Why Use Finish First NC?

The pipeline of student success has many leaks.
Let’s find them and plug them.

From initial contact with a college to the day they finish, students have opportunity after opportunity to lose momentum and disengage with your college before they complete and claim their credentials.

Application, admission, registration and course attendance are just the beginning of the story. Students must finish! Each end-of-term and course withdrawal highlight competing life priorities and students can easily defer completing their credentials semester after semester. Finish First NC gives you the tools to encourage attaining a degree, diploma or certificate with a clear pathway to success.

How can FFNC advance your student success and completion efforts?

1. Empowers advisors and students. FFNC provides specific information about clear pathways to completing certificates, diplomas and degrees. Students and their advisors can make informed decisions about whether completing the credential is best for the student.
    
2. Streamlines the work of Student Services. The FFNC tool reduces the days and weeks it would take to identify students at or close to completion to a matter of minutes.
    
3. Facilitates proactive advising. FFNC streamlines the process of finding students who will fulfill requirements for credentials. This equips advisors with the information needed to encourage these students to not only make it across the finish line, but to claim their credential.
    
4. Increases completions/graduation rates. Because FFNC highlights which students have already fulfilled the requirements of a credential, colleges can award the credentials immediately, instantly increasing their completion rates.
    
5. Promotes data-informed course scheduling. Academic departments can leverage the information displayed in the FFNC tool to make informed decisions about scheduling the courses that students need to take to finish their degrees. Using FFNC to schedule courses can help students avoid having to wait unnecessarily for that final course to be scheduled in order to finish.
    
6. Personalizes re-enrollment outreach. FFNC shows you the specific courses a student needs to take in order to complete a credential. Instead of sending a generic email that can easily go ignored, strengthen your touchpoints with each student by sending targeted, personalized information that will encourage him or her to re-enroll.
    
7. Saves students education costs. Rather than meandering from course-to-course with no clear idea of where they lead, students within striking distance of earning a credential are shown exactly how they can make it across the finish line in the next semester, saving them money on education costs.
    
8. Adds labor market value. Finish First NC shows colleges which students can immediately be awarded a degree, diploma or certificate. With his or her earned credential in hand, a student’s hard work can translate into more earning power in the marketplace. Local employers benefit by having a more credentialed workforce.

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Need help convincing your college leadership or colleagues?

If you need help garnering support for your college’s adoption of Finish First NC, download this email/letter to send to your college’s leadership team for their consideration.

View Frequently Asked Questions

A High-Volume, High-Impact, Low-Resource, Low-Cost Solution

Finish First NC is capable of processing tens of thousands of student records at once. Rather than spending days or weeks manually auditing your students’ records, FFNC shows you who is eligible in minutes.

FFNC shows you all students who are close to completing any credential at your school, and all students who can immediately be awarded a credential.

As a low-resource solution, FFNC leverages tools NC community colleges already use—Microsoft Excel, Entrinsik Informer and Datatel/Colleague. No installation of new software is required. Since your outputs appear in Excel, you can sort your results in ways that best support the operations of your institution.

FFNC is a low-cost solution. Colleges in the North Carolina Community College System have access to Finish First NC at no cost to them.

What are FFNC users saying?

“We are now able to focus more on the review and communication with students such as contacting students who may be near completion to see about returning and finishing their degree and contacting the completers notifying them they have completed a credential with us.”

“Students are given more specific information on how close they are to completing a diploma, degree or certificate.”

“Advising is following a proactive approach of contacting students on the Near Completion list to encourage them to register if needed to complete a credential.”