Students are more likely to attain their degree when they report a stronger sense of belonging in their first year of college, according to a new study by Wake Forest University psychology professor Shannon Brady. 

A one-point increase on a five-point belonging scale corresponded to a 3.4 percentage-point bump in the likelihood that a student would graduate within four years.

It’s a rare—and likely first-time—look at how much a student’s feelings of belonging predict whether they earn a degree. College Students’ Sense of Belonging: A Graduation Update, published online in the peer-reviewed journal Educational Researcher, pulls on nationally representative survey data from more than 21,000 undergraduate students enrolled in thousands of two- and- four-year colleges across the U.S.

The students in the study started college in 2011-12, and graduation outcomes were measured in 2015 and 2017, four and six years later. Brady said the findings send a clear message that fostering a sense of belonging is vital on campus.

“When students feel a part of their institution—supported by faculty, engaged in coursework and part of a broader community—their college outcomes are different,” said Brady, first author of the study. “This connection between belonging and graduation highlights the importance of institutional efforts that help students feel academically and socially integrated—not as a ‘nice-to-have,’ but as a key dimension of student success.”

What college belonging looks like

College students who feel like they belong at an institution are more likely to take advantage of resources when they need them and to build relationships that support both their academic performance and persistence toward earning a degree.

Brady cautions, however, that creating that sense of belonging is less about showing students a good time than about assuring students they have the support, understanding and resources to succeed.

She said that students who feel like they belong likely also feel comfortable and confident that they can handle the challenges they might face in the academic space and go on to earn a degree. 

Why belonging matters in college

The importance of degree attainment provides the impetus behind Brady’s study: Research shows that college graduates achieve better employment, report greater well-being, and engage more in the community. 

College Students’ Sense of Belonging: A Graduation Update focuses on one question in the Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study, with answers collected in the spring of an undergraduate’s first and third years. In this national survey, conducted by the federal government, students react to a single question about belonging: I feel that I am a part of [SCHOOL]; 1 = Strongly disagree, 5 = Strongly agree.

The association between belonging and receiving a degree is substantial. In addition to the greater four-year completion rate, Brady found that a one-point increase on the belonging scale corresponded to a 2.7 percentage-point greater likelihood that a student earned a degree within six years. A gain of that size is comparable to the bump in graduation rates researchers see from thousands of dollars in additional financial aid.

The new findings indicate that change matters, too. Even students who start out feeling less connected are more likely to finish if their sense of belonging grows over time. So institutions that track a sense of belonging and attempt to increase that sense for struggling students could change their outcomes for the better.

“You might think that students come into first year and either feel that sense of belonging or they don’t, and then it’s set,” Brady noted. “But our data are suggesting that how things fluctuate over time also matters for students.”

How to use these findings on campus

For institutions looking to increase students’ sense of belonging—and their graduation rates—Brady said it might come down to building a culture rather than rolling out a single program.

“For most students, especially those more vulnerable to feeling like they don’t belong, I don’t think pompoms and a T-shirt are going to cut it,” she explained.

Rather, she said, institutions need to identify structural and psychological barriers that make it harder for some students to feel included and remove those barriers. 

For example, in previous research, she and her colleagues found that brief online interventions designed to normalize worries about belonging and forecast positive trajectories of growth at college led more students to complete their first year of college.

But she emphasized that such interventions wouldn’t be expected to work everywhere; as a recent multi-campus trial showed, they help only when students have real opportunities to belong on campus. She also pointed to New York’s acclaimed ASAP program, which seeks to remove everyday barriers like transportation costs, complicated scheduling, and limited advising. It has been shown to improve graduation rates—and to strengthen students’ feelings of belonging. 

Brady underscores how valuable it could be for institutions and the higher education community to better and more frequently measure students’ belonging, being able to link students’ measurements over time and connect them to other aspects of their college experience. 

“It’s wild that we are the first ones to be able to do this, but the data just haven’t existed,” Brady said. 

She and her current co-author, Maithreyi Gopalan of the University of Oregon, recommend that a standardized, multi-item belonging tool be created and widely implemented across campuses so that universities might better understand what creates that sense of belonging, and what might influence it for the better.