If the data can actually help them earn a diploma, students will have a better shot at successful careers and middle-class lives. Instead, analytics is reshaping the college experience for students at less selective schools, putting them on a narrow, data-driven path to graduation, with fewer dead ends and wrong turns. Most of the schools using predictive analytics systems aren’t elite universities, where low graduation rates aren’t a big problem. Robinson was pointed toward a related major, respiratory therapy, that he likes. “They stay on track and we still get them to graduation,” Reaves said.Īdvisers may have crushed Robinson’s nursing dream long before he ran into any obstacles but he doesn’t see it that way. He sometimes steers students like Robinson into another healthcare major that accepts students with lower grades. “Once they know how they have options, it’s not the end of the world,” said Joshua Reaves, an adviser at Georgia State. For more stories about education, opportunity, and how people learn subscribe to the Educate podcast. This podcast about colleges using predictive analytics is produced by APM Reports. Robinson’s grades were a little short of that. His adviser told Robinson he would need at least a 3.5 GPA – a high B+ average – to be admitted. At Georgia State, students need to apply to the nursing program at the end of their sophomore year. Georgia State’s analytics system color codes a student’s risk of dropping out and Robinson’s file was showing yellow, a sign that his plan to go into nursing was risky. In meetings with his academic adviser during the second semester of his freshman year, Robinson said he learned that though his GPA was solid, the school’s computer algorithm saw trouble. Georgia State is one of a growing number of schools that have turned to big data to help them identify students who might be struggling – or soon be struggling – academically so the school can provide support before students drop out.
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