Vantage Point Consulting

“We’re used to personalization on the consumer Web, from book recommendations on Amazon to the news feed on Facebook. But what will it mean for learning as colleges, too, increasingly mine data to shape the student experience? What does educational personalization look like? How finely should technologists try to parse it—down to individual learning styles? [...]

Colleges and universities serving nontraditional populations (adult, military, online, etc.) have long clamored for a change in the way success (e.g., graduation) rates are measured by the Dept of Ed, and now it looks like there’s some movement. Insider Higher Ed wrote “A long-held wish of many community colleges is on the verge of becoming [...]

Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam will lead a conversation with Tennessee college and university leaders Tuesday about the future of postsecondary education and workforce development. Haslam will join higher education leaders Tuesday morning at the spring 2012 Tennessee College Completion Academy. Read the full article.

The Office of Higher Education launched its new Access and Persistence Program, which is designed to prepare nontraditional students for college and improve student retention. The program – announced Wednesday – will run through the state’s College Access Challenge Grant. Read the full article.

Research indicates that first-generation students – for whom neither parent completed a four-year degree at a college or university – are likelier than their peers to be less academically prepared for postsecondary education, come from low-income backgrounds, and be members of minority groups. First-generation students are also likelier to take classes part-time while working full-time, [...]

I attended a Webinar yesterday sponsored by Indiana University (IU) and higher education software solutions provider Campus Management. IU executive leadership has committed to an institution-wide approach to managing the student experience that they refer to as Lifetime Engagement . Vantage Point has long advocated that colleges and universities expand student engagement well beyond the recruiting [...]

Last week I had the honor of conducting a site visit at Xavier University’s Office of Retention and Student Success, which is lead by Adrian Schiess. Mr. Schiess has improved Xavier’s 6-year graduation rate to over 86% using through a set of retention programs he has put in place. The key driver of success that [...]

Our research shows that colleges and universities with the greatest success in improving student retention have integrated a portfolio of programs that address a variety of root causes for attrition (e.g., academic, financial,motivational, personal).  Click graphic to enlarge) When review in aggregate the most commonly cited portfolio of programs these institutions offer, we first notice that [...]

From the Texas Tribune:   Only two of the state’s 38 public four-year universities can graduate half of their students within four years — and even then, just barely. At the University of Texas at Austin, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board reports, 53 percent of incoming freshmen graduate in four years. Texas A&M University graduates [...]

From our friends at Inside HigherEd: “Encyclopaedia Britannica announced today that it will cease publication of the 32-volume print edition. Going forward, the focus will be on Britannica’s digital properties. I worked for Britannica.com, the Encyclopaedia Britannica spinoff, from 1998 to 2001. This job gave me a close-up seat to witness the promise of the [...]