In The News

The University of South Florida has had formal programs to improve graduation and student success rates for a decade. The institution launched a Student Success Task Force in 2009, and was able to raise six-year graduation rates from 48 percent to 68 percent in 2014. But those gains plateaued two points shy of the state of Florida’s benchmark to measure excellence in student success.

What keeps college students coming back for more? A new report on the effects college programs have on student retention attempts to answer that question.

New research analyzing more than 1,000 student support initiatives at 55 institutions found that 40 percent of those services demonstrated no impact on student persistence.

Looming enrollment declines and persistent equity gaps are prompting colleges to do more to help the students they have complete college. Those pressures have resulted in many institutions ramping up their student services, but it can be difficult to determine which initiatives are working and which aren’t.

According to a recent analysis from Civitas Learning, only 60 percent of student success initiatives have a measurable positive impact on student persistence. That leaves a full 40 percent of initiatives having no impact whatsoever.

One of the most innovative companies is Civitas Learning, based in Austin, Texas, which is now working with more than 300 colleges, including the University of South Florida and Utah State. Civitas’s basic thesis is that the best indicator of whether a student will graduate is not grades or test scores or demographics—it’s their behavior.

Pressure is growing for colleges to improve student outcomes, but sliding enrollment and tighter budgets threaten their ability to do so. In response, they are deploying technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and predictive analytics that promise to help them do more with less.

The University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa has begun working across organisational structures to establish an institutional framework for student success, according to Senior Director of Academic Affairs, Professor Diane Grayson.

With work-life balance and good benefits becoming a requirement rather than a perk, the work culture at Silicon Valley tech giants like Google or LinkedIn is always a popular topic. To attract the best talent, companies around Silicon Valley are consistently competing to provide the best working environments.