There is a quiet frustration that runs through student affairs and services (SAS) offices around the world. It sounds something like this: "We know this work matters. We see it every day. We watch students figure out who they are, navigate crises, build communities, develop skills they didn't know they needed." But when budget season comes, or accreditation season, or the provost or rector asks for evidence — we struggle to make the case.
That frustration is not a sign of failure. It is a sign that SAS has historically invested its energy in doing the work rather than documenting it. The good news is that in many cases the data to make our case is already there. What most divisions lack is not evidence — it is an organizing framework for collecting, connecting, and communicating that evidence in language institutional leaders recognize.
The Student Success Data Pyramid is that framework.
A Framework Built on What You Already Have
The Student Success Data Pyramid organizes SAS assessment into four levels, each building on the one below. The concept is simple: the volume of data decreases as you move up, but the complexity increases — and so does the institutional impact of what you are measuring.
This is the foundation. How many students are using your programs and services? Who are they (by year, major, background, housing status, etc.)? Are historically underrepresented groups accessing services in proportion to their representation in the student body? Most offices are already collecting this information in some form — the problem is that it lives in spreadsheets, attendance logs, and event registration systems that are never aggregated or analyzed. Level I asks you to systematize what you have. Start counting. Start tracking. Build the base.
Once you know who you are serving, the next question is whether you are serving them well. Level II captures the student voice through surveys, focus groups, and feedback mechanisms. Satisfaction data tracked over time tells a particularly powerful story of continuous improvement. Standardized instruments like the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) allow you to benchmark results against peer institutions — adding an external reference point that carries weight with accreditors and senior leadership.
This is where student affairs begins to speak the language of the institution. Level III connects your work to the metrics that presidents, provosts, and boards of trustees use to measure institutional health: access, retention, sense of belonging, completion, and post-graduate success. The fundamental question: do students who engage with SAS programs persist, perform, and graduate at higher rates than comparable students who do not? When you can demonstrate that answer with data, you transform SAS from a cost center into a contributor to the institution's most important strategic outcomes.
The apex of the pyramid is the most complex and the most persuasive: direct measurement of student learning and development. All people working in SAS globally are educators. The programs we create — leadership development, peer mentoring, residence life, intercultural dialogue, student organization advising — produce real, demonstrable learning. At Level IV, we identify what students learn through their engagement with our programs and build an evidence base that connects cocurricular experiences to general education goals: critical thinking, communication, problem-solving, intercultural competency, and civic engagement.
The Circle That Holds It All Together
Program review encircles the entire pyramid. Rather than a one-time compliance exercise, program review is envisioned here as a continuous, cyclical process — a rhythm of planning, implementing, assessing, and improving that keeps the pyramid dynamic and responsive. It is the organizational habit that makes assessment sustainable rather than a periodic burden.
Why This Matters Globally
One of the enduring challenges in global SAS is that the frameworks we rely on were largely developed in North American and Western European contexts. The Student Success Data Pyramid is designed to be culturally adaptive. The four levels translate across institutional types, national systems, and regional expectations — because the fundamental question they address is universal: are we making a difference, and can we show it?
The specific metrics that matter, the stakeholders who need to be persuaded, and the ways data is collected and reported will vary by context. But the logic of the pyramid — building from basic participation data up through learning outcomes, encircled by continuous review — holds in Johannesburg, Abu Dhabi, Mexico City, and Melbourne just as it does in Utah.
Getting Started
You do not need to build all four levels at once. Most institutions I work with start at Level I — simply getting a clearer picture of who is participating in what — and find that even that basic step changes conversations with leadership. The goal is not perfection; it is progress. Every institution that commits to this kind of systematic evidence-building ends up with a stronger case for SAS, and a stronger institution overall.
If you are interested in how this framework might be adapted to your institution's context, we would love to talk. Reach out via our contact page — this is exactly the kind of work GSA Consulting was built to support.
Brett Perozzi, Ph.D.
President & Senior Consultant, GSA Consulting Group. Fulbright Scholar, NASPA Pillar of the Profession, and author of three books on global student affairs. Learn more →