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Collegis Education
Leveraging Data to Improve the Student Lifecycle
Kim Fahey, President and CEOFahey said, “When we approach student engagement, we start with the partner’s goal. What are we trying to impact? Then, placing the student at the forefront of our strategy, we devise a solution to rethink the status quo and reach those objectives. We find the right balance to meet students where they are instead of relying on preconceived ideas.”
Some schools want to increase enrollment through outreach or digital marketing; others want to lower IT costs and increase the power of technology and data to improve outcomes; still others are focused on driving student success. Whatever a school wants to achieve, Collegis designs a solution to enable innovation throughout the student lifecycle.
First, Collegis collaborates with a partner to carefully assess its program mix and how they are delivered to ensure they are meeting evolving market demands. Then they develop a strategy to use data and technology to market those programs. Partner school Dominican University engaged with Collegis to grow its undergraduate and graduate enrollments. The university’s efforts were hampered by data siloed in disparate tracking systems, gaps in admissions team staffing, and the need for data enablement to support marketing and recruitment. Collegis connected the university’s systems, such as its CRM and marketing analytics platforms, and collected data in one central platform. Dominican now exceeds its enrollment growth goals year after year for both undergraduate and graduate programs.
Collegis continues to improve the student experience after enrollment by helping to streamline business operations and enhance the student journey. A large partner institution had a dozen different systems that students had to log on to. Through business process mapping, optimization, and technology enablement, Collegis reduced the number by 75 percent and transformed the inquiry to application timeline to 10 days.
The company’s expertise also supports teaching and learning offered by its partner institutions. When Spelman College was developing its online workforce training program – eSpelman – Collegis provided faculty with training to help them teach online and continues to support course updates and any challenges faculty might face while engaging working adults.
The Collegis difference is we use data to understand what works, drive decisions, and inform our strategies throughout the student lifecycle
Keenly focused on the student, Collegis provides partners with solutions to improve retention and ensure successful outcomes. For example, the company’s data models can help colleges and universities identify at-risk students. If a student didn’t attend a class or missed a certain number of assignments, at-risk models trigger automated outreach on behalf of advisors. The advisor might then automatically text, schedule an appointment, or recommend interventions to get the student back on track.
Fahey said, “The Collegis difference is we use data to understand what works, drive decisions, and inform our strategies throughout the student lifecycle. The depth of services we provide is unique and spans student success, marketing, and recruitment, with expertise to build the technology foundation powering it all. We bring all those different levers to the table, developing a solution that meets the unique needs of our partner schools and their students.”
She views the foundation that Collegis has built as a springboard to a transformational future, “2024 promises to be a landmark year for our company as we continue to work with our higher ed partners. I’m excited about where we're at in our evolution using technology and the platforms we've built to expand our impact through the use of data, tech, and talent.”
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Company
Collegis Education
Management
Kim Fahey, President and CEO
Description
Collegis Education is higher ed’s innovation enabler, inspiring institutions to picture their best version and equipping them to bring it to life. With more than 10 years’ experience, we’ve proven how leveraging data and technology transforms everything from student experiences to business processes.
Collegis Education News
New Study Reveals Dismal Student Experiences with Campus Technology, Impacting Enrollment and Retention Decisions
OAK BROOK, Ill. and WASHINGTON, -- A new study reveals that the quality of a student's experience with campus technology has a significant impact on their decision to enroll or even continue their education. The study, "Tech Troubles: How Technology-Student Interactions Impact Retention," conducted by Inside Higher Ed in collaboration with Collegis Education, surveyed 450 U.S. students on their opinions about the technology they use every day. Respondents included students from a cross-section of public and private four-year schools, technical schools, and community colleges, who are learning online, in person, and in hybrid modes.
"Technology affects virtually every aspect of a learner's higher education experience these days –– even those students who are studying primarily in person on physical campuses," said Doug Lederman, editor and co-founder of Inside Higher Ed. "This important report by my colleagues at IHE and Times Higher Education and our partners at Collegis shows just how much an institution's technology practices and policies can influence the learner experience –– for good or ill."
Key findings include:
-More than 40 percent of college students who have had frustrating experiences with school technology report that these issues could impact their decision to enroll for another term and 39 percent said it will impact whether they continue to take classes at all.
-However, students might not apply or enroll at all after an unfavorable experience with a school's website. More than a quarter of students reported some level of difficulty with the process of researching and applying to their program of choice on an institution's website.
-While online learning has certainly grown in recent years, students don't seem to be having the experience they expect. A significant segment of respondents noted frequent or very frequent delays, outages, and slow connection speeds with online learning platforms. Seventy percent of in-person learners and 79 percent of online learners said these issues affect their learning experience to some extent.
-More than half of students reported that digital poverty, outdated hardware and software, lack of IT support, and low digital literacy impact their learning experience.
"Today's students bring high expectations for technology with them when they arrive on campus –– whether in-person or online. Yet, our study found that those expectations are often not met, resulting in frustration and, at times, decisions to not continue their education or not apply and enroll at all," said Jason Nairn, vice president of information technology and security, Collegis. "With technology woven into every aspect of learning –– from interactions with administrators to countless on- and off-campus experiences –– it is critical that higher ed leaders view technology not as a utility, but as an asset with a powerful impact on student persistence and retention. Attention to providing a positive technology experience for prospective and current students is crucial to the future of many colleges and universities."