Real-time data insights help career schools better support at-risk students, keeping them on track and in their program.
In your perfect world, how many of the students enrolled in your school would graduate on time? My guess is you answered with “every single one of them.” Ideally, every student would develop an arsenal of skills that help them start a career where they can thrive and become financially stable after completing their program. With a flawless graduation rate, schools would fully deliver on their promise to provide quality training in in-demand skills that support a strong society.
However, life is unpredictable, and the reality is that not all students are able to graduate on time, or even at all. When a student fails to graduate, it creates a myriad of problems for the student. The student is still liable to pay off the loans they took out to attend the program but hasn’t been placed in a career that will enable them to pay it off. It’s imperative for the student to graduate the first time around so that they can secure a job and start building the foundation for their future as soon as possible. Otherwise, they may start to dig themselves into a hole of financial trouble that includes the debt of student loans on top of existing bills that need to be paid.
Not only does dropping out negatively affect the student, it has a detrimental impact on the school. Prospective students might not apply to schools with lower graduation or retention rates than other schools in the area. But having graduates is only half of the equation. Schools must also ensure that those students are subsequently placed in careers shortly after graduation to prove their effectiveness. One less graduate means one less professional the school introduces into the workforce.
The Root of the Problem
You might ask the question, why do students fall behind or drop out? Often times, it’s not a student’s lack of learning ability that puts them at risk of dropping out of a program. Outside factors such as a flat tire or family emergency can play a role in inhibiting student performance. But the biggest reason students are dropping out of programs is inadequate support from the school. Trilogy Education, an organization that partners with universities around the world to offer fast-paced certificate programs in high-demand fields, has found through years of weekly student surveys that low support is the biggest deterrent of student success. After analyzing 3 million data points, Luyen Chou, the Chief Product Officer of Trilogy Education, has identified that an unaddressed lack of school support often results in drop-outs.
“3 million data points suggest that low support is the biggest hindrance to student success.”
Schools Take Action To Support Students
To more effectively deliver on their promise of a high-quality program to students, schools have started to use CourseKey to speed up data collection, analysis, and opportunity for intervention. Through real-time dashboards and instantaneous reporting, registrars and program leadership can see students’ up-to-date attendance records and class performance, enabling them to identify any at-risk students immediately. With real-time insight into students’ progression, registrars can intervene with students much earlier than usual, instead of having to wait days or even weeks for grade sheets and attendance records to be manually updated. Equipped with instantaneous reporting, registrars can identify trends and gauge if a student will fall behind, allowing them to intervene with the student before any serious issues arise.
With CourseKey, students can feel confident that their school has processes in place to notify them earlier than usual if they’re falling behind and can keep them on track for graduation. By accelerating the analysis and intervention processes through CourseKey, schools can better deliver on their promise of providing a quality, effective, satisfactory education to students. Through career placement, students secure gainful employment in a timely manner that will allow them to pay off their student loans and increase their financial stability.
By leveraging CourseKey’s real-time analysis leading to faster intervention with students at risk, schools can be sure that they are maximizing their efforts to provide support to students and help them complete their programs on time, ultimately, increasing the school’s retention and graduation rates. Not only do higher graduation rates highlight the effectiveness and quality of the school, but they allow the school to invest more into improving the educational experience they provide and to offer more benefits to their staff.
Keep checking back for more ways CourseKey is revolutionizing processes for schools in the career education space. For more information about CourseKey’s technology, visit CourseKey, or fill out the form below to experience the platform for yourself by requesting a demo.
