Technology in Increasing Student Retention Rates

Student Retention

One of the most crucial factors deciding the fate and the profitability of any college these days is “Student Retention”, sometimes referred to as persistence, is of increasing importance to college administrators as they try to improve graduation rates and decrease loss of tuition revenue from students that either drop out or transfer to another school.

More than 50% of the students that graduate from a college began their studies in a different college in US. There are various indicators that point a student at risk

• Late Registration
• Absence from Class
• Failure to Submit Assignments on Time

These are a few indicators and there are more such indicators. And identifying key factors influencing attrition is a necessity.

One cannot prevent anyone from moving ahead but can effectively try to convince them to think otherwise, but how to make this happen!

• Do you know your students well?
• Do you know their problems?
• Does all the college staff think alike regarding a student issue?

STUDENTS NEED TO BE TREATED AS YOUR CUSTOMER for you to answer the few questions mentioned above. And to make this happen we need to rely on a man-made giant that’s great when it works else

Technology

We live in an era where we could see the happenings on mars on the World Wide Web. So why not control a small issue like Retention.

Technology controlled retention management is effective as it is a centralized process and all involved personals would be on the same page and the best part , People who used to state “ That’s not my department” have to say “Hey I am passing this issue to you , do you have anything that needs me to handle?”

There are two ways to implement this Man Made Giant to control retention. Some tech geeks could come over and create a solution for you from scratch else some geek would have created one such mechanism, you need to get that and plug it to your existing system and bingo things are under control.

I was curious to know what kind of a magic wand this new mechanism possess and tried out a handful of them.

All had the same flavor of the magic wand but one stood out. It was a tool called ProRetention which as the name suggested handled only retention management. And here the best part is, I have around 8 years of technology experience mostly in the CRM space. For all those ignorant god fearing people out there CRM means Customer Relationship Management, hey now don’t get the feeling I am not, I am a God fearing technology understanding person.

This tool had all the essence of a fully fledged CRM, though they are not one actually. Whoever put the magic wand into the product made sure the wand was a few centimeters longer than the rest, making the magical power a bit more compared to the rest. It actually treated the students as customers and the problem which all the educational institutions in America were facing --- Retention, could possibly be managed using this Tool.

Retention is an area of interest for me, now don’t ask me why? I have no clue; it just stuck on to me when I read about it and doing further research on this topic. Will keep you all posted as along as technology works.

Source: Higher Education CRM

Enhancing student services with digital engagement

Student-focused HE is becoming just that: more focused. And when the learner becomes the focus of the enterprise, everything supports the core endeavour of the university – to teach, learn and engage students, to equip them with the skills they need.



There is no question that UK higher education (HE) is changing. Conversations and essays about the importance of the student experience abound, but we can see it simply by looking at the different channels and evolving nature of student-staff interactions.

Robust student services
As the student experience becomes more important to a university – and in fact comes to offer a competitive advantage for those institutions that do it well – student services will continue to play an important role in student engagement, recruitment, retention, career advisement and success.

student services will continue to play an important role in student engagement, recruitment, retention, career advisement and success

Digital tools such as social media sites and apps will be instrumental in this delivery, affording administrators a unique set of opportunities to communicate, connect and engage. Serving as interactive points of contact, these channels provide student services with numerous ways to reach students for content, orientation and community-building practices. It also allows administrators the chance to promote, lead, advise, network, teach and connect in educationally relevant ways.

Innovative organisational culture
In the past student services took place via brick-and-mortar means, such as face-to-face appointments on campus at an allocated time slot.

Today, students are on the go, always connected, and demanding to engage with their institution in a variety of ways. Student services that commit to using social media for engagement are automatically making a statement about ‘who they are’ in terms of organisational culture – as an institution that talks, listens and takes on board feedback from its students.

If you want to offer innovative and creative communications that reach students in social spaces, then you need to be using social media

If you want to offer innovative and creative communications that reach students in social spaces, then you need to be using social media. Moreover, departments that create strategic communications plans that span digital channels will be poised to support students in all facets of university life, both online and in-person.

Where everyone is digitally capable
A wonderful side effect of having a robust student services social media effort is that both students and administrators will learn how to be much savvier with the tools.

Students in 2015 and beyond need to be digitally literate for when they make the step into the workplace. Personal learning networks between students, staff and administrators will create expanded opportunities for student engagement, knowledge and skills acquisition. When student services personnel utilise social media, they are showing students how to be professional via digital communications, and also helping them to build their digital skillset.

When student services personnel utilise social media, they are showing students how to be professional via digital communications

Increasing student literacy with all things digital, especially social media, can enhance employability. Digital literacy education at the university level should begin at induction and continue throughout a student’s HE journey. In particular professionals in career services as well as other functional areas should build up connections with students as soon as possible, so that they’re not only thinking about and developing skills for work when they’re about to graduate.

Making the time
Sometimes the most ‘engaging’ thing that a student services department can do is to answer questions or refer students to someone who can help them – simple, and if that’s what an individual learner wants, then you can quite easily meet this need. For more complex matters, even just having someone to talk to can help. It’s an invaluable service to offer.

it's crucial that enough time is allocated to maintain digital outreach

A word of advice though: supporting students on social media requires consistency and time. Once you've got your community using social media channels for communications, it's crucial that enough time is allocated to maintain digital outreach. The worst thing would be to establish and not use them.
Strategic communications

Whenever social media is used for student services communications, it's important to note that digital engagement needs to be part of a strategic communications plan. Yes, this is the second mention of the ‘plan’ in this post, and I must emphasise it.

Creating a plan for social media communications will focus your efforts on what you actually want to achieve

Creating a plan for social media communications will focus your efforts on what you actually want to achieve, and allow for measurement of stated goals and outcomes. However, the plan will most-likely always exist as a living document as digital tools evolve, and ensure what you’re doing continues to be relevant.

Source: Jisc

Student Lifecycle CRM for Educational Institutes

ProRetention is a Student lifecycle CRM solution, creating meaningful engagement of the student from the time he is a prospect to graduation and beyond. ProRetention eliminates uncertainties faced by universities and colleges in tracking, managing, touching and servicing prospects, students, and alumni.

ProRetention - Student Lifecycle CRM

ProRetention Enrollment CRM

ProRetention - Student Recruitment / Enrollment / Admissions CRM

ProRetention Enrollment CRM is designed to create meaningful first impressions with prospective students, nurturing them through engaging conversations, utilizing multi-channel communication modes such as Email, SMS, Phone, Social Media, and offering personalized 1-1 attention and service. This lays the foundation to build lasting relationships among campus constituents.

Innovative features in ProRetention Enrollment CRM sets the product clearly apart from any competitive product - Multi-campus and Multi-Location features, Academic Structure, Academic Calendar, Programme & Content Libraries, Multi-channel Engagement, Marketing Automation, Application Management, Dialler Integration, Mobile Apps for prospects etc. There has never been such a sharply HE focused CRM product in the market as ProRetention Enrollment CRM, carefully chiseled out to help marketing and admission teams enhance their productivity and reach their recruitment goals.

ProRetention Success CRM

ProRetention - Student Helpdesk / Relationship / Success CRM 

ProRetention Success CRM product’s primary goal is to engage learners and improve success rates. Learners, especially those who are early in the life-cycle, have to navigate the campus ecosystem to get what they want and deliver what the college needs. The college system, especially large ones, can be cumbersome and sometimes even insensitive to the needs of an individual learner. Success CRM aims to take the chaos out of the system and customize service for an individual learner’s needs. The driving philosophy of this product is that 'know your learner in order to build a relationship with him'.

Success CRM offers the following, among other functionalities and features:

• Capabilities to comprehensively resolve learner and staff issues
• Powerful means to customize and personalize learner interactions
• Digital platform to run programmes for learner success
• Constituent calendar management
• Ability to identify and create intervention mechanisms for learners 'at risk'
• Mobile apps to engage the ‘on-the-go’ community

ProRetention Advancement CRM

Sustained Engagement with Alumni – who evolve into a Lifelong Support System

ProRetention - Alumni Management / Event Engagement / Fundraising / Advancement CRM

Colleges face increasing competition for alumni and donor contributions while state funding and giving levels are on the decline. They need to find innovative ways to stretch their limited resources while funding more students and programmes than ever before. ProRetention Advancement CRM helps FE colleges with technology that gives a holistic view of current students and alumni, keeps track of finances, runs up-to-the-minute reports, enables multi-channel communication, mobile driven event management to help the alumni office. In addition, our unique mobility solutions for the alumni help build strong and productive relationships with them to build a brand for fundraising success.

Source: Higher Education CRM

How to Decrease Student Attrition in Colleges and Universities?

Image Source: world.edu

Student Retention: An important factor in Higher Education

            Probably the most serious problem colleges and universities face these days is how to keep their students. The fact alone that fewer and fewer students enroll each year already makes it a considerable feat for administrators to run their schools effectively.

            Retained are those who enroll each semester until they graduate. They are the full-time students who obtain their degrees without academic delays. On the other hand, there are Dropouts who enter a university and leave without finishing their course. And then there are Transfers who enter school, leave it midway through their course and enroll in another school with the intention of graduating in that new school.

Image Source: csusm.edu

Factors affecting Student Retention:
            Student retention is sensitive to a number of influences, particularly: Academic Challenge, Student Engagement and Financial Ability. National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) research shows five clusters of student engagement activities are linked to desired outcomes of college:

• Academic Challenge
• Active and collaborative learning
• Student-faculty interaction
• Enriching educational experiences
• Supportive campus environment

How CRM can help in Student Retention:

            The ability to utilize predictive modeling techniques to assist the college or university in identifying students who need intervention, while there's still time to turn them around would be a tool to have in streamlining the management system. Having a system in place that will automatically issue an alert through the workflow process when an attrition risk factor appears on a student's profile, thereby alerting the relevant administrators that intervention is required, would no doubt be an excellent retention tool to assist the college or university's students in succeeding. Some of the benefits of having this capability would be:

• Improve student retention rates.
• Spend less time identifying at-risk students.
• Intervene earlier to improve student success.
• Implement the right intervention strategies at the right time.
• Satisfy parent and student expectations for educational support. 

About ProRetention:

            ProRetention is a student life-cycle CRM solution, creating meaningful engagement of the student from the time he is a prospect to graduation and beyond. ProRetention eliminates uncertainties faced by universities and colleges in tracking, managing, touching and servicing prospects, students, and alumni.
            'Treat your student like a customer', is the central philosophy on which ProRetention was conceived and built. We help our college and university clients attract the right students, engage them assiduously, and help them succeed.

Products of ProRetention:

• ProRetention Enrollment CRM, Redefines the enrolment management by creating meaningful first impressions with prospective students, nurturing them through engaging conversations, utilizing multi-channel communication modes such as Email, SMS, Phone, Social Media, and offering personalized 1-1 attention and service. This lays the foundation to build lasting relationships among campus constituents.
• ProRetention Success CRM product’s primary goal is to engage students and improve success rates. Students, especially those who are early in the life-cycle, have to navigate the campus ecosystem to get what they want and deliver what the school needs. The Educational systems, especially large ones, can be cumbersome and sometimes even insensitive to the needs of an individual student. Success CRM aims to take the chaos out of the system and customize service for an individual student’s needs. The driving philosophy of this product is that ‘know your student in order to build a relationship with him’.

Source: Higher Education CRM