“They’re coming right out of high school, so it’s a completely different environment for them,” Haufler said. “We must have large lecture sections, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be broken down into smaller sections. … That hybrid model is something that we may be able to achieve.”
Kansas isn’t alone in considering data mining to improve retention rates. The University of Kentucky in January announced it would work with Hobsons Student Retention Solution to identify struggling students before they dropped out of school.
Plummeting student retention rates have affected community colleges even as two-year schools see unprecedented enrollment during the country’s economic downturn.
Seventy-two percent of two-year career college students return after their first year, according to research released by the nonprofit Imagine America Foundation in January. Fifty-seven percent of public community college students return after one year, and 68 percent return after a year at a private institution, according to the research.
Links:
- Research: Social media has negative impact on academic performance - April 2, 2020
- Number 1: Social media has negative impact on academic performance - December 31, 2014
- 6 reasons campus networks must change - September 30, 2014