Georgia State University is part of a new alliance of schools working to increase the numbers of low-income students graduating from college.
The 11-member group, named the University Innovation Alliance, plans to develop a national playbook of proven strategies to help low-income and first-generation college students. National data have shown that high-income students are seven times more likely to graduate from college than low-income students. The country is also expected to face a shortage of at least 16 million college graduates by 2025. Within Georgia, about 60 percent of jobs will require some form of college credentials by 2020.
The 11 colleges in the alliance serve large numbers of low-income and first-generation students, and each school has developed its own programs to help them succeed.
Georgia State, which has become a national and statewide leader in this area, has used predictive analytics and intensive advising interventions to increase its semester-to-semester retention rates by 5 percent and cut time to degree for graduating students by almost half a semester, school officials reported. The strategies have led to 1,200 more students staying in school every year and produced $10 million in savings in tuition and fees for the 2014 class compared with graduates a year earlier.
If Georgia State’s strategies were used by all 11 UIA schools over the next five years, about 61,000 more students would graduate from college and save almost $1.5 billion in costs for students and taxpayers.
The UIA has garnered support from several organizations, including the Ford, Lumina and Bill and Melinda Gates foundations. It has raised and plans to match $5.7 million toward the graduation improvement efforts.
In addition to Georgia State, the Innovation Alliance includes Arizona State, Iowa State, Michigan State, Ohio State, Oregon State and Purdue universities; along with, the universities of Central Florida, Kansas, Texas at Austin and California, Riverside.
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