College Students’ Sense of Belonging: A Graduation Update

Despite considerable and growing interest in college students’ sense of belonging, its relationship with postsecondary credential attainment remains poorly understood. Here, in a nationally representative sample of U.S. undergraduates who matriculated in 2011–2012 ( N = 21,700), first-year belonging was longitudinally associated with attainment: a 1-point increase on the 5-point scale corresponded to a 3.4 percentage-point increase in 4-year attainment and a 2.7 percentage-point increase in 6-year attainment. These descriptive findings offer large-scale evidence linking college students’ belonging to their receipt of a degree and underscore the continued need to foster students’ belonging and measure it well.