Dive Brief:
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The University of California at San Diego is implementing a new early warning system to help bolster student graduation rates. Though many institutions use such systems, UCSD is building its system from scratch, in-house.
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The Time to Degree Early Warning System uses predictive models to determine whether students are on track to graduate in four years, ranking progress on a scale of zero to 10. Factors the system considers include cumulative and quarterly GPA and academic and registration status and compares against data from past students on what the ideal progress should be.
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UCSD’s graduation rate has fallen behind other schools in the UC system. The early detection system is intended to give faculty and administrators an opportunity to intervene before it is too late in hopes of elevating the college’s 58% graduation rate.
Dive Insight:
With an increased focus on return on investment and the idea of federal funding being tied to metrics like graduation rate, many institutions are looking inward to find ways to bolster their rates overall.
There has been criticism over the effectiveness of such systems in the past — questions abound over whether institutions inflate their usefulness and whether the appropriate front-end actions are taken when red flags are raised. Still, UCSD hopes building the system entirely in-house, rather than having it managed by a third party, will provide a significant advantage and equate to “the academic equivalent of preventive medicine” at its optimal capacity.