adjuncts that are switched in there. Granted, if the administration would just spend more money on more full-time faculty and salaries, this would not happen. But they have this business model that just hurts the institution.

Those who teach in other areas like engineering, business, criminal justice, technology and what we call the applied studies, do have another point of view. Here is where some of the CS Lewis divide comes in higher education. Sure they teach theories and ideas but they believe the students should be able to do something with the learning. That should not be what college is for. To focus on preparing students for careers and jobs is anti-intellectual. Simply because students are in college to get jobs and because society has supported education since it helps the economy, society and culture demeans the role of higher education to open students to new ideas and improve their ability to think, to reflect, enrich the culture and humankind. That’s why students should come to college. Not for a job.

As an ex-English teacher I know that I was not teaching people so they could get jobs when I assigned works such as Shakespeare, Faulkner, Dickinson, Plato. My colleagues in many humanities areas such as philosophy, art, creative writing, theology and so on never taught to get students ready to get jobs after graduation. We were not concerned with business want ads such as philosopher wanted – entry level position in growing firm needs philosopher; metaphysical background preferred. That was not our job. Our job was to teach students all branches of philosophical endeavor and help them to get ready for graduate school. Maybe one of them would make it to the PhD and become a philosophy teacher. Which is..I guess..a job.

So if they did become a university professor, I guess reading Plato was preparation for a job. But that would never be why I or my colleagues would have taught it. Not as job prep but as part of our own jobs…To work against job-oriented learning. That’s a reason I went on to get a PhD after all. So I could work against the idea of college as career-prep. Except when I taught Technical Writing I guess.

But to do what the technologists suggest is more training than learning. And training as we know is much more limited. This is stimulus A. When you see it, you are to do B. A yields B. Training. But is training the realm of higher education. Oh sure, maybe in community colleges and career schools but not universities. Community colleges and career colleges are there to train people to get a job. But in universities, there is a higher, non-career related mission. Training is for lower-level functions. For those who just want to get a job from their degrees. People like… well, doctors. Yes, they should be trained. That’s good training. Stimulus A blood flowing from a wound should lead immediately to B to stop bleeding out. But then, people go to med school to become…..Well, to become a doctor which is a career, not a job. Like I went to grad school and studied English to become a composition teacher in which I trained students to write which they did not want to do until they realized it applied directly to their future jobs. Once I could link it to their future work they had an interest. They finally became involve because writing could have an effect on their obtaining a good job.

We Were Our Students

Whether we want to admit it or not, accept it or not, we too went to college and university to get a job. Teaching is a job. We all went to college to become something. From early on in life we have been responding to the question of “what will you be when you grow up?” College is part of the answer. It helps us grow up as we go there to major in an area. That area is most always the one that we wish to work in as well even if it is to work in a university as a professor. Even art majors go to college to become better artists and maybe even sell their work. To make money and live. Just like our students. It never hurts to do something one enjoys for a job since we spend more time on the job that out of it quite often. That is why the CIRP found students saying they also came to school to study something that interests them as well as to get a good job. They want to do something they will enjoy while they study it so they can graduate and make money. Actually isn’t that what we do everyday we teach? Do something we enjoy and try to pass that pleasure on to our students? Isn’t what we do? Trying to combine love of our subject and our work? And even if we teach or administer something that does not thrill us at this moment, don’t we do that job so we can do other things we enjoy more? Just like many of our students know they may have to do to get started in a career?

Of course there are some of us who will say that we only teach so we can have the time and money to do what we really want to do. And there are some teachers who try to become administrators to get out of teaching because they have a rather insane notion that administration is easier than teaching. And others will work very hard to get grants or release time to get out of teaching some sections. But that is work too that depended initially on getting a degree to be able to get a job in a college or university. But even if one teaches just to be able to study and read about what interests, teaching is still a job; a way to make an income and live, eat, and study or do something more pleasurable. By the way, students will say that they unfortunately know that some professors do not like teaching from the way such people teach.

They do not like teachers who are not engaged in their learning because they know that what they skills and knowledge they acquire are for their goals of graduating and getting a job.

So it is important that colleges help keep students focused on college as a pathway to the job they want. More on the how to later.