How Can Data Driven Student 360 View & Student Segmentation Improve Student Retention in Higher Ed?

Why's

The average graduation rate for higher education in the US is just above 60% on an average. Dissecting this number, it is 63% for public schools and 68% for private schools. A 35% attrition rate is very high for a developed country given the cost of higher education. Students pay $11,000+ for college tuition in a public school and $43,000+ for a private school as of 2025. For the students who are unable to complete their degree, they are certainly losing money and also face the risk of not obtaining a college risk.

Here are some key challenges higher education leadership faces today

• Can you proactively identify students @ Risk of Attrition?

• What data driven techniques do you use to identify such students?

• Once you identify students @ risk, what early intervention strategies do you use?

What's

• Most colleges, academic departments own their student data in the form of student coursework, student journey, progress in the current term. Sometimes students are on a leave of absence or do not register for the term or they do not pass the courses taken in the previous term. Such situations should be visible to any academic leader in the program. The key idea is to:

  • Use historical data to understand student journey till date.

  • Gain insights into the student participation in the courses e.g. blackboard student submissions.

  • Build a composite view of the student journey, class participation, student financials to understand the real risk of student attrition.

  • Segment students into On-Time v. at Risk and devise an early intervention strategy to ensure that students complete their degree on time using AI/ML methods.

Benefits

The advantages of this data-driven technological solution are clear, as it will tackle the most crucial issues faced by academic leaders which we believe it will assist with:

• Prevent students from dropping out of programs with early support.

• Avoid financial losses for the students and secure their college tuition investment.

• Improve, revenue, graduation rates and retention rates

• A view of students @ risk at a program, college, institution level will help leaders at different academic leadership levels with decision making, strategies, and reporting.

Interested in building such a tool? Write back to us at: scidstools@gmail.com. Your data is safe and secure with us. Student privacy, FERPA compliance will be enforced at all times.