Nearly 30% of college and university students in the United States drop out after their first year, and more than 60% of those who attend a college will never graduate, according to College Atlas. In Latin America, the average rate of student dropouts is also nearly 30%, The Huffington Post says.
Is it really affordable for a higher education institution to make a considerable investment to attract new students every year, and to lose one third of them?
Certainly, this is a big concern for higher education leaders worldwide, so these institutions have to invest and research to identify the main factors of student dropouts, and how to solve this problem through strategic planning and student engagement management. In this context, technological tools have been playing an important role because they provide solutions that help to integrate every institutional factor that has to deal with student dropouts and student retention.
Maybe these two issues seems to aim towards the same goal – keeping students in campus until they graduate – but in fact these are two sides of the same coin. When we talk about preventing student dropouts we mean creating the basic conditions to make students feel safe, comfortable, and capable to accomplish their goals. On the other side of the coin, student engagement strategies aim to maintain people in the campus by providing a positive and meaningful learning experience.
What these two strategies have in common is the use of technology. In a previous blog we’ve seen how tech tools help universities improve student retention and boost engagement. Now, we’ll see how these solutions contribute to reduce the dropout rates in higher education.
Big Data management for early warnings
Big Data solutions are not only useful for payrolls and attendance control, but also to analyze student data to determine – for example –how they feel about the institution and if they are willing to stay in campus and fulfill their programs, or not.
The UK newspaper The Guardian recently published a study case about it. At London South Bank University (LSBU), where over 50% of their students are black and minority ethnic (BME), mature and part-time, in many cases when they start facing academic problems, “the downward spiral was far quicker than for other students, so the earlier in that cycle we could catch them the better the results,” Cailean Hardgrave, head of education at Portal consultants, explains.
To solve this, the university built a predictive system, based on data gathered from a wide variety of sources to identify signs of trouble and then responding fast. According to Hargrave, the LSBU expect that this solution will reduce their drop-out rate by 25%. “If they achieve that they’ll be the most progressive of any university, and it’ll be great achievement in retention,” he says.
Only 52.9% of students who entered college in 2009 completed their degree within six years, says the National Student Clearinghouse. To solve this, Campus Technology explains that advising departments invest in technologies that will help keep track of students, establish early warning systems, communicate with students, connect students to resources, and engage students at a personal level.”
“For example – this specialized media adds – Colorado State University has integrated data to surface opportunities for proactive student support to improve communication with students, and to involve students more fully in academic planning.” Due to this solutions, this institution improved their retention rates from 82% to 86%, and graduation rates from 62% to 66%
“On the other side of the coin – Campus Technology warns – however, many institutions invest in degree planning/auditing tools for advisers but struggle to integrate these tools with other technologies that align with the advisers' day-to-day processes. This may be about to change.”
In what other areas do you think universities need technology to improve results or solve essential issues? I invite you to share your opinion.