On June 13, the Detroit Drives Degrees Community College Collaborative (D3C3) held a Student Success Cluster meeting at Schoolcraft College. The meeting featured an engaging academic best practices panel with panelists from Del Mar College, Wayne State University, Persistence Plus, and the Michigan Community College Association. The panelists shared their insights on innovative strategies to Read more about Detroit Drives Degrees Community College Collaborative: The Latest in the Student Success and K-12 Clusters[…]

Not long ago, a college student said in a focus group that they’d rather fail a class than ask a professor for help. Many students in the group nodded in agreement—and they have plenty of company among students who say they’re reluctant to seek help, often until it’s too late. 

A correction was made to Suraiya Padiyath Abdulla’s name and a clarification was indicated that the university’s affiliation with Persistence Plus did not start but was expanded during the pandemic.  Ohio University expanded its text message services to all Athens undergraduate students during the pandemic, giving unsolicited advice, asking well-being-based questions and encouraging healthy mindsets.

Once we view student success through a behavioral science lens and see the complex systems underlying student decision making, it becomes clear that behavioral scientists work best not as mechanics who repair broken systems, but as engineers who design better systems.

The program was devised with help from The Institute, a collaboration among 13 higher education institutions, with support from CEO and The Robin Hood Foundation, a New York City poverty fighting organization. Other partners include Unite Pennsylvania, a coordinated care network of health and social service agencies that use a shared technology platform to allow electronic Read more about New Anti-Poverty Program Spans 5 Counties[…]

P+ partner Kevin Li: “When more institutions are aware that this is not just a communication tool but that there’s a lot of science behind it, they will come on board and follow the same approach to benefit more students at scale and in a more cost-effective manner. In addition to nudging students toward certain Read more about Keep in Touch: How to Increase Student Engagement and Retention Through Text[…]

Goldie Blumenstyk: Delaware Tech used text messages to connect students’ “personal values to their pursuit of health-care credentials, reframe misconceptions about who belongs in allied health, and appreciate the everyday practical utility of what they learn in class.” Such supportive counseling is more common in STEM fields, and not necessarily via text. If this approach Read more about The Edge: Nudges for Academic Progress[…]

Since 2017, our organizations, Jobs for the Future (JFF) and Persistence Plus, have partnered to learn more about nudging and tackle two of higher education’s thorniest challenges: increasing racial equity and developing talent for in-demand jobs. Instead of trying to determine whether nudging works or not, we recently engaged in research to identify the conditions under which nudges Read more about Nudging Students Toward Holistic Supports and Postsecondary Success[…]

Addressing labor shortages within nursing and allied health professions, which have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, requires increasing persistence and equity among community college students pursuing these fields. In this study, we adapted and combined three values-based interventions (values affirmation, goal congruence, and utility values) into one treatment, delivered via interactive text messages, with Read more about Values-Based Interventions Increase Reenrollment and Equity among Community College Pre-Allied Health Students[…]

Simmons said, “All my life I have cared for others, never putting myself first, so you can imagine how surprised I was the first time Queensborough texted me to see how school was going.”

In the 2018, Episode 120 of Teaching Matters, we learned about Persistence Plus, a communication platform that uses text messages to give students behavioral nudges toward academic success. Now, 3 years later, we can dive into the successes of this platform and how it has been expanded to address a variety of student needs, including Read more about A Follow Up on Behavioral Nudge‪s‬[…]

“Students appreciate that sense that someone’s actually paying attention to whether or not I succeed and they care and they want me to be successful and that really goes a long way.”

Lakeland and Persistence Plus have partnered since 2017 to bolster student success via a marriage of behavioral science, mobile technology, and on-campus efforts. The strength of our partnership allowed us to tap into students’ hidden barriers with the onset of the pandemic and keep their experiences at the center of our interventions and programs. 

While the internet is saturated with “hacks” for online learning, I want to connect you with the best experts I know: Students. Since March, the Persistence Plus mobile nudging support platform has asked more than 25,000 students from both two- and four-year institutions about their experiences with remote learning. Specifically, we gathered their advice about how to Read more about Hearing What Students Have to Say About Success in Online Learning­­­­­[…]

We’ve learned a lot in the past month about supporting students and staff in crisis, and we’re thinking about how those lessons play into the larger story unfolding in higher education today. In that spirit, we want to share the steps we’ve taken to help others during COVID-19, so we can all be better prepared Read more about Responding to Students’ Needs During Crisis[…]

Gentle reminders and offers of support via text, email or alerts may be just the motivation college students — especially minority and adult learners — need to continue in courses perceived as being tough.

Jobs for the Future (JFF) and Persistence Plus selected three institutions in Ohio and one in Virginia to implement a campuswide nudging initiative, which involved nearly 10,000 students total, after a successful pilot of the program in 2017. 

Two organizations working to instill innovation in American education found big success in “nudging” strategies for STEM students within community colleges.

A behavioral “nudging” campaign at four community colleges improved student persistence rates, according to the report “Nudging to STEM Success” released Tuesday by Jobs For the Future, a nonprofit group, and the technology company Persistence Plus.

Discussing college as a public good in the same way that we do K-12 education could shift the entire concept of risk away from the individual student and toward something that all 257 million of us share so that nobody feels the weight of it. Only when we move away from these economic descriptions of Read more about Stop Thinking of College as “An Investment”[…]

Three local community colleges are trying to reach students where they are: their phones. The text message “nudges” started as part of a joint initiative by educational and economic-focused nonprofit Jobs for the Future and Persistence Plus, the company behind the messages.

Many students withdraw when they find themselves facing insurmountable debts, both financial and academic. Offering a fresh start could motivate them to finish their degree.

This week on Lifestyles, Lillian speaks with Cecilia Le, Managing Director for Persistence Plus, a program that supports students, helping them to navigate the path to graduation.

To finish college while navigating the challenges of everyday life, these students need to plan well and access resources designed to keep them enrolled—with very little room for error. At Persistence Plus, we’ve spent the last 7 years using behavioral science and text messaging to support college students through difficult times so they can stay Read more about Nudging Financially Insecure College Students to Success[…]

Put simply, nudges are interventions that steer someone toward a better decision without taking away their choice. In higher ed, they take the form of messages delivered through texts, emails or the learning management system that warn a student if they’ve fallen off track, alert them to important deadlines and make them aware of campus Read more about Giving a Nudge: How Digital Alerts Can Keep Students On Track[…]

In Fall 2017, Ohio partnered with Persistence Plus to create Normalizing the Transition to College for First-Generation Students, an initiative to “nudge” these at-risk students through their college experience and increase their opportunity to achieve a higher-education degree

Times are changing, and some students in California are getting academic “nudges” as text messages sent out via artificial intelligence. Getting life advice from an algorithm isn’t that weird when you consider how much we already talk to our phones — from Siri to bot therapists.

Persistence Plus is a texting service designed to help learners, especially first-year, first-generation, and adult students, succeed in college. Students receive periodic check-ins via text from an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot with questions such as ‘What’s your biggest concern about school right now?’ The bot offers advice and resources specific to each student and rooted Read more about Texting App Offers Students Encouragement and Advice[…]

Starting this fall, tens of thousands of students will receive evidence-based behavioral nudges over text message to help them navigate the complexities of college, succeed in STEM studies and move toward college graduation. JFF is partnering with Persistence Plus to strengthen student success rates broadly, and in particular in STEM pathways.