With the increase in income and the literacy rate, higher education is now a big industry that uses data science periodically.

As per a survey report – 20 million American students enrolled in college; 70% of universities and colleges spend over $100,000 per annum on various activities (growth strategy, advertisements, maintenance, up-gradation, recruitments, etc.)

It’s a new trend in higher education, and the numbers are still increasing. The overwhelming increase in the number of students attending colleges/universities and the total expenditure in education symbolizes that higher education is a booming industry.

Many colleges and universities employ expert marketing professionals to reach out to and engage prospective students/applicants every year. 

However, sometimes the institutions could not yield the desired outcome in student enrollments. Perhaps they tend to miss out on some good opportunities in engaging the students. 

In this regard, Data Analytics can be of great help. Using Data Science, Colleges and Universities can profoundly tap into prospective students and enroll them in the institution. 

It is now time for every college to employ predictive analytics and data analysis as an integral aspect of their admissions process.

Let’s discuss some of the advantages of Data Science for Colleges and Universities.

Enhance in the Rate of Retention

There are often changes when successfully enrolled students from an institution drop out. It can be because of many socio-economic and academic factors. Hence, a low retention rate completely wastes the resources available to the colleges and the entire society.

Data analytics procedures can help colleges either maintain or increase their retention rate – it is possible by collecting and analyzing current and historical data to get insights on the list of students who are more prone to dropping out. 

So universities can arrange specialized counseling for such students. They better focus on them to solve their problems by providing possible resources and support to retain them.

Removal of Biasedness

In reality, minority and low-income students in most countries face trouble enrolling in their desired colleges. It might be due to bias behavior of some universities.

Hence, data analytics can be of much help here to accurately identify discriminatory practices. It can further controls and remove the possibility of bias from college enrollments.

Many colleges today are drastically affected due to lesser enrollments, such that they are almost on the way to closing. So this will make a significant number of staff and faculty members of such institutions jobless!

There are many causes behind declines in enrollment depending upon people and the location of a specific area. Today, there are many career-based programs as a significant factor behind students’ less interest in enrolling at the colleges.

Also, the situation is even worse for public universities and colleges. They are getting capital from the state government only if their enrollment numbers are doing well.

Almost all the directors, deans, trustees, and presidents try to get out of this crisis and enhance their enrollments. 

By the way, only a few of them are using a smart approach to find the solution for such conditions – it is to use big data and data analytics methods.

Analyzing both High and Low-level Data

Colleges need to concentrate on both low and high levels of data available with them. They can get benefits by using such in proper data analytics software. A big help is to predict the demand and supply of the courses.

It is also helpful for institutions to analyze their online course inventory. Due to the high flexibility and convenience, the requirements of such courses are high in trends.

So, an institution needs to make sure to provide such facilities for its students to gain many enrollments.

Universities need to understand a particular group of students those are working adults. They are people managing both their education and families and always look for a flexible learning system to get an education. 

Institutions need to understand the growing demands evolving in the field of higher education. So, they need to predict it in advance and prepare themselves. It is possible by using specific strategies that can entice their targeted students. 

Therefore, the only thing that can save any educational institution’s life is to use the best from the data available to them.

It is either possible by engaging an internal management team who can work on them. But it will undoubtedly take a lot of time to find fruitful prospects for enrollment.

Also, sometimes, the decision might be late to affect the current rate of improvements. A smart way is to use data analytics software with big data as an effective method to stay competitive and handle inefficiencies.

Realizing Demonstrated Interest

Colleges are tracking many data of targeted students online, like their history, behavior, and interests.

These types of data can help an institution to determine the demonstrated interest of a student. It can also let them understand a student’s seriousness to enroll in a particular university or college.

Hence, it can help admission officers make strategies to decide better by considering the student’s level of interest. So they can enhance their retention rate by giving proper support to those interested in getting admission.

Conclusion

Colleges are taking dynamic scoring to create their data models based on geographic data and third-party demographics. It also includes the types and number of interactions advisers have with the students.

Dynamic scoring is all about using sophisticated data and getting insights from them. It helps optimize their efforts to increase enrollment rates by using data analytics and comparing their best enrollment insights. 

In today’s scenario, it is not an easy job for the recruitment admission staff to find students who are willing to enroll in a college. But with predictive analytics techniques, we have made everything simple and easy.

You need any assistance in regard to data science, feel free to get in touch with NextBee. We are a team of expert Data Analysts who can help you increasing and boosting the student enrollment process.