Promoting Reasonable Expectations: Aligning Student and Institutional Views of the College Experience

Promoting Reasonable Expectations offers a thorough examination of student expectations of college. The book includes an examination of key issues such as the classroom setting, student services, and campus life. This unique resource contrasts student expectations with their actual experiences and identifies effective strategies for addressing the disjunctions between expectation and reality. Written by leading figures in the field of student affairs and sponsored by NASPA (National Association of Student Personnel Administrators), Promoting Reasonable Expectations offers insights about student expectations as defined by their ethnicity, age, gender, transfer student status, and more. Based on solid research, this groundbreaking book explores why it is useful to consider expectations in the context of student relationships and higher educational institutions. The book also:

• Outlines what colleges have to do to help create student expectations that are reasonable while simultaneously meeting those student expectations that are fair
• Reviews student expectations regarding the myriad services that support their learning and the college experience
• Addresses expectations regarding the cost of higher education and explores the expectations of students and their families compared with the reality of college costs
• Shows the gap between student expectations of degree attainment as compared to the reality

Thomas E. Miller is the dean of students at the Tampa campus of the University of South Florida.

Barbara E. Bender is associate dean of the graduate school and director of the Teaching Assistant Project at Rutgers University in New Brunswick.

John H. Schuh is distinguished professor and chair of the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at Iowa State University.