Four Tech Tools to Increase Student Retention by Fall

Lida Hasbrouck

What does it take to retain students for four years? There’s probably thousands of ways to optimize your recruitment and post-matriculation processes to keep students from dropping out or leaving your institution for another, in their eyes “better,” school. To start, check out the following software as a service (SaaS) options, and look forward to some excellent ROI.

 

RoomSync: “Increase roommate compatibility and retention with a social roommate matching software, exclusively built for your community on Facebook.”

My first semester living on-campus at Loyola University, Chicago, I was paired with a party animal. I mean, we all like to have fun with friends, but there’s an acceptable limit here. That limit lies on the near side of stumbling in at 4 am each morning (random-guy-in-tow). I didn’t spend a second semester at Loyola. Don’t subject your Dean’s List students to this kind of experience or you’ll surely lose them, probably sooner rather than later.

Nearly all college and college-bound students have a Facebook account, which makes it a great medium for interaction, whatever your feelings about the site, in general. RoomSync will actually create an environment in which potential roommates can be well-matched to avoid future conflicts. They emphasize the importance of the element of self-selection, which is an often forgotten factor that can be integral to finding the right match. Since roommate conflict is a huge factor in student attrition, this could just be the quickest way to make sure your students are happy and planted. RoomSync is already improving retention in over 60 universities and counting.

 

iCollegeCrowd: “Students solving real-world business and social challenges.”

As a chemistry major, my favorite parts of college were the labs I took and the research in which I participated. The rest of my time mostly felt futile - seriously, exams where calculators aren’t allowed? Were they training me for a future as a mathematician in reverse time travel? It doesn’t get less real-world than that.

 

Enter iCollegeCrowd. It’s a platform for faculty who want to give their students challenges that actually give them a taste of the real-world. They give professors the option of choosing from some standard assignments or creating their own, which makes them easy to incorporate into any classroom. Students can even compete on projects with students from anywhere. Right now they’re in beta and faculty can participate FREE. Sounds like a great time to swoop-in. iCollegeCrowd is already partnered with 16 higher education institutions.

 

CampusQuad: “See what’s happening on campus now.”

I remember being out of the campus loop events-wise for most of my college experience. I’d pass billboards once in a while that clued me into an interesting debate, only to read-on and see it had taken place the night before. The upcoming happenings typically gave me a glimpse into certain cool clubs, but only ones that actually took the time to pin their ads around campus. I always wondered how much I was missing, which left me feeling disconnected.

 

If only CampusQuad had been there. It’s basically a virtual billboard where anyone can post flyers to events at their school. It promotes a vibrant and connected campus community, and since it’s student-driven (via the free iPhone app), it doesn’t require hundreds of staff man-hours to maintain. CampusQuad is available at 5 high-profile universities and is open to administrative requests for invites.

 

Ginkgotree: “Imagine teaching from your own, custom curriculum.”

Disclaimer: This is the one company in which I’m personally vested, so you can take my recommendation with that in mind. That said, I also have the most in-depth information about Ginkgotree, in particular. Why did we start our company? I have my own reasons. My first semester in college (yes, at Loyola), I was a biology major and bought all my materials from the on-campus bookstore. It cost me over $700. You already know I didn’t hang around there to spend another $700.

 

Scott Hasbrouck, my husband and our CEO, also spotted some real problems with course materials, including their extreme cost and cookie-cutter uniformity. Ginkgotree empowers faculty to create their own materials and use a mix of copyrighted content alongside open educational resources. This approach makes it easy to drive down course material costs while optimizing the content. We’ve started our first educational institution partnership and have 4 more in the works.

 

Frankly, if you’re not taking advantage of SaaS solutions like these, you’re already falling behind. Competing universities which stay ahead of the curve are seeing higher retention rates, and they’re probably stealing your students with a more appealing package. It’s an investment you just can’t afford to pass on.

 

 Lida is the cofounder and COO of two edtech startups, Ginkgotree andPaperDesk. Her personal writing targets marketing and branding strategy, while her writing on Ginkgotree’s blog focuses on melding best business practices with modern teaching and learning. As a marketing consultant, she helps startups develop their voice and image. She enjoys life in Ann Arbor, MI with her best friend, husband and cofounder. She can be reached at .