Most retention systems flag struggling students through grades and attendance. By the time those indicators fire, many students are already halfway out the door. Elvee's survey of 1,050 U.S. college students shows why: 86% start college highly motivated, 42% come close to dropping out at some point, and only 17% of those who struggle ever request help.

In this episode of the Changing Higher Ed® podcast, Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with Raz Dar, CEO of Elvee, whose work with U.S. colleges centers on reading behavioral data for early signals of student disengagement.

Drawing on his background in commercial technology, Dar explains how patterns in study time, login frequency, and forum participation reveal disengagement before exam period and before failure reaches the gradebook. He and McNaughton examine why motivated students still leave, why institutions that wait for students to ask for help miss most of the students who need it, and why intervention without follow-up monitoring routinely fails.

This conversation is especially relevant for presidents, provosts, student success executives, enrollment executives, and board members looking to move retention from reactive support to proactive, early intervention.

Topics Covered

• Why grades and attendance are lagging indicators that flag students too late
• What disengagement looks like in behavioral data, and why a single dip can be benign
• The help-seeking gap: 17% ask for help, 52% try to solve it alone first, 30% never reach out
• The top dropout drivers: balancing work and school (72%) and mental health or stress (71%)
• How the most successful institutions build a personalized bond from day one
• Scaling a dozen advisors across thousands of students through prioritization and automation

Real-World Examples Discussed

• A freshman who skipped two exams under acute stress and recovered because the institution initiated contact
• Institutions that call students at term start to confirm they have books, Wi-Fi, and a computer
• Cambridge's bridge week for first-generation students and Yale's required freshman life-skills course
• The corporate benchmark: turnover above 10% triggers alarm in business, while higher ed absorbs far worse

Three Key Takeaways for Leadership

1. Build trust with students before they struggle; outreach in crisis only lands if a relationship already exists.
2. Move from reactive to proactive; only 17% of struggling students will ask for help, so use behavioral signals to know when to reach out and monitor afterward to confirm the intervention worked.
3. Make retention a strategic, measurable KPI from the top, and resource it with a real team.

This episode offers a practical look at what becomes possible when institutions stop waiting for students to raise their hands and start reading the signals students are already sending.

Read the transcript: https://changinghighered.com/using-ai-behavioral-signals-student-retention/

#StudentSuccess #StudentRetention #HigherEducation #HigherEducationPodcast #AIforStudentRetention