Texas teachers may be increasingly fed up with their job, but they’re still staying in school.
State data shows Texas public school educators continue to return to the classroom at somewhat similar rates as years past, despite multiple surveys showing the large majority of them have contemplated quitting the profession.
While teacher turnover has slightly increased over the past decade, state data show there hasn’t been a large exodus of experienced teachers. In fact, the average years of experience for Texas public school teachers hasn’t notably changed since 2014-15, nor has the share of first-year teachers hired by districts.
The numbers run counter to years of warnings that Texas teachers are primed to bolt en masse out of frustration with the job. At the same time, Texas does still face widespread issues with morale, as well as big challenges in finding certified teachers and filling several types of positions, including special education educators and bilingual teachers.
Steady hands in schools
While much has changed in Texas classrooms over the decade, students continue to be educated by mostly veteran teachers. The average tenure for Texas teachers has held steady during that stretch, ranging from 10.9 to 11.2 years of experience.
The state did see a slight dip in the share of first-year teachers — who, on average, have less positive impact on student achievement than other educators — during the late 2010s, then a slight uptick over the past few years. Still, novice teachers account for fewer than 1-in-10 Texas educators.
A small rise in turnover
Teacher turnover, a measure of how many educators don’t return to teach in the same district each year, has ticked higher since the pandemic. While it once hovered near 16 percent, it’s reached roughly 20 percent over the past two years.
Ultimately, a 4 percentage point difference equates to about 15,000 more teachers who aren’t returning to a classroom in their district. However, state data shows teachers of all experience levels are leaving at similar rates.
Still stressed
Teachers might be sticking with their jobs, but that doesn’t mean they’re happy about it.
A 2024 poll of 1,100 Texas teachers by the Charles Butt Foundation, an Austin-based education advocacy nonprofit, found nearly four-fifths of educators surveyed had seriously considered quitting the profession in the past year. Pay, quality of campus leadership and a sense of feeling valued ranked among the biggest factors in whether teachers had considered quitting.
Texas education leaders also are worried about the state’s ability to retain teachers and hire tough-to-fill positions. A state panel convened by the Texas Education Agency examined the issues and made numerous recommendations in 2023, though few of its proposals have been put into action.
Two years after Arizona State University replaced all of its introductory biology labs with virtual reality labs, the university’s rising tide of STEM majors are getting better overall grades and persisting longer in their programs, according to the results of a longitudinal study released Monday.
Education-technology experts say the white paper from ASU’s EdPlus Action Lab affirms the university’s recent investment in virtual reality education and shows how virtual reality can be an effective tool to nurture complex reasoning skills in the age of generative artificial intelligence. Additionally, the research indicates that virtual learning could help narrowing historic achievement and workforce gaps in the STEM fields.
“They’re not just executing recipe-like science labs—they’re in the immersive world exploring and working through expertly designed lab assignments that connect to the VR story,” said Annie Hale, executive director at the EdPlus Action Lab and lead author of the paper. “And that’s leading to real, measurable gains in learning and persistence in STEM.”
Since fall 2022, aspiring scientists, doctors, engineers and other STEM majors at ASU have been required to pair their Bio 181 and Bio 182 lectures with a series of 15-minute virtual reality lab sessions in a 3-D intergalactic wildlife sanctuary, where dinosaur-like creatures are on the brink of extinction. Students create field scientist avatars and traverse the virtual world to collect samples and data before returning to the classroom to analyze their findings and use real-world biological principles to save the creatures.
When ASU first piloted the course in spring 2022, a randomized study of about 500 students showed virtual reality’s initial promise in alleviating the historically high attrition rates—especially for low-income, female and nonwhite students—in introductory STEM classes that have long plagued ASU and universities nationwide. Students in the virtual reality lab group were 1.7 times more likely to score between 90 percent and 100 percent on their lab assignments compared to students in the conventional lab group.
While those results indicated early success of the concept, some experts told Inside Higher Ed at the time that they were interested in seeing long-term outcomes before categorizing it as a “settled piece of pedagogy.”
Hale had a similar idea.
“After we saw great results from that trial, I wondered if it was just a semester effect,” she said. “Pedagogical adjustments can boost ABC rates and student satisfaction, but it doesn’t always have long-term implications.”
To answer that question, Hale and her research team developed a two-year longitudinal study that tracked more than 4,000 students’ learning outcomes in the two-course introductory biology lab sequence between fall 2022—when ASU began requiring all STEM majors to take the virtual reality biology labs—and spring 2024.
They found that students who took the virtual reality biology lab, on average, improved their final course mark by one-quarter of a grade between Bio 181 and Bio 182. Compared to students who took those two courses between 2018 and 2022—prior to the introduction of virtual reality—students in the virtual reality cohort also scored one-quarter of a letter grade higher in advanced biology courses, including general and molecular genetics.
Results of the study also showed that students who took the virtual reality lab were more likely than their peers to remain STEM majors, and that they consistently performed well on all lab assignments regardless of their high school preparation levels, income, race, ethnicity or gender.
Researchers also conducted pre- and post-class student surveys, interviews, and classroom observations to inform their findings, which revealed strong and lasting emotional investment in the high-stakes narrative of saving the creatures in the intergalactic wildlife sanctuary.
“Students come out crying because the story line is so interesting and engaging,” Hale said. “In a world where science curriculum can be boring, hard or a lot of math, the [story] motivates them when the quantitative aspects are challenging. They want to solve it because they want to know what happens next.”
‘Ability to Feel Successful’
Virtual reality has a decades-old presence in the education-technology world, but educators often deploy it tangentially, through one-time experiences that aren’t critical to passing a particular course. Although some of those efforts have yielded anecdotal and small-scale evidence that virtual reality can boost student engagement, the latest data on the technology’s incorporation into biology labs offers more robust, large-scale proof that ASU’s broader investments in virtual reality education are already paying off.
In 2020, the university partnered with the technology and entertainment company Dreamscape Immersive—a virtual reality company with ties to notable Hollywood productions, such as WarGames and Men in Black—to create Dreamscape Learn. Over the past five years, the company has developed numerous virtual reality courses for ASU and more than a dozen other K-12 and higher education institutions across numerous disciplines, including art history, chemistry and astronomy.
But ASU’s traditional introductory biology courses were among Dreamscape Learn’s first endeavors, as it aligned with the university’s push to broaden participation in STEM fields.
Numerous studies have identified such courses as some of the biggest barriers to completing a STEM degree and landing a well-paying job, especially for students who didn’t complete a rigorous biology course in high school.
In typical biology labs, “students are asked to design experiments and hypotheses, but they haven’t actually been taught the skills to do that,” said John VandenBrooks, a zoology professor and ASU’s associate dean of immersive learning, who helped design the virtual reality labs. “For students who come in with a strong background, that’s easier for them to engage with. But other students who haven’t had that same experience really struggle … They feel behind already.”
Leveling the playing field through novel problem-solving is what motivated him to ground the curriculum in a fictional universe.
“Nobody has solved the problems in the intergalactic wildlife sanctuary,” VandenBrooks said. “It gives them a foundation and the ability to feel successful early on in their higher education career and be able to continue on.”
Making ‘Meaning Out of Complexity’
But virtual reality isn’t about making these fundamental STEM courses any less rigorous, but rather teaching students transferable critical thinking skills, those involved with the courses say.
“One of the advantages of making these fictional narratives is that we can develop the story in such a way so that students have to deploy very specific skills at a very specific time to solve that problem,” VandenBrooks said. “That creates a very clear learning progression that goes across this entire curriculum and that really benefits students in their skill development versus giving them a series of labs or assignments that are related but don’t necessarily have as clear of a progression.”
And having those complex reasoning skills are what the droves of STEM majors who want to work in the medical field, for instance, will need to succeed in their careers.
“The key to being a good doctor is knowing what’s abnormal in the normal,” said VandenBrooks, who previously worked at Midwestern University, a private medical school with locations in Arizona and Illinois. “When things are easy, you can use an algorithm, but when things aren’t, you have to do all of this problem-solving. That’s the doctor you want when things are really going wrong, and that’s what we’re trying to train students for.”
Jeremy Bailenson, founding director of Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab at the education graduate school, who did not participate in any aspect of ASU’s study, said education research can benefit from studies with large sample sizes to affirm prior studies on virtual reality in education.
In general, immersive learning experiences “reduce barriers to people believing they can succeed in the realm of science,” he said. “If you’re someone who’s been told your whole life that you don’t fit the mold of a typical scientist—because of your income, race, gender or ethnicity—VR provides learners the agency to see themselves as scientists.”
Although the study demonstrates how that theory is already at work in ASU’s virtual reality biology labs, it may not be a feasible approach for every college and university.
According to Josh Reibel, CEO of Dreamscape Learn, implementing the virtual reality education system (which includes software fees and the one-time costs of installing an immersive classroom called a pod) costs “mid–five figures to low six figures,” depending on the size of the school and the scale of the curricular offerings.
In March 2022, The Arizona Republic reported that ASU had at that point invested $5 million in “philanthropic investment for development” to build out a virtual reality biology lab.
If an institution can afford it, virtual reality also offers a strategy for teaching students to think beyond memorization and regurgitations in the age of generative artificial intelligence.
“The more you can use AI to transmit facts, the more pressure there is on higher education to do more than just transmit facts,” Reibel said. “That helps educators see that the real problem to be solved isn’t how to populate students’ notebooks with more information, it’s how to get them to lean in to wanting to do more work.”
Chris Dede, a senior research fellow at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education and a learning technology expert, said that though the gains presented in ASU’s study are relatively “modest,” they are “significant” nonetheless.
“It’s showing that it’s reasonable to develop other things based on similar approaches,” he said. “If humans are trained simply on knowing a bunch of facts and doing well on psychometric tests, they’re going to lose to AI in the workplace, because they’re doing what AI does well rather than what people do well.”
And what people do well, he said, “is make meaning out of complexity by pulling together different things they know about the world and developing hypotheses about what’s going on in the environment, which is not something AI can do, because it doesn’t understand the world.”
College administrators wear many hats to ensure their institutions thrive. Stakeholders expect them to be visionaries, budget stewards, tech experts, and student champions. However, wearing too many hats can hinder the ability to meet more strategic and forward-thinking institutional demands, effectively diluting leadership capacity and outcomes.
How can administrators remove some of those hats without losing control or spending more?
How can they guide their institutions to achieve better outcomes with fewer resources?
At the 2024 Collegis Education Summit, keynote speaker Dr. John Smith-Coppes, president of Joyce University, shared his advice for achieving higher ed excellence amid market paradigms, shifting learner expectations, and capacity constraints.
“Embrace your institutional superpower and then partner for expertise. You have to know what you are really good at, but also where you might need help. Having the bravery to objectively look at the brutal facts can take you from good to great. Keep this in mind: Your institution is perfectly designed to get the outcomes it’s getting.”
-Dr. John Smith-Coppes, President of Joyce University
Dr. Smith-Coppes is right. If you’re not getting the results you want, you have to shine a light on the operation and consider what adjustments or changes will better position your institution for desired outcomes.
To echo Dr. Smith-Coppes and answer the earlier questions, working with a strategic partner who has deep expertise in higher education shared services and can manage certain responsibilities more efficiently can get your institution closer to turning aspiration into reality. A true partnership is not about simply outsourcing tasks. Rather, it’s a strategic way to gain access to specialized knowledge, proven methodologies, and scalable resources, all while enabling administrators to focus on their core areas of expertise.
Mounting challenges facing higher ed leaders
When I talk to administrators, the conversation inevitably turns to the challenge of doing more with less. They consistently grapple with four key issues:
Budget Cuts: Funding is uncertain or shrinking, forcing them to rethink the allocation of resources.
Advancing Technology: Technology is rapidly evolving, leaving administrators to scramble after the next advancement or emerging capability.
Socioeconomic Pressures: With some questioning the value of postsecondary education, relevant programs with affordable tuition have never been more critical.
Employee Turnover: Retaining top talent is difficult, leaving critical gaps.
But none of these issues surprise us. On the contrary, Collegis Education has partnered with numerous public and private institutions of varying sizes and levels of brand recognition to address these challenges, uncovering advantageous pathways toward more sustainable and fruitful operations.
The results speak for themselves. Administrators gain more time to leverage their core strengths to elevate their institution’s mission and educational outcomes while actualizing a variety of clear benefits. Here is what Collegis Education continues to deliver for our shared-service partners.
Seven ways shared services in higher education deliver results
Institutions that leverage shared services experience benefits in a variety of key areas. Explore some of the most significant advantages:
1. Improved financial stability
Predictability and optimization are the key words here. With our solutions for technology management, enrollment management, and student services, institutions know exactly what to budget every year. At the same time, we find cost savings by getting a better return on technology investments, strategically decommissioning redundancies, and renegotiating contracts.
2. Enhanced operational efficiency
Is there a better way to reach an institution’s goals more efficiently? More often than not, the answer is yes. We help bring these opportunities to the surface by fully assessing the school’s infrastructure, technology, processes, and other operating procedures. This assessment denotes areas of excellence and points of failure as well as identifies where lag or waste exists. With these insights, we can identify and prioritize emerging opportunities to drive improvement. All this informs a multiyear roadmap that guides higher ed leaders on how to thoughtfully implement changes that engage key stakeholders to accelerate the change management cycle.
3. Objective perspective & best practices
We bring a unique perspective to our recommendations based on our work with other schools while protecting each school’s anonymity and uniqueness. This helps give you a baseline of how your school performs when compared to similar ones. Are you leading or lagging? As an unbiased third party, we offer fresh ideas backed by the knowledge of the results they have produced. It’s a great way to eliminate the “but this is how we’ve always done it” objection and gain buy-in from internal staff.
4. Risk mitigation & accountability
There’s rarely a higher ed situation we haven’t already dealt with at another institution. Our partners benefit from this experience, allowing them to proactively avoid operational and technical risks. They also benefit tremendously from having a partner who holds themselves accountable to quantifiable outcomes measured by agreed-upon service level agreements (SLAs). Together, these provide a lot of peace of mind when it comes to issues like cybersecurity, compliance, disaster recovery, and business continuity.
5. Specialized expertise without the overhead
Hiring and retaining experienced staff is challenging enough. Finding people with skill sets to leverage evolving technology capabilities like artificial intelligence (AI) is a whole other story. That’s why our partners rely on Collegis to provide the expertise that’s hard to find. We’re software-agnostic and implement solutions that are in the school’s best interest from a financial, operational, and strategic perspective without the need for full-time employees to manage them.
6. Data-enabled decision making with full transparency
Data at most institutions is stored in siloes, with limited stewardship and governance over its quality and consistency. However, many of the “data” solutions in the market today are complicated and difficult to implement and support.
This is why we built Connected Core, a scalable higher education industry cloud solution that integrates siloed data sets, systems, and applications to enable institutional intelligence. This proven approach and methodology for collecting, connecting, and activating institutional data eliminates data doubt and gives leaders the confidence to make quickly make strategic decisions with confidence.
7. Focus on core mission & educational outcomes
By outsourcing some functions, administrators can redirect resources and energy to what truly matters: student success. By reducing the number of hats they wear, leaders can instead focus on using the tools they have on hand to manage strategic initiatives that drive institutional growth.
Strategic delegation to yield better outcomes
Some leaders fear losing control through outsourcing, and rightfully so. Too many vendors tout “partnership” when, in fact, they are trying to build an unhealthy dependency that is not mutually beneficial.
That’s just not us. It fundamentally goes against our values and who we are as a company.
Our partnerships are built on collaboration and shared governance. Institutions set priorities, and all actions follow clear assessments, implementation plans, and progress reviews. Our partners gain greater control over technology, enrollment, and budgets. Control isn’t lost, but visibility and accountability are gained.
Shared-services models allow administrators to confidently offload specific responsibilities. Leveraging external expertise amplifies your internal strengths and empowers your leaders to focus on building and maintaining a thriving campus community.
But the first step is starting the conversation with the right partner.
Innovation Starts Here
Higher ed is evolving — don’t get left behind. Explore how Collegis can help your institution thrive.
Every semester, a student hoping to “earn their desired grade” approaches me at the last minute, asking to make up all their missed assignments. I have a standard missed due date policy, 1) let me know (communication) and 2) get it done in a week (extended deadline). The students requesting to stockpile assignments at the end of the semester usually had not completed the assignment at all or had not completed the assignment even with an extended deadline. Basically, they hadn’t even tried to complete assignments. It wasn’t like they had completed it at 12:01 am and it was due at 11:59 pm.
That being said, I do wonder, Why not grant a student’s request to get it (the class) all done at once? You know the requests: “I know this already. Isn’t there a test I can take so I don’t have to sit through the class?” or “I am sure I can get all these assignments done before finals week.” It makes sense that if a student can pass all the assessments, they should pass the class. So why not just complete all the assessments at the same time?
Would these students who were absent from most of the class or hadn’t done any of the assignments on their due dates pass the class with a C or better? Probably. So why enforce due dates at all. Why shouldn’t a professor simply allow a student to complete all the assignments before final grades are due without regard to timing?
The caveat in this “all at once” scenario is that a successful grade is wrongly associated with learning. If a student completes all the assignments in a few days during the semester, then assessments are the sole criteria used to define successful learning. However, the truth is that learning means much more than successfully navigating a certain percentage of the assignments.
In my reality, most students could use their previous knowledge to muddle through the assessments of an introductory course at an accelerated pace. Let’s view the situation from the perspective of a student. They have after all been in school for the last 13 years and they have become really good at taking quizzes and exams and writing essays with thesis statements. My pre- and post-quiz data for the course reveals this. At the beginning of the semester without warning, I ask a group of anxious, ill-prepared students to (within a limited and unreasonable amount of time) answer 20 questions about a topic that they haven’t even considered before walking into the room. The questions are a sampling of the final exam. The average on the pre-quiz hovers at about 50%. Given more time and a couple of days to study and contemplate, most of these students would pass the pre-quiz, and in essence, have the knowledge required to pass the final exam.
Nevertheless, is completing all the assessments what defines learning the contents of a course? Should a student be allowed to stockpile all the assignments and get credit for them as long as they get them done before the final grades are due. In my humble opinion, absolutely not, and it’s not for the classic soft skills reason. Of course, deadlines help students to navigate the world, (e.g. being responsible). After all, the professor is required to turn in final grades by a deadline.
That said, to me, deadlines are important because people (not just students) learn best when information is spaced out or interleaved (Birnbaum et al., 2013; Samani and Pan, 2021). In order to retrieve something from memory, you need time to learn it. Retrieving information is when you know something without having to look it up—like your name and phone number or all the lyrics of your favorite song. This type of learning requires time—spaced learning. You need to learn it, forget it, be asked about it, refresh it, forget it, be asked about it, refresh it and then if you’re lucky you can retrieve it (Feng et al., 2019; Kobayashi, 2022). This is considered spaced learning and is why deadlines are so important.
Due dates provide the structure for spaced learning and learning that is more substantive. Much to the chagrin of the student who wants to “get it all done at once,” this isn’t the way to learn retrievable material. Retrieving information is what allows you to progress to the next set of information and then progress to creativity and eventually creation. Assessments play a crucial role, but true learning doesn’t come from merely completing them. Instead, it happens through active participation in class, where students engage with the material and are consistently challenged by the professor to recall and apply previous lessons.
As professors, we should enforce due dates to give students the time to learn content in a meaningful and retrievable way. But maybe, just maybe, we can do it with a spoon full of sugar.
Adriana J. LaGier is an American Cell Biologist, whose main area of research is active learning and mechanobiology. She is a professor of biology at Grand View University in Des Moines, Iowa, specializing in teaching undergraduate level general biology and cell biology courses.
References
Birnbaum, Monica S., Nate Kornell, Elizabeth Ligon Bjork, and Robert A. Bjork. 2013. “Why Interleaving Enhances Inductive Learning: The Roles of Discrimination and Retrieval.” Memory & Cognition 41 (3): 392–402. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-012-0272-7.
Feng, Kanyin, Xiao Zhao, Jing Liu, Ying Cai, Zhifang Ye, Chuansheng Chen, and Gui Xue. 2019. “Spaced Learning Enhances Episodic Memory by Increasing Neural Pattern Similarity Across Repetitions.” The Journal of Neuroscience 39 (27): 5351–60. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNeurosci.2741-18.2019.
Kobayashi, Keiichi. 2022. “The Retrieval Practice Hypothesis in Research on Learning by Teaching: Current Status and Challenges.” Frontiers in Psychology 13 (May):842668. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.842668.
Samani, Joshua, and Steven C. Pan. 2021. “Interleaved Practice Enhances Memory and Problem-Solving Ability in Undergraduate Physics.” NPJ Science of Learning 6 (November):32. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41539-021-00110-x.
Every semester, a student hoping to “earn their desired grade” approaches me at the last minute, asking to make up all their missed assignments. I have a standard missed due date policy, 1) let me know (communication) and 2) get it done in a week (extended deadline). The students requesting to stockpile assignments at the end of the semester usually had not completed the assignment at all or had not completed the assignment even with an extended deadline. Basically, they hadn’t even tried to complete assignments. It wasn’t like they had completed it at 12:01 am and it was due at 11:59 pm.
That being said, I do wonder, Why not grant a student’s request to get it (the class) all done at once? You know the requests: “I know this already. Isn’t there a test I can take so I don’t have to sit through the class?” or “I am sure I can get all these assignments done before finals week.” It makes sense that if a student can pass all the assessments, they should pass the class. So why not just complete all the assessments at the same time?
Would these students who were absent from most of the class or hadn’t done any of the assignments on their due dates pass the class with a C or better? Probably. So why enforce due dates at all. Why shouldn’t a professor simply allow a student to complete all the assignments before final grades are due without regard to timing?
The caveat in this “all at once” scenario is that a successful grade is wrongly associated with learning. If a student completes all the assignments in a few days during the semester, then assessments are the sole criteria used to define successful learning. However, the truth is that learning means much more than successfully navigating a certain percentage of the assignments.
In my reality, most students could use their previous knowledge to muddle through the assessments of an introductory course at an accelerated pace. Let’s view the situation from the perspective of a student. They have after all been in school for the last 13 years and they have become really good at taking quizzes and exams and writing essays with thesis statements. My pre- and post-quiz data for the course reveals this. At the beginning of the semester without warning, I ask a group of anxious, ill-prepared students to (within a limited and unreasonable amount of time) answer 20 questions about a topic that they haven’t even considered before walking into the room. The questions are a sampling of the final exam. The average on the pre-quiz hovers at about 50%. Given more time and a couple of days to study and contemplate, most of these students would pass the pre-quiz, and in essence, have the knowledge required to pass the final exam.
Nevertheless, is completing all the assessments what defines learning the contents of a course? Should a student be allowed to stockpile all the assignments and get credit for them as long as they get them done before the final grades are due. In my humble opinion, absolutely not, and it’s not for the classic soft skills reason. Of course, deadlines help students to navigate the world, (e.g. being responsible). After all, the professor is required to turn in final grades by a deadline.
That said, to me, deadlines are important because people (not just students) learn best when information is spaced out or interleaved (Birnbaum et al., 2013; Samani and Pan, 2021). In order to retrieve something from memory, you need time to learn it. Retrieving information is when you know something without having to look it up—like your name and phone number or all the lyrics of your favorite song. This type of learning requires time—spaced learning. You need to learn it, forget it, be asked about it, refresh it, forget it, be asked about it, refresh it and then if you’re lucky you can retrieve it (Feng et al., 2019; Kobayashi, 2022). This is considered spaced learning and is why deadlines are so important.
Due dates provide the structure for spaced learning and learning that is more substantive. Much to the chagrin of the student who wants to “get it all done at once,” this isn’t the way to learn retrievable material. Retrieving information is what allows you to progress to the next set of information and then progress to creativity and eventually creation. Assessments play a crucial role, but true learning doesn’t come from merely completing them. Instead, it happens through active participation in class, where students engage with the material and are consistently challenged by the professor to recall and apply previous lessons.
As professors, we should enforce due dates to give students the time to learn content in a meaningful and retrievable way. But maybe, just maybe, we can do it with a spoon full of sugar.
Adriana J. LaGier is an American Cell Biologist, whose main area of research is active learning and mechanobiology. She is a professor of biology at Grand View University in Des Moines, Iowa, specializing in teaching undergraduate level general biology and cell biology courses.
References
Birnbaum, Monica S., Nate Kornell, Elizabeth Ligon Bjork, and Robert A. Bjork. 2013. “Why Interleaving Enhances Inductive Learning: The Roles of Discrimination and Retrieval.” Memory & Cognition 41 (3): 392–402. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-012-0272-7.
Feng, Kanyin, Xiao Zhao, Jing Liu, Ying Cai, Zhifang Ye, Chuansheng Chen, and Gui Xue. 2019. “Spaced Learning Enhances Episodic Memory by Increasing Neural Pattern Similarity Across Repetitions.” The Journal of Neuroscience 39 (27): 5351–60. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNeurosci.2741-18.2019.
Kobayashi, Keiichi. 2022. “The Retrieval Practice Hypothesis in Research on Learning by Teaching: Current Status and Challenges.” Frontiers in Psychology 13 (May):842668. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.842668.
Samani, Joshua, and Steven C. Pan. 2021. “Interleaved Practice Enhances Memory and Problem-Solving Ability in Undergraduate Physics.” NPJ Science of Learning 6 (November):32. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41539-021-00110-x.
Student retention is one of the most critical challenges faced by colleges and universities. While recruitment is essential to maintaining a thriving institution, keeping students engaged and enrolled until they complete their programs is just as vital. Why is that?
High dropout rates can impact institutional reputation, funding, and overall student satisfaction. As an education marketer, ask yourself: how can you create an experience that ensures students feel supported and motivated to stay the course? You’re in luck because today, we’re discussing the answer to this question at length.
Understanding the factors contributing to student retention in higher education is the first step toward building effective marketing strategies that help students persist through their academic journey. From engagement initiatives to personalized support systems, there are various approaches you can take to increase student retention and position your institution as one that truly cares about student success. Let’s explore ten of them together!
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Understanding Retention Marketing
What is retention marketing? Retention marketing is the strategic use of targeted campaigns, communication, and engagement initiatives that keep current students enrolled and actively involved in their educational journey. Unlike traditional marketing, which focuses on acquiring new students, retention marketing is about maintaining student satisfaction and addressing concerns before they result in attrition.
Investing in retention marketing helps schools build stronger student relationships, providing the necessary support to ensure academic persistence. Now let us explore key college student retention strategies to incorporate into your marketing plan.
Source: HEM
1. Personalizing Communication to Address Individual Student Needs
One of the most effective ways to retain students is through personalized communication. Today’s students expect tailored messaging that speaks directly to their needs, challenges, and aspirations.
Automated email campaigns, segmented messaging, and personalized advising can go a long way in making students feel seen and heard. Implementing AI-driven chatbots and predictive analytics can help anticipate student concerns before they escalate, allowing your institution to intervene at critical moments.
2. Creating a Strong Sense of Community and Belonging
Feeling connected to a campus community is a key driver of student success. Institutions that foster a sense of belonging through student organizations, mentorship programs, and social events tend to see higher levels of college student retention.
Marketing teams can contribute by showcasing stories of engaged students and alumni, creating social media groups, and facilitating virtual and in-person networking opportunities that keep students feeling involved.
Example:Here, Nichol’s College demonstrates its commitment to student belonging with a dedicated Instagram for making its current students feel at home. In addition to fostering belonging in your classrooms, clubs, and offices, to improve retention through your digital marketing efforts, it’s essential to champion each student’s role as a valued member of your community in posts and site content.
Source: Nichols College | Instagram
3. Offering Robust Academic Support Services
Academic challenges are one of the leading reasons students drop out. By promoting tutoring centers, academic coaching, and faculty office hours, your institution can reinforce its commitment to student success. Marketing these services effectively ensures students know where to get help when needed. Outreach campaigns can highlight real student success stories, demonstrating the impact of these resources.
Beyond traditional support, schools can integrate technology-driven solutions such as virtual tutoring and on-demand academic workshops. Proactively reaching out to students who show signs of struggling, such as declining grades or low attendance, can also prevent academic disengagement.
Additionally, faculty can offer structured study groups or mentoring programs to ensure students receive guidance outside of class hours. By fostering a strong academic support network, institutions can significantly improve student persistence and overall satisfaction.
Example: Discover the robust academic support system available to students at UC Berkeley. On their website, they make it clear that they are committed to meeting the learning needs of every student. Below, you’ll see an array of academic resources tailored to different subgroups of the Berkeley student body. Low-income, underrepresented, first-generation, and students with disabilities are acknowledged and supported to reach their full potential.
Source: UC Berkeley
In addition, UC Berkeley leverages technology to serve its students through the AIM platform, specifically tailored to learners with disabilities. AIM, pictured at the bottom, is an accessible Student Information System designed to facilitate communication between students and faculty, streamline the process of requesting accommodations, and centralize the management of their information.
To boost retention, make sure students know how you support their learning. Make it as convenient and inclusive as possible for students to access your resources.
4. Providing Career Development Opportunities Early On
Students often enroll in college with long-term career aspirations in mind, yet many feel uncertain about how to achieve their goals. By integrating career services from day one, schools can help students see a clear pathway from education to employment. Internship programs, networking events, and job placement support should be at the forefront of marketing efforts. When students perceive that their investment in education will lead to tangible career outcomes, they are more likely to persist.
To enhance engagement, institutions should provide hands-on career workshops, alumni networking events, and mentorship opportunities that connect students with professionals in their fields of interest. Career counselors can conduct personalized career assessments to help students identify potential career paths that align with their strengths and interests.
Additionally, integrating career-focused coursework, such as resume-building sessions and mock interviews, can help students feel more confident about their job prospects post-graduation. Schools that establish strong employer partnerships can also facilitate job placement programs, internships, and co-op opportunities that give students real-world experience while still in school, reinforcing their motivation to stay enrolled and complete their studies.
Example:In this video, AAPS, an institution that mainly appeals to graduate students who are focused on starting or developing their careers, markets its career services which include: access to career and employment experts, resume writing support, and interview workshops.
Source: Academy of Applied Pharmaceutical Sciences | YouTube
Their marketing shows how effective the career services at AAPS are, citing their 100% employer satisfaction rate and a solid 88% graduation rate. As you promote your career services, be sure to provide tangible results because that’s what your prospects and current students are looking for.
5. Focus on Student Engagement Initiatives
Student engagement plays a crucial role in student retention, as engaged students are more likely to complete their programs and feel a strong connection to their institution. Schools must take proactive steps to foster engagement through meaningful initiatives that encourage academic, social, and extracurricular involvement.
One way to drive engagement is by creating dynamic student events, such as leadership workshops, cultural festivals, and career networking opportunities. These events provide students with valuable connections, skills, and a greater sense of belonging, reducing feelings of isolation and disengagement.
Another highly effective strategy is gamification, where game design elements, such as rewards, leaderboards, and challenges, are integrated into academic and extracurricular activities. For instance, you could introduce a points-based system that rewards students for attending classes, participating in discussions, or completing extra-curricular workshops.
Social media engagement is another powerful tool. Schools can create dedicated student communities on platforms like Discord, LinkedIn, or Instagram where students can connect, share experiences, and support one another. Institutions that regularly post interactive content, student highlights, and live Q&A sessions see stronger student participation.
Additionally, peer mentorship programs help students build support networks that enhance their academic and personal experiences. New students, especially freshmen, often struggle with the transition to college life. Pairing them with experienced peers who can guide them through academic and social challenges creates a sense of stability and reassurance, leading to increased persistence.
Finally, experiential learning opportunities, such as service-learning projects, research collaborations, and internships, allow students to see the real-world value of their education. When students feel that their coursework directly impacts their future career prospects, they are more likely to remain engaged and committed to completing their studies.
Example: As part of their Student Life Program, the University of Toronto offers Mentorship and Peer Programs to increase student engagement, keeping them invested in both their studies and social lives at U of T, in turn, supporting student retention. In this video, they make the voices of their student body heard, allowing them to express just how the Mentorship and Peer Support programs at U of T have impacted their education. When promoting your student engagement initiatives, try to leverage student testimonials for better relatability and credibility.
Source: U of T Student Life | YouTube
6. Utilizing Data-Driven Insights to Address Student Challenges
Predictive analytics and student data tracking allow institutions to identify at-risk students and intervene early. By analyzing factors such as attendance, engagement levels, and academic performance, schools can proactively reach out to students who may be struggling. Automated alerts and personalized advising sessions ensure students receive timely support tailored to their individual needs.
In addition to tracking academic performance, you can use data insights to improve curriculum design and support services. For example, if a large number of students are struggling with a specific course, faculty can adjust the syllabus, provide supplemental learning materials, or offer additional tutoring sessions.
Schools can also analyze patterns of student engagement in extracurricular activities and campus events to determine what initiatives are most effective in fostering a sense of community. By using data to refine support systems continuously, institutions can create a proactive, student-centric approach that minimizes dropouts and maximizes success.
7. Enhancing Financial Aid Awareness and Support
Financial difficulties are one of the biggest reasons students leave college before completing their programs. Many students are unaware of the full range of financial aid options available. Your school’s marketing team can provide students access to vital scholarships, grants, and payment plans. Institutions should regularly communicate financial aid opportunities through social media, email campaigns, and student portals to alleviate financial stress and keep students enrolled.
Example: Unfortunately, many students leave their education behind due to their financial situations. Surely, some of these students are unaware of the financial assistance options available to them. To boost student retention, let your community know you can help them invest in their futures. Here, Queen Beauty Institute promotes its financial aid programs on social media, letting students know that support is available should they need it.
Source: Queen Beauty Institute Instagram
8. Promoting a Flexible and Inclusive Learning Environment
Flexibility is key to student retention in higher education, particularly for non-traditional students balancing work, family, and school. Online learning options, hybrid models, and asynchronous coursework can make higher education more accessible. Schools should highlight these flexible learning opportunities in their marketing materials, emphasizing how they accommodate diverse student needs and lifestyles.
In addition to offering different learning formats, you can provide adaptive scheduling options that allow students to select courses that fit their personal and professional commitments. Some colleges have introduced weekend or evening classes to serve students with full-time jobs or family obligations. Additionally, having a robust support system for online students, such as virtual study groups, 24/7 tech support, and faculty office hours, ensures they receive the same level of engagement as in-person learners.
Another important aspect of fostering inclusivity is providing accessible resources for students with disabilities. Ensuring that digital learning platforms are compatible with screen readers, offering captioned lecture videos, and creating inclusive classroom environments can greatly enhance the learning experience. You can also implement specialized advising services to assist students in navigating academic and personal challenges, further reinforcing your commitment to diversity and inclusion.
Example:Here, the Academy of Learning Career College introduces students to its Integrated Learning System, an educational resource designed to put students “in the driver’s seat of their learning experience”. It fosters flexibility and was created with many learning styles and neurodiversity in mind. Make it known how your school aims to meet students where they are.
Source: The Academy of Learning Career College | YouTube
9. Encouraging Faculty-Student Engagement
Professors play a crucial role in retaining students. Meaningful connections between students and faculty members can significantly impact a student’s decision to persist in their studies. Your marketing team can facilitate this by spotlighting faculty members in newsletters, creating video content featuring faculty mentorship stories, and promoting faculty office hours as a key resource.
Institutions can also encourage faculty to take an active role in student success by implementing early intervention programs. If a professor notices a student struggling, they can reach out with personalized support or recommend tutoring services. Additionally, fostering a culture of open communication through regular check-ins, discussion forums, and one-on-one mentorship opportunities helps build trust and rapport between faculty and students.
Another approach is incorporating faculty-led engagement opportunities such as research projects, community outreach programs, and interdisciplinary collaborations. When students work closely with faculty on meaningful academic projects, they feel more invested in their studies and are less likely to disengage. Schools that promote faculty involvement as a cornerstone of student support will see stronger connections, higher levels of academic motivation, and improved retention rates.
10. Establishing Clear Pathways for Student Success
Students are more likely to stay enrolled when they clearly understand their academic roadmap. Schools should provide structured academic pathways, regular progress check-ins, and advising support to help students navigate their journey efficiently. Marketing teams can assist by crafting student success stories highlighting how structured pathways have helped past students graduate on time and achieve their goals.
In addition to offering clear course sequences, institutions can provide academic planning workshops that help students map out their degree completion plan. Schools should also ensure that students have easy access to academic advisors who can guide them in selecting courses aligned with their career goals. By integrating digital tools such as degree audit software, students can track their progress and receive real-time updates on their academic standing.
Offering flexible course options, such as summer sessions or online alternatives, can further help students stay on track and avoid delays in graduation. When students feel they are making steady progress, they are more likely to stay motivated and complete their degrees successfully.
How to Improve Student Retention With a Comprehensive Marketing Strategy
How to improve student retention? A comprehensive marketing strategy should involve consistent engagement with students through multiple touchpoints, addressing common concerns before they lead to dropout. By implementing strategic communication, financial aid awareness, community-building initiatives, and academic support, you can foster an environment where students feel valued and encouraged to complete their education.
At Higher Education Marketing, we specialize in crafting tailored marketing strategies that attract students and keep them engaged throughout their academic journey. HEM specializes in student retention strategies that drive measurable success. Let’s craft a marketing plan that keeps students engaged from enrolment to graduation. that fosters long-term student success.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Question: What is retention marketing?
Answer: Retention marketing is the strategic use of targeted campaigns, communication, and engagement initiatives that keep current students enrolled and actively involved in their educational journey.
Question: How to improve student retention?
Answer: A comprehensive marketing strategy should involve consistent engagement with students through multiple touchpoints, addressing common concerns before they lead to dropout. By implementing strategic communication, financial aid awareness, community-building initiatives, and academic support, you can foster an environment where students feel valued and encouraged to complete their education.
From speed-to-lead to 24/7 support: Meeting student needs in the digital age
In our recent webinar, “The Importance of Speed to Lead in Meeting Your Enrollment Goals,” we highlighted how rapid, personalized responses to prospective students can significantly impact their perception of an institution’s quality and commitment. This principle of timely, relevant communication extends beyond the admissions process and into the heart of the student experience, particularly in online education. In this post, we’ll delve into how this same philosophy applies to technical support, forming a crucial component of student success and retention.
The critical role of 24/7 technical support in online education
Building on the speed-to-lead concept, the need for swift and effective technical support in online learning environments has become paramount. As we transition from initial student engagement to ongoing support, responsive assistance becomes even more critical. Let’s explore why timely technical support is essential and how it ties to student retention, institutional credibility, and mission fulfillment.
The importance of quick response to technical needs
Just as rapid responses to inquiries can influence a student’s decision to enroll, quick resolution of technical issues can determine a student’s ability to succeed in their coursework. Student satisfaction is closely tied to the quality of the overall experience institutions provide to students, including addressing technical issues and how the institution responds to the students as individuals when they have a concern. When students encounter technical barriers without immediate resolution, their frustration can lead to disengagement and even withdrawal from courses.
The importance of swift technical support in higher education cannot be overstated, as exemplified by several leading institutions.
Penn State University’s IT Service Desk stands out with its comprehensive 24/7 technology support model. Utilizing a blend of 20 students and full-time staff members, they efficiently manage up to 600 daily requests during peak periods. This continuous operation throughout the year, pausing only for university holidays, ensures that the Penn State community receives timely assistance for diverse IT-related issues, from learning management systems to account access and new IT service implementations.
Arizona State University (ASU): ASU’s help center provides round-the-clock service for their large student body. They have 81 employees and 22 student representatives who offer 24/7 support for approximately 100,000 students, including both on-campus and online learners. The center serves as a comprehensive “front door” to the university, assisting with various inquiries beyond just technical issues.
The University of Central Florida (UCF) has adopted a strategic approach to technical support. By deploying technicians during high-demand hours, UCF effectively minimizes downtime for both students and faculty. This proactive strategy maintains the continuity of the learning process and demonstrates the institution’s commitment to student success.
In instances where staffing may be limited, universities are increasingly turning to AI-powered solutions to meet the demand for immediate, round-the-clock support. For example, Thompson Rivers University has implemented a 24/7 chatbot support system. This AI-driven tool automates 83% of incoming chats to their Future Student department, providing instant responses outside of regular business hours. Moreover, a number of innovative platforms such as RNL’s Compass digital assistant provide AI-powered chatbots designed for higher education. These AI-powered assistants can seamlessly integrate with various campus systems, including SIS/ERP, ITSM, and LMS, to address a wide range of inquiries related to IT, admissions, financial aid, and more. By leveraging such technologies, institutions can significantly reduce support costs while ensuring students and faculty receive timely, personalized assistance at any hour.
The case for a 24×7 support model
A 24/7 support model aligns with the flexibility that online education promises. Students often engage with coursework outside traditional hours, making access to technical assistance at any time a necessity rather than a luxury. Institutions like Faith Christian School emphasize the importance of uninterrupted access to educational resources, which fosters independence and self-directed learning. Similarly, Google Cloud’s Student Success Services leverage virtual assistants to provide instant answers around the clock, freeing up staff for more personalized guidance.
The availability of 24/7 technical support is increasingly viewed as a marker of institutional quality. Students now expect seamless access to both academic content and support services when selecting a university. Institutions that fail to meet these expectations risk damaging their reputation and losing prospective students. RNL student satisfaction and priorities data shows that approximately two-thirds of students value institutions addressing their personal needs throughout the recruitment process, which can factor in their decision to enroll at the institution. Offering robust technical support signals that a university is technologically advanced and committed to providing an optimal learning environment.
Enabling student success and institutional mission
Timely technical support directly contributes to student success by removing barriers to learning. When students can focus on their studies without being derailed by technical difficulties, they are more likely to persist in their programs. This aligns with the broader mission of most universities: helping students succeed academically and graduate. Demonstrating the lived expression of institutional mission through 24/7 support for student services can enhance retention and overall well-being. By addressing both academic and non-academic challenges in real-time, universities create an ecosystem where students thrive.
Conclusion: Timely support is critical to the online student experience
From the initial point of contact through to graduation, the principle of timely, personalized support remains crucial. The importance of responding quickly to students’ technical needs is a natural extension of the speed-to-lead philosophy in enrollment management. A 24/7 support model not only ensures uninterrupted learning but also strengthens institutional credibility and fosters student retention. By prioritizing timely assistance across all aspects of the student journey, universities can live up to their mission of empowering students to succeed academically and graduate with confidence. As these examples illustrate, investing in comprehensive support systems is an investment in both student success and institutional sustainability.
How can you leverage technology across the student lifecycle?
With students expecting personalized attention 24/7, you need to be able to engage them at any point in the student lifecycle. Talk with our experts about how you can use the latest technology to create those connections to strengthen recruitment and retention.
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Facing challenges in enrollment, retention, or tech integration? Seeking growth in new markets? Our strategic insights pave a clear path for overcoming obstacles and driving success in higher education.
Unlock the transformative potential within your institution – partner with us to turn today’s roadblocks into tomorrow’s achievements. Let’s chat.
Eighteen students crammed themselves into a stuffy classroom assigned for my first-year seminar course on a sunny day in September. With desk tops touching and knapsacks piled high, we maneuvered through introductions and the kind of icebreakers that research indicates can strengthen learning outcomes. At one point, I asked these college newcomers to share academic and career aspirations. Their responses were a tribute to the dreams of young minds: future pediatric nurses, speech pathologists, and more than one veterinarian were gathered in our small, unassuming space.
These students appeared motivated to learn—a direct contrast to the disengagement narrative that permeates today’s education circles. But despite the enthusiasm, research points to a far more sobering reality: approximately half of all college students fail to graduate within six years of enrollment. Those rates can be even more perilous for certain cohorts, including recipients of Pell Grants, the federal financial aid awarded to undergraduate students demonstrating need.
Many of the students gathered in my classroom fit within this most vulnerable category and would likely face the types of hurdles that can diminish learning resolve. Academics demands coupled with the pull of daily life can negatively tip the balance of student outcomes, siphoning away student motivation, according to educational scholar Howard McClusky. His Theory of Margin framework likens student motivation to the calibration of “loads,” versus the counter force of resources, or what he refers to as “power.” Students with sufficient margin between these competing forces have the capacity to take on new challenges, including the hard work of learning; students with insufficient margin fall into overwhelm and have a higher rate of failure.
Determined to hold onto and even strengthen the learner motivation that was apparent on day one of my class, I was committed to the following motivational practices that could lessen the load and promote the type of power needed to make it to the finish line. Here’s what that looked like:
Community lies at the heart of successful student outcomes, so emphasizing the relational aspect of learning became a guiding principle for the class. Leveraging the energy of the first few weeks when enthusiasm is especially strong is an opportunity to forge group connections and cultivate peer-to-peer support. Research points to these informal bonds as a vital form of power, so beginning on the first day of class, my students were placed in groups determined by common areas of academic focus and career aspiration. To override reticence to working collaboratively, we spent class-time setting up What’s App groups and practicing the type of outreach and response that familiarized group members with the act of reaching out to one another.
Career Readiness has become a valued currency in today’s higher education sector, not only because it helps ease entry into the workforce but also serves to more deeply bind education with employment. Our class therefore included assignments requiring students to research their future fields. Using the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics website, students were able to deepen understanding of specific fields in terms of industry growth, income, and even entry requirements. Anchoring aspirations with real-world realities was an opportunity to guide students towards their stated goals in real and relevant ways which further enhanced their learning motivation.
Continual Reflection invites students into their learning journeys while also kick-starting metacognition, thereby contributing to learning motivation and success. The simple act of inviting students to think about their learning process can deepen engagement while helping to nudge knowledge acquisition into retention, the goal of good teaching. Reflection can be as simple as dedicating the last few minutes of class to having students write about what they learned and what they would like to revisit for better understanding. We undertook this exercise in almost every one of our 15 weeks. In addition, students captured their reflections via electronic portfolios that served as a permanent record of their progress.
Harnessing the drive and energy needed to maintain motivation over the course of a semester can present challenges, particularly in our post-pandemic years when factors of isolation, stamina, and access to optimal learning environments have taken their toll. We encountered many stumbling blocks over the course of the semester, but in the end each of my 18 students reached the finish line of the course. Countering learning head winds requires an understanding of the complex phenomenon of learner motivation and then committing to evidence informed practices that can maintain—even strengthen—the energy and drive to succeed. That can mean more work and effort in the classroom, but for instructors committed to student success, this is its own deeply satisfying motivational force.
Juli S. Charkes, EdD, has been a classroom instructor for the past 14 years, teaching organizational leadership, communications, and media studies at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. From 2021 to 2025, she directed the Center for Teaching and Learning at Mercy University, where she oversaw faculty development and strategy across 100 academic programs.
References
Ash, S. L., & Clayton, P. H. (2009). Generating, deepening, and documenting learning: The power of critical reflection in applied learning. Journal of Applied Learning in Higher Education, 1(1), 25-48.
Biney, I. K. (2022). McClusky’s Theory of Margin and its implications on adult learners in higher education institutions. Journal of Adult and Continuing Education, 28(1), 98-118. https://doi.org/10.1177/1477971421989337
National Center for Education Statistics. (2022). Undergraduate Retention and Graduation Rates. Condition of Education. U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences. Retrieved May 31, 2022, from https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/ctr.
Sasan, J. M. V., Tugbong, G. M., & Alistre, K. L. C. (2023). An exploration of icebreakers and their impact on student engagement in the classroom. International Journal of Social Service and Research, 3(11). https://ijssr.ridwaninstitute.co.id/index.php/ijssr/article/view/566
Schön, D. A. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. New York: Basic Books.
