Address declining enrollment by addressing summer melt
Address declining enrollment by addressing summer melt.
Overall student enrollment is down, especially at community colleges, placing financial strain on our institutions of higher education. National longitudinal data indicates that up to 40% of high school seniors who have been accepted and intend to enroll in college ultimately fail to matriculate in the fall. This phenomenon, known as “summer melt,” disproportionately affects low-income students and is a priority for enrollment leaders looking to improve yield and increase access and equity in education. As one data point, just 9% of low-income and first-generation students graduate from college by their mid-twenties. Now compare that to the 77% graduation rate of their more well-to-do peers. That’s a big gap.
While the causes and interventions for summer melt are well understood, institutions of higher education may benefit from support by applying data and AI-based solutions to lessen the impact of this issue. We’ve shared examples of modern data analytics and cloud solutions that you can consider below:
Identify at-risk students before the first day of school begins through the use of predictive analytics and modern data architecture.
Is your applicant and student data sitting in silos across multiple sources and systems? Do you have a 360-degree view of each admitted student, including data from digital marketing, recruiting events, financial aid, tuition, payments, orientation, health, housing, and any other systems relevant to an admitted student’s journey to day one? Even without a comprehensive view, you can get started by bringing together a handful of siloed systems. By collecting and integrating this data on cloud-based scalable architectures, you can harness it for use in predictive models to quickly identify at-risk students. As your data foundation matures, you can build upon this foundation.
Armed with a holistic data foundation that you can build off, you’ll be able to generate insights such as a student’s overall risk of summer melt. You’ll also be better equipped to prioritize finite resources across programs and departments. We’ve seen our higher education customers successfully leverage analysis to validate existing models and identify previously unknown risk factors.
Scale your interventions faster with the responsible use of artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML)
The generative AI (GenAI) tools of today, including secure and compliant Large Language Models (LLMs), are improving with each passing month. This emerging technology will soon become a powerful tool that higher education institutions can leverage to address the challenge of summer melt and declining enrollment. Some promising use cases for how to apply AI/ML include:
Provide targeted messaging, virtual assistants, and notifications. AI-powered chatbots can provide 24/7 support to students, answer questions, and even guide them through enrollment.
Personalize learning experiences using adaptive learning platforms and provide real-time coaching or counseling support. What if you could give every student a knowledgeable and helpful college counselor in their pocket? This is a vision that we can now bring to life.
Identify students who are at higher risk of summer melt proactively or even in real-time. Student data, such as academic records and demographic information, can be used to prioritize outreach and support efforts to students. Imagine sending each at-risk student an interactive series of emails and text messages to guide them through their own custom checklist, creating a more level playing field for all.
BRIDGE THE ACHIEVEMENT GAP BY MEETING STUDENTS WHERE THEY ARE
When Alex Bernadotte got an acceptance letter from Dartmouth College, she felt like all her hard work—and all her parents' sacrifices—had finally paid off. However, she quickly learned that the real work had just begun. For a Haitian immigrant and first-generation college student like Bernadotte, the experience was a culture shock. Not only did she feel unprepared in the classroom, she felt alienated by the privilege and wealth of her peers. And she struggled. She learned it was okay to ask for help and discovered how to tap into campus resources. She graduated from Dartmouth and later earned a Master’s degree from Stanford University.
Many low-income and first-generation students aren’t so lucky. One way our higher education institutions can better support their success and reduce summer melt and stagnating completion rates is through an application like Beyond 12’s MyCoach mobile app. The MyCoach mobile app expands upon other student support services, pairing students with virtual coaches or mentors who help them navigate the college experience.
To build the app, Beyond 12 partnered with a human-centered design agency, IDEO, to understand student needs and behaviors. That research led to a new, tiered service model, ranging from digital or app-only to the traditional high-touch coaching experience. Those transactional, light-touch elements—reminders, to-do lists, and campus-specific how-tos are automated in the mobile app, freeing up counselors and coaches to have meaningful connections with their students.
The app, built by Slalom, uses Xamarin’s cross-platform development software, allowing iOS and Android apps to share code in one common language. It has significantly trimmed the costs of traditional student support and coaching services and enables students to navigate their higher education experience better and thrive in college and beyond.
Learn more about this case study.
