The University Innovation Alliance is made up of 11
universities across the United States focused on making higher education more accessible
to all students. The collaboration is designed to increase degree production
and student diversity, and cut costs by more effective use of funds.
The group is working on adaptive learning, new ways to
distribute financial aid, and precollege student outreach, according to a
report in Inside Higher Education. It’s also tracking student progress at Georgia
State University, Atlanta, which has seen a 5% increase in retention rates and
students graduating a semester quicker through the use of predictive analytics
and proactive advising.
The information gathered from Georgia State helped the
coalition create a “college playbook” to help first-generation and
underrepresented students make it to graduation. The playbook shares with
students and faculty the secrets to success, according to Becky Warner, senior
vice provost for academic affairs of Oregon State University, Corvallis, one of
the universities in the Alliance.
“We’re going to put the competition aside, and as a
group we’ve set group goals for graduating students from diverse backgrounds,”
Warner said in a report on the CBS affiliate station in Eugene. “What Georgia State found was that they
could actually reduce the time to graduation by half a semester, if they could
just get the right data to the right people.”
