For an incoming college student, the first days of school can be daunting. You’re scrambling for answers about everything from financial aid to course selection while navigating an unfamiliar social scene. It’s enough to make you vent on Facebook. Trouble is, your old friends aren’t much help in your new world.
It’s a different story for students arriving at one of 35 colleges with a Schools App for Facebook. Even before setting foot on campus, students can use this customized social network to start meeting new classmates, find campus groups to join, and connect to staff and alumni. Because updates focus on their college, they don’t have to filter all the social media noise to get the information they need.
“We want to make sure that by the time every student lands freshman year, they already have created this personal network around them that will help them get through school,” explains Michael Staton, former high school teacher and now CEO of Inigral. The San Francisco-based company that developed the Schools App for higher education is attracting customers and investors with its plan to leverage social networking to increase college graduation rates.
One of the ugly secrets of higher education is that a substantial number of students who start college never graduate. This problem is particularly acute among students who grew up in disadvantaged communities, such as African-Americans and families living below the poverty line. For example, only 40 percent of African-American students and 41 percent of Hispanic students enrolled in a four-year college graduated within a sixyear period, compared with 62 percent for white students.
Earlier this year, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation invested $2 million in the startup. This is the foundation’s first equity investment and reflects its goal to help more students reach graduation, especially those who are the first in their family to go to college. The investment is also a sign that the foundation sees “significant demand for the product and services and the opportunity to build out a scalable platform for their delivery,” says Greg Ratliff, senior program officer for the Gates Foundation.
The infusion of philanthropic dollars is helping bring the Schools App to community colleges serving large numbers of Pell Grant recipients. Many of these students are commuters on slim budgets who may not feel a strong link to campus. “They don’t engage effectively with faculty, staff, and peers, and they do not access available support services,” observes Ratliff. “The Schools App will leverage technology to test whether student engagement and retention can be increased using social media.”
The top reasons students drop out of college have to do with financial challenges and academic readiness. “After that, there can be a lot of reasons—they don’t feel like they fit in, aren’t engaged with a broader community, or don’t have a supportive social environment,” Staton says.
The Schools App helps new students connect but within a closed, private universe. That makes it more palatable to admissions officers who may be wary of social media’s wilder side. Early adopters range from Arizona State University, with 70,000 students, to Columbia College Chicago, serving 12,000. Cost to the college ranges from $10,000 to $70,000 annually.
“What students seem to want is a place to talk to their peers and a convenient way to connect to college staff. We give them a place to do both things,” Staton says. Making friends seems to be students’ driving interest, especially for incoming freshmen. The software suggests friends based on common interests, which might be a mutual love of the outdoors or something more specific, such as returning to college as a single parent or military veteran. “It’s not about finding someone to date,” Staton adds.
Many colleges are recognizing that they need new ways to connect with digital-age students who want information delivered on their terms. E-mail and snail mail tend to get ignored by this generation. Instead, Staton says, “they want an on-demand, peer-supported, student support system.”
In the long run, Staton sees the need for “a new core piece of technology” to help colleges meet these evolving student support needs. For now, Inigral’s staff of 15 is busy improving its killer app for freshmen. A mobile version of Schools App is due for release this fall.
Read more stories by Suzie Boss.