Colleges are using big data to track students in an effort to boost graduation rates, but it comes at a cost
When Keenan Robinson started college in 2017, he knew the career he wanted. He’d gone to high school in a small town outside Atlanta. His parents had never finished college, and they always encouraged Robinson and his two older siblings to earn degrees. Robinson’s older brother was the first in the family to graduate. “My parents always stressed how powerful an education is and how it is the key to success,” Keenan said.
When Robinson arrived at Georgia State University in Atlanta, he wanted to major in nursing. “I always knew I had a passion for helping people,” he said. Biology had been his best subject in high school. “My dad, my mom would always kind of call me like the king of trivia because I’d always have just like random science facts,” he said.
During his freshman year, Robinson earned a B average. But the university was closely tracking his academic performance and knew from 10 years of student records that Robinson wasn’t likely to make the cut for the nursing program.
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.
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’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. At Georgia State, students need to apply to the nursing program at the end of their sophomore year. His adviser told Robinson he would need at least a 3.5 GPA — a high B+ average — to be admitted. Robinson’s grades were a little short of that.
“Once they know how they have options, it’s not the end of the world,” said Joshua Reaves, an adviser at Georgia State. He sometimes steers students like Robinson into another healthcare major that accepts students with lower grades. “They stay on track and we still get them to graduation,” Reaves said.
https://www.apmreports.org/episode/2019/08/06/college-data-tracking-students-graduation