Coaching Works—if Colleges Invest in Quality

As colleges face mounting pressure to improve graduation rates with limited resources, a new peer-reviewed literature review of 36 studies suggests that success coaching can improve student persistence—but only when institutions invest in training and supporting the coaches themselves.

The report from InsideTrack, a national nonprofit that adapts executive-style success coaching for higher education, found that in roughly two-thirds of the studies examined, results depended on how coaching programs were designed and implemented—not simply on whether coaching was offered.

Ruth Bauer, president of InsideTrack, said the findings help distinguish between coaching as a popular idea and coaching as a disciplined, evidence-based practice.

“Whether it’s executive coaching or life coaching, people understand the concept and know that there is value to it in higher ed,” Bauer said. “However, what’s been missing is this foundational research that really explains why coaching works in this context and how you can then leverage it to have the most impact on student success.”

“What does a coach need to know, and at what skill level do they need to operate in order to have the impact on students that we want to see?” she added.

Bauer said the findings show that coaching models grounded in intentional training, accountability and continuous improvement are far more likely to drive gains in learner persistence and progress.

“I would say the most important piece of this—and this is the piece that a lot of folks struggle with the most—is the feedback loop,” Bauer said. That means giving coaches “meaningful, ongoing feedback on their practice.”

What makes coaching work: The study identifies 10 characteristics that consistently sustain effective coaching practices, including relationship-building, motivation development, reflective assessment and action planning.

Bauer said institutional investment in high-quality coaching is especially critical for first-generation students, students of color and those facing academic or financial barriers, noting her own background as a first-generation college student.

“You don’t necessarily know what questions to ask, let alone who to ask, so having a coach in your corner can really make a big difference when you’re at that disadvantage as a student,” Bauer said.

She added that community colleges, which serve a disproportionate share of first-generation and lower-income students, are often uniquely positioned to benefit from structured coaching models—but may face the steepest resource constraints in implementing them at scale.

“It’s important to look at students and say, ‘What do you already bring to the table?’” Bauer said. “And how can we leverage that to help you overcome whatever obstacles are standing in front of you today?”

Coaching as campus culture: Bauer said coaching should extend beyond dedicated success coaches to many student-facing roles across an institution, from academic advisers to professors.

“The opportunity to coach a student can happen at any time,” Bauer said. “It can be a professor who’s talking with a student after class, and instead of having that be a transactional interaction, using coaching tools to really help that student who might be struggling.”

Ultimately, she said institutions should think less about coaching as a stand-alone intervention and more as a skill set embedded across campus.

“The way that schools need to see the investment in coaching skills for their student-facing staff is that every student that stays in school and doesn’t stop out, every student that graduates on time, every student that goes on to convert this to their career—that social mobility piece—that is the return on investment,” Bauer said.

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