When we think of student engagement, we often focus on students’ ability to engage with their curriculum in the classroom. However, student engagement extends far beyond the (virtual) classroom to areas including financial aid and academic advising.
With a decline in the number of completed FAFSA applications and continuing uncertainty from students and prospective students regarding starting or continuing their postsecondary education during this time, investing in ways to keep students engaged with higher education is more important than ever.
Demystifying the Financial Aid Process
Colleges and universities are keen to figure out how to maintain continuity with their student engagement efforts in light of the pandemic. The shift to a primarily remote campus environment, lack of face-to-face connections, and frequent changes in health and safety protocols have made things even more confusing for students trying to navigate their college experience.
The FAFSA completion rate has dropped, particularly among minority and low-income students who have seen in-person avenues to getting assistance with the process shuttered in light of the pandemic. In the past, these students could receive help with the financial aid application process through in-person financial aid counseling at their schools, houses of worship, and community centers, but that is often no longer the case.
To fix this, institutions are turning to technology to fill the gap. Investing in data-driven, automated technologies provides a better, more seamless experience that walks students through the financial aid process. A good system will check the boxes on questions such as: “Does the technology work in an intuitive way?” and “Does it guide the student through a process that is completely new to them?”
These tools provide students and their families with a much clearer picture of their enrollment costs and financial aid package. What’s more, they eliminate the burden of manual processes and free financial aid staff to spend more time directly engaging with students, rather than filling out paperwork.
Creating New Ways to Engage Students
Chatbots and digital assistants are quickly becoming must-haves to provide students with this important information and help them navigate their higher education journeys. Prior to and in the early days of the pandemic, students had to access multiple websites and channels to try and get information, which was often confusing, prohibitive, and sometimes inconsistent from source to source. To streamline operations, many institutions are turning to chatbots and digital assistants to provide a seamless way for students to track their academic progress, update their data, and check their financial aid status, while also helping to reduce demands on college staff.
With limited ability for in-person consultations in the academic advisor’s office, it is critical that universities and colleges take an omnichannel approach to communicating with and educating students on their resources.
Chatbots, for example, can answer frequently asked questions and provide a common source of truth with an easy-to-use interface that beats trying to look up an answer across multiple websites. One university, overwhelmed with calls related to COVID-19, implemented a chatbot in just a few weeks that provided answers to a wide range of questions and significantly reduced the workload of the overtaxed call center staff.
Digital assistants can also take things a step further by using machine learning to become smarter over time. They can deliver a conversational experience that is more personalized for each student, allowing for greater levels of case management and the ability to preemptively identify potential issues with a student’s financial aid eligibility or course load. Digital assistants can not only answer questions; they can process requests and even drive actions with nudges that help students develop good academic and financial behaviors. Advisors, faculty, and staff can also save time by asking the digital assistant to perform automated processes or remind students of key deadlines.
Together with an easy-to-use, intuitive self-service portal, these technologies give students the agency to track their own status and make sure they’re enrolled in the right courses to maintain their eligibility. For example, Loyola University of Chicago trained its digital assistant, LUie, to approve students’ requests to take more than the recommended 18 credits per semester. LUie took a 15-20 minute advising process and automated it down to 30 seconds–time that goes back to the advisor to spend on strategic work.
When a conversation with a staff or faculty member is necessary, technologies such as virtual calls and click-to-talk are becoming the standard operating procedure in today’s world of the remote and hybrid campus. By using these technologies, colleges and universities are better able to engage with students throughout their higher education journey more accurately and efficiently than ever before.
As we continue to find ways to thrive in this digital environment brought on by the pandemic, it is crucial for higher education institutions to invest in the tools and processes that will give students agency over their college experience. Thanks to technology, being remote doesn’t have to mean feeling disconnected from the campus.
Nicole Engelbert is Vice President, Higher Education Development at Oracle.
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