Financial aid and DARS to advise students to choose degree courses

One tool MHCC uses to help students meet their graduation requirements and guide them in course selection is DARS (Degree Audit Reporting System).

DARS is used to track students’ progress toward meeting specific requirements, show taken courses, courses completed, and show how many more courses are needed to graduate.

“Run DARS reports frequently so you have an educational plan. College is like any other major project you will do — you need to organize and have a plan,” according to David Minger, vice president of student success and enrollment management.

Financial aid should only cover courses required for graduation for a student’s program of choice, as reflected in DARS, said Minger. Yet, the enforcement of having students select courses only in DARS has been lacking, he said. Both Minger and Peggy Maas, director of admissions, registration and records, said this should push students and staff to work together more to ensure that courses being selected count toward graduation.

According to Luis Juarez, who works in Financial Aid (FA), if MHCC decides to establish a policy that enforces FA to cover only required courses with no exceptions, they will make sure students are informed.

For now, “always check and double check with someone [an adviser] that you’re making the correct course selections” said Juarez.

Minger also mentioned that since the DARS software was implemented, it has made a significant difference on MHCC student graduation rates. “Before DARS was brought to MHCC, staff had to manually compare student transcripts and the degree or certificate requirements in college catalogs,” said Minger. “That took countless hours of staff time,” he said.

In addition to saving staff time, DARS is beneficial for students because they can receive information faster, make wiser course selections and graduate on time, said Minger.

Although DARS is a “fine product, proven and (has) developed over many years,” said Minger, DARS is expanding to a java-based application that includes new features. “Moving to that has some cost,” he continued.

No changes to DARS will occur any time soon, according to Minger, as long as MHCC sticks to its strategy of maximizing the automation of routine work. He said, “While technology costs money, it is cheaper than alternatives…(with technology) human time is freed up to help our students more.”
In addition to using DARS, Minger said there are four ways to increase students’ chances of success.

• Send transcripts from all other colleges or universities attended to MHCC’s Admissions, Records & Registration Office. “That may cut the number of courses a student needs to do here and save time and money,” Minger said.

•Work with an advisor. “It is not just about picking a major or what classes to take. It includes taking the steps to make sure you are prepared. It includes learning about your dreams and goals and developing a plan to get there,” Minger said.

• Use AgileGrad for course schedule planning. AgileGrad is software that helps students by creating a schedule depending on when they want to take courses. “That saves students a lot of hunting,” Minger said, referring to creating a class schedule manually.

• “Make sure to graduate. Don’t leave just short of finishing; community college credentials do matter. Students should do everything they can to help themselves succeed in completing their training and educational goals at MHCC,” Minger said.

For students who want more information about DARS, go to www.mhcc.edu/graduation/. Or go to the Admissions, Registration & Records Office and pick up a DARS card with instructions for accessing DARS.