Colleges Raise Graduation Rates With New Statistical Tools

Five years ago, administrators at Georgia State University in Atlanta were faced with a dilemma: F ewer than half of enrolled students ended up graduating. Whether it was because of financial or academic problems, significant numbers of undergrads were failing to walk across the stage and receive a degree.

"In too many cases we were losing students, or [they were] dropping out before we were noticing any problems," says Timothy Renick, vice provost and vice president for enrollment management and student success at GSU.

So Georgia State administrators implemented the Graduation and Progression Success advising system "to proactively find students who are 'at-risk' before they are actually at risk," Renick says. By identifying struggling undergrads early enough, Georgia State can offer help before they fall off track.

The GPS system uses some 800 different triggers -- receiving a bad grade, not completing a required course early enough, or registering for a class that does not count towards graduation credits -- that result in an alert to an adviser, who contacts the student to schedule a meeting.

"Two weeks after I had chosen [a class], I got an email from my adviser saying that the course I had registered for doesn't count for anything besides an elective," says Tyler Mulvenna, a senior majoring in French with a concentration in international business at Georgia State. Mulvenna's adviser recommended he take a different, required class, a change that ensured he stayed on schedule to graduate in four years.

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Since Georgia State implemented its system, the university's six-year graduation rate has increased by six percentage points to 54 percent, and last year the school gave out 1,700 more degrees than it did in 2011. In the 2015-16 academic year, there were more than 49,000 GPS-prompted meetings.

Georgia State reflects a trend among colleges nationally to use predictive analytics to raise their graduation rates. Within the University System of Maryland, the universities now try to "map" students' paths from enrollment freshman year to graduation by using internally collected data to create an individualized plan for each student.

Ben Passmore, the university system's assistant vice chancellor for administration and finance, says the schools analyze data points such as grades, course enrollment and time spent on campus -- which can be tracked, for example, by how often a student checks into residence halls or the library.

"It's only about two-thirds of students who enter as freshmen who end up with a degree within six years," says Passmore. Yet university administrators believe that most students can finish their academic programs and earn their degrees if they receive timely help when problems arise. The challenge, he adds, is "trying to figure out where those problems might occur."

Schools in the Maryland system employ a variety of independent analytics companies to monitor student success. The University of Maryland University College, for instance, partnered with Civitas Learning and HelioCampus -- a higher education data analytics company that UMUC founded -- to create a program that helps identify the variables that might impact a particular student's success in a course and his or her ability to continue on to graduation.

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The program can, for example, compare the individual with others who previously took the class and had similar academic interests, course histories and grades. Behavioral data is also integrated, like how often students use campus resources such as tutoring centers and libraries.

Where does the information come from? It depends on the school. For UMUC, Civitas Learning draws on data from two established university databases: the student information system, which captures details on every student such as course history or grade point average; and the learning management system, which collects data such as how often a student accesses class materials, connects with professors or participates in discussion forums online.

Faculty members and student support specialists can access the data through applications like Inspire and so see in real-time whether warning signs are emerging impacting student success and intervene accordingly.

The program accurately identifies "early signals" of challenges 80 to 90 percent of the time, says Civitas co-founder and Chief Learning Officer Mark Milliron. He says they become even more accurate once certain student behaviors are taken account of, such as cramming for a test. This is measured, for instance, by how close to the exam a student starts to use online resources.

The models help faculty identify not just those students who may fail a course, but also those who might need a little extra help to jump from, say, a B to an A.

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Similarly, Arizona State University--Tempe uses an in-house program called eAdvisor to track undergrads for signs of trouble. If a physics major struggles in a calculus course one term and fails a physics class the next, say, eAdvisor would schedule him to meet with an adviser, says Fred Corey, the school's vice provost for undergraduate education.

The conversation might well lead to the student enrolling in another major, like environmental chemistry, that still reflects a love of science but is better suited to his or her skills. And if math is still a problem, then tutoring is arranged.

The red flags raised aren't always related to academics. At Georgia State, upperclassmen on track to graduate who miss a payment deadline are flagged by the university's GPS system. If they are unable to cover the last bit of their tuition, they can receive a Panther Retention Grant covering up to $1,500.

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