2015 DSSG Data Fest: Team College Persistence

Summary

The video highlights the challenges low-income students face in completing college, despite many enrolling after high school. Schools working with disadvantaged students understand these barriers and have hired counselors to support them through the process. However, with limited resources, schools need help identifying which students require the most support. The speaker discusses how data-driven models can predict college persistence using high school records and other data, helping counselors provide targeted support. Ultimately, the goal is to ensure that every student has the tools and guidance necessary to graduate from college.

Takeaways

• 🎓 College graduates tend to have better health, more wealth, and higher life satisfaction.
• 📉 Students from low-income families are less likely to graduate from high school and attend college.
• ⚖️ The gap between the richest and poorest children becomes more significant when it comes to completing a college degree.
• 1️⃣ Less than 1 in 5 children from low-income families obtain a college degree.
• 🏫 Charter schools that serve disadvantaged backgrounds are successfully enrolling students in college but struggle with helping them graduate.
• 📞 Schools are hiring college counselors to guide students through challenges like financial aid and course registration.
• 🚨 Small issues like missing deadlines can lead to college dropouts, with long-term negative consequences.
• 🔍 Schools have limited resources and need to prioritize students who need the most support, which is where data comes in.
• 📊 Data-driven models using high school grades and college characteristics can identify students more likely to drop out.
• 💡 By incorporating more personalized information, such as student integration into the college community, schools can better predict which students need support to persist.

Q & A

What advantages are commonly associated with having a college degree?

People with college degrees tend to be in better health, have more wealth, and report higher life satisfaction across various areas.

How does the likelihood of obtaining a college degree differ between low-income and high-income families?

Children from low-income families have less than a one-in-five chance of obtaining a college degree, compared to their higher-income peers, indicating a significant gap in college completion rates.

What are some challenges that students from disadvantaged backgrounds face in completing college?

Students from disadvantaged backgrounds may struggle with tasks like filling out financial aid forms or registering for necessary courses, which can lead to them dropping out of college.

How are some charter networks addressing the issue of college persistence for their students?

These charter networks hire college counselors to provide ongoing support to students, helping them navigate challenges like financial aid and course registration, and offering guidance throughout their college journey.

Why is it important for schools to know which students need support the most?

With limited resources, schools need to focus their efforts on students who are most at risk of dropping out in order to have the biggest impact on college completion rates.

What steps are being taken to predict college persistence for students?

The schools, in partnership with data-driven teams, are using high school records and alumni contact data to build models that predict college persistence and identify which students are most likely to drop out.

What simple factors are effective in predicting a student's likelihood of dropping out of college?

Simple factors such as high school grades and the characteristics of the college a student attends can accurately predict which students are at higher risk of dropping out.

What other factors, besides high school GPA, influence college persistence according to college counselors?

College counselors consider factors like how well students are performing in their classes and how integrated they feel within their college community as significant influences on persistence.

What is the next step for improving data-driven predictions on college persistence?

The next step involves collecting qualitative data from counselors' conversations with students about their college experiences, which could be used to build more refined, individualized predictions.

What is the ultimate goal of the project described in the script?

The ultimate goal is to provide every student with the necessary tools and support to successfully graduate from college.

Outlines

00:00

🎓 The Benefits of a College Degree

This paragraph highlights the advantages of having a college degree. People with degrees tend to have better health, more wealth, and higher life satisfaction. However, not everyone receives an education, and students from low-income families are less likely to graduate high school or enroll in college. The greatest disparity between wealthy and poor children lies in completing a college degree, with less than 20% of low-income students achieving this.

🏫 Schools Helping Low-Income Students

Several charter networks are working with students from disadvantaged backgrounds. These schools have been successful in graduating their students from high school and enrolling them in college. However, they recognize that their students have much greater potential to succeed in college if given the right support. These schools are investing in their students by hiring college counselors who provide continuous support and guidance throughout their college journey.

📞 The Role of College Counselors

College counselors play a critical role in preventing students from dropping out, often addressing small issues like filling out financial aid forms or registering for classes on time. However, schools face limitations due to their small counselor teams. To make the most impact, they need to prioritize which students need the most support and when.

📊 Identifying Students Who Need Help

Data shows that students can face multiple barriers on the path to graduation. Some students may not even show up for the first day, while others might be close to finishing but lack the necessary credits. Schools need to identify these students early and offer timely support, which is where data-driven models come into play.

🧮 Using Data to Predict College Persistence

By analyzing students' high school records and alumni contact information, simple data models can predict which students are at higher risk of dropping out. Even basic factors like high school grades or the college a student attends can help counselors identify students who are twice as likely to drop out compared to others.

👩‍🏫 Beyond Simple Models: Counseling Insights

While simple models are effective, college persistence is influenced by more than just grades and college choice. Counselors also consider how well students are doing academically and how integrated they feel in the college community. Collecting this data during counseling sessions could provide even more accurate predictions for who needs the most support.

🎯 The Future of Student Support

The next step in improving college persistence is having counselors record and analyze the insights they gather from students. With this information, data-driven predictions can be made to provide timely and targeted support to the students who need it most. Ultimately, the goal is to ensure every student has the tools they need to graduate from college.

Keywords

💡College Degree

A college degree refers to the educational certification obtained after completing a college program. In the video, it is discussed as a significant marker of success, correlating with better health, wealth, and life satisfaction. However, the challenge highlighted is the gap in degree attainment between students from low-income families and their wealthier peers.

💡Low-income Families

This term refers to households with limited financial resources. The video emphasizes that children from low-income families are less likely to complete high school or enroll in college, and they have significantly lower chances of obtaining a college degree compared to wealthier children. These students are a primary focus of the schools and counselors discussed in the video.

💡College Persistence

College persistence refers to a student's ability to continue their education through college, from enrollment to graduation. The video focuses on how some students drop out due to various factors and discusses the role of data-driven models to predict and enhance persistence by identifying which students need the most support.

💡Charter Networks

Charter networks are groups of publicly funded independent schools that operate with more flexibility than traditional public schools. The video mentions four charter networks that serve students from disadvantaged backgrounds, highlighting their success in graduating students from high school and helping them enroll in college, but also noting the challenge of college completion.

💡College Counselors

College counselors are professionals who provide guidance to students on academic and personal matters related to college. In the video, they play a critical role in helping students navigate the challenges of college, offering support such as reminders to complete financial aid forms or register for classes. Counselors are essential in preventing students from dropping out, and their effectiveness is enhanced through data-driven insights.

💡Data-driven Models

Data-driven models are analytical tools that use data to predict outcomes, such as which students are most likely to drop out of college. The video explains how these models use factors like high school grades and college characteristics to identify at-risk students, allowing counselors to prioritize their support efforts. This approach helps schools use their limited resources more effectively.

💡Financial Aid

Financial aid refers to funding provided to students to help cover the cost of college, typically in the form of grants, loans, or scholarships. In the video, missing deadlines for financial aid forms is mentioned as one of the small but significant issues that can lead to a student dropping out of college.

💡College Enrollment

College enrollment refers to the process of signing up and being accepted into a college. The video points out that while many students from disadvantaged backgrounds successfully enroll in college, some fail to attend on the first day or drop out before completing their degree, often due to barriers that could have been addressed with proper support.

💡High School Graduation

High school graduation marks the completion of secondary education and is a critical step toward college enrollment. The video highlights that charter networks are successful at helping students graduate from high school, but completing college remains a greater challenge, especially for low-income students.

💡Disadvantaged Backgrounds

Students from disadvantaged backgrounds often face systemic barriers such as poverty, lack of access to quality education, and limited resources. In the video, these students are the focus of the charter schools and counseling efforts, as they are at higher risk of not completing college despite their potential.

Highlights

People with college degrees are in better health, have more wealth, and report higher life satisfaction.

Students from low-income families are less likely to graduate from high school and enroll in college.

The gap between the richest and poorest children opens up significantly when it comes to completing a college degree.

A child born to a low-income family has less than a one in five chance of obtaining a college degree.

The charter networks we partner with are very successful at graduating students from high school and enrolling them in college.

However, these schools recognize that their students have the potential to complete college at much higher rates.

Schools are investing in college counselors to help guide students throughout their college journey.

Small issues like not filling out financial aid forms or not registering for courses can lead to students dropping out of college.

Due to limited resources, schools need to prioritize which students to contact first and most often.

From enrollment to graduation, there are many steps where students can fall behind.

Simple models using high school grades or college characteristics can identify students at higher risk of dropping out.

Counselors use conversations with students about class performance and integration into college to assess persistence.

Collecting data on student progress and working with data teams can build data-driven predictions on college persistence.

Data-driven models can help counselors provide timely support to students who need it most.

The belief is that every student deserves access to all the tools needed to graduate from college.

Transcripts

all of us know

people with college degrees are in

better health they have more wealth and

they report higher life satisfaction in

a variety of areas yet not everybody

gets an education students from

low-income families are less likely to

graduate from high school they're less

likely to enroll in college but where

the gap really opens up between the

richest and poorest children in America

is when it comes to completing a college

degree a child born to a low-income

family has a less than one in five

chance of getting a college degree we're

working with a set of schools that know

these facts very very well our partners

are for charter networks whose students

come from a variety of disadvantaged

backgrounds and these schools are very

successful at graduating their students

from high school and enrolling them in

colleges but when it comes to completing

college they know that their students

have the potential to do so at much

higher rates so they're investing in

their students they've hired college

counselors who are calling these

students and meeting with them who are

advising them throughout their college

degree because these counselors know

that although dropping out of college is

a life-changing event it often starts

with something very small like not

filling out your financial aid form on

time or not registering for the courses

you need and while every school wishes

that their team of counselors was like

this in practice their team is more like

this every school has limited resources

in order to have a big impact on their

alumni they need to know who to call

first and who to call most often

ultimately who needs their support the

most and that's where we come in we know

that from enrollment to graduation there

are many steps along the way and at each

step there are some students who don't

make the jump there are students who

sign up for college and then don't show

up on their first day of school there

are students who complete

years of college realize they don't have

the credits they need to get the degree

they wanted and never come back for

their third year so what would be ideal

for college counselors would be to have

individualized predictions to know for

any student at any point in their degree

how much support they need and how

likely they are to show up for their

next semester so what we've done is

we've taken all of their high school

records and all of their alumni contact

records and we've built data-driven

models to predict college persistence

what we've learned is that simple models

often do just as well or even better

than complicated models for example

using high school grades alone or using

the characteristics of the college that

a student is attending alone allows us

to identify students who are twice as

likely to drop out of college than an

average student but of course we know

that there's far more to college

persistence

then a student's high school GPA or what

college they choose to attend and the

college counselors know this too when

they're speaking to students they're

having conversations about how well

they're doing in their classes and how

well integrated they feel in their

college community and that's the next

step for this project if college

counselors were to write this data down

record this information and work with a

team like ours we know that they could

build those data-driven predictions and

get timely information about which

students need the most support because

ultimately we believe that every student

deserves every tool to graduate from

college thank you