Constrained by shrinking budgets, can colleges do more to improve the quality of education? And can students get more out of college without paying higher tuition? We conclude that the limited resources of colleges and students need not diminish the undergraduate experience. How College Works reveals the surprisingly decisive role that personal relationships play in determining a student’s collegiate success, and puts forward a set of small, inexpensive interventions that yield substantial improvements in educational outcomes.
At a liberal arts college in New York, the authors followed a cluster of nearly one hundred students over a span of eight years. The curricular and technological innovations beloved by administrators mattered much less than the professors and peers whom students met, especially early on. At every turning point in students’ undergraduate lives, it was the people, not the programs, that proved critical. Great teachers were more important than the topics studied, and even a small number of good friendships—two or three—made a significant difference academically as well as socially.
For most students, college works best when it provides the daily motivation to learn, not just access to information. Improving higher education means focusing on the quality of a student’s relationships with mentors and classmates, for when students form the right bonds, they make the most of their education.
How College Works received the 2013 Virginia and Warren Stone Prize for and Outstanding Book on Education and Society.
Praise for How College Works“This is a wonderful book—both rigorous and a pleasure to read. A core insight shines through—the reminder that even with the proliferation of technology, human interactions remain central to most students’ college experience.”—Richard Light, Harvard University
"The book shares the narrative of the student experience, what happens to students as they move through their educations, all the way from arrival to graduation. This is an important distinction. [Chambliss and Takacs] do not try to measure what students have learned, but what it is like to live through college, and what those experiences mean both during the time at school, as well as going forward. (John Warner Inside Higher Ed 2014-02-03)
“There is a lot to like about How College Works.”—Mary Taylor Huber, Change
In the media
- What Makes a Positive College Experience? (New York Times)
- Relationships Are Central to the Student Experience. Can Colleges Engineer Them? (Chronicle of Higher Education)
- Small Changes in Teaching: The Minutes Before Class (Chronicle of Higher Education)
- Can Colleges Manufacture Motivation? (Chronicle of Higher Education)
- College Basics for High School Seniors (New York Times)
- Chronicle Book Club (Chronicle of Higher Education)
- Summer Reading List for College Admissions Counselors (Washington Post)
- Top 10 Books on Teaching (Chronicle of Higher Education)
- The Power of the Personal (Chronicle of Higher Education)
- Are Small Classes Best? It's Complicated (Chronicle of Higher Education)
- It Matters a Lot Who Teaches Introductory Classes. Here's Why. (Chronicle of Higher Education)
- Let's Not Rush Into Disruptive Innovation (Inside Higher Ed)
- College Quarterly (vol 17, no. 1): Book Review (College Quarterly)
- That Freshman Class Professor Is Deciding Your Major For You (TIME Magazine)
- Thriving in College: The Power of Relationships (Huffington Post)
- 'Majoring in a Professor' (Inside Higher Education)
- How College Works (Inside Higher Education)
- Colleges Tout Well-Being, Not Just Job Prospects (USA Today)
- Learn Your Students' Names (Chronicle of Higher Education)
- Waiting for Us to Notice Them (Chronicle of Higher Education)
- How College Really Works (WNYU Radio)
- Five tips for choosing a college (Huffington Post)
- A Professor's Pointers for Success in College (Huffington Post)
- College Students Choose Majors Basically Because of One Early Professor (Washington Monthly)
- Town and Gown: What Great Cities Can Teach Higher Education (Chronicle of Higher Education)
- Introductory Course Professors Influence Students' Choice of Major (University Herald)
- Simple Gestures Transform Lives (University of Chicago News)
- Relationships are Crucial to Student Success at College (Daily Free Press)
- Hechinger Report Interviews Daniel Chambliss (Hechinger Report)
- Faculty, Not Computers, Key to Online Success (Online Colleges)
- Kuka Tulee Päivälliselle (Yliopistolainen, The Local Newspaper of the University of Helsinki)
- Contemporary Sociology
- Harvard Educational Review
- College Quarterly
- Academic Questions
- Teaching Sociology
- The Review of Higher Education
- Canadian Journal of Higher Education
- Hardcover Amazon
- eBook Harvard University Press
- Korean translation, Hakjisa Press 레지덴셜 칼리지에서 길을 찾다