Dive Brief:
- More university administrators are collecting data on student performance, adaptation, and financial stability not only at their institutions, but also other universities in order to proactively predict whether a student may be in trouble and intervene if necessary, reports The Washington Post.
- After realizing that many of their low-income and first-generation students were not graduating, administrators at the University of Kansas utilitized predicative analysis methods from the University of Texas in Austin and found that 1,200 out of 1,500 of the students that were in trouble had not received any intervention at all.
- The University of Kansas is one of several schools which have been observing data on some of the most common factors that can affect student performance — like inability to afford the next semester, choosing incorrect classes, seeing a need for remedial help, feeling overwhelmed by how the school communicates — and have used it to help prevent at risk students from not graduating.
Dive Insight:
The University of Kansas and University of Texas in Austin are part of a larger trend of schools looking toward predictive data. In 2014, 11 research universities created a consortium geared toward increasing graduation rates for undergraduates across the nation. The consortium shares with other universities the success of its experiments with different strategies. As a result, many participating schools have successfully implemented programs aimed at helping students either organize and work together better or shows administrators how to create simple changes that make student adaptation easier — such as specifically tailored financial aid packages, reports The Washington Post.
Often times, the factors that hold students back from graduating or seeing success, like monetary issues or feeling isolated, can be easily fixed with some attention. And, university administrators struggling to reverse poor retention rates can potentially enhance their ability to intervene with students in need by looking toward data. The University of Texas, for example, has seen success through a University Leadership Network it developed. In this program students who are less likely to graduate based on their data point were connected together so that they could gain advice on things like gaining internships and working more effectively.