
This is the era of Artificial Intelligence. Whichever business has incorporated artificial intelligence into their business has a lot of growth potential. Surprisingly, higher education has also welcomed Artificial Intelligence both practically and hypothetically. Artificial Intelligence is expected to grow in the education market rapidly in the upcoming years.
Universities and colleges are using Artificial Intelligence as a proactive tool to automate various tasks efficiently. Through Chatbots, various student queries and questions regarding class schedules are answered. Moreover, these chatbots check with students regarding their mental health as well. Artificial Intelligence has helped higher education institutions and colleges in many areas but has immensely impacted the enrollment and retention ratio. Want to find out how? Keep reading!
In a world where students have access to multiple educational options, it’s crucial for colleges and universities to differentiate themselves from the rest. Think Orion believes that Artificial Intelligence is the key to helping higher education institutions stand out from the crowd and deliver a top-notch education experience to their students.
Role of Artificial Intelligence in Higher Education
If you are interested in the tech world then you must be aware of what is buzzing these days. It is Artificial Intelligence that is being used as a tool to make tasks more efficient in almost every field. From product marketing to education, whichever industry it is, businesses are using artificial intelligence as a competitive advantage over others.
Colleges and universities are using Artificial Intelligence to enhance the learning of students and engage with them through content. Artificial Intelligence gives educational institutions an opportunity to create a more personalized education experience for their students while increasing enrollments and increasing the rate of retention.
One of the most common uses of Artificial Intelligence in education is predictive analysis which requires a computer model to predict a certain outcome. Through predictive analysis data can be analyzed, outcomes can be predicted and insights shall be suggested based on the data.
Predictive analysis can be used to predict anything such as when a student would fail a course or when a student would drop out from a course. Artificial Intelligence is very effective in analyzing huge amounts of data, suggesting insights and making helpful predictions.
Other than predictive analysis, Artificial Intelligence generated emails are effective in reminding students regarding important notices, deadlines for fees and assignments and for registration of classes. Moreover, Artificial Intelligence based-software is able to identify which assignments are plagiarized.
Apart from using Artificial Intelligence as a tool to automate routine tasks and make the education experience better for each student, higher education institutions are using it to address some of the biggest issues for the education industry which are allocating financial aid, maximizing enrollments and enhancing student retention rate. But the question is how?
How colleges and higher education institutions are using AI to increase enrollments and improve the retention rate?
- By changing the domestic and international recruiting practices.
Artificial Intelligence will help colleges change the student recruiting practices whether domestic or international for the better by encouraging the creation of algorithms that would help predict whether an applicant will be accepted and get enrolled and which state or country they would be originated from. Doesn’t that sound interesting? It does right!
Furthermore, these algorithms would be able to also determine which of these students would be more likely to progress in the future, graduate and become engaged alumni. This is simply brilliant! All thanks to artificial Intelligence.
- Making the admission process faster and more personalized.
Admission processes can be very lengthy and may become frustrating for some students. Artificial Intelligence can make the admission process faster by automating the administrative activities such as visa processes for international students, providing economical student housing selection and an easy course registration process.
Artificial Intelligence can also make admission processes for students preferable by providing customizable experiences for student recruitment.
- Making the student retention efforts more proactive than reactive.
In order to improve the retention rate of students, colleges need to make efforts to anticipate instead of reacting. In this matter, Artificial Intelligence comes into play as it will help in recognizing the early warning signs, pinpointing the red flags and identifying the students who struggle in their studies. Artificial Intelligence will help colleges and higher education institutions anticipate student difficulties so that retention plans can be created for them.
- Providing assistance to the admissions team in addressing the “Summer Melt”.
Students often pay a deposit in May but do not get enrolled in September. With the help of Artificial Intelligence, admissions staff can identify these applicants by sending frequently personalized text messaging and communication.
Once these applicants are identified, admissions staff can then create intervention strategies to maximize the autumn enrollments.
- Improving the college’s overall reputational value.
An educational institution’s reputation is very important and to improve it, it needs to enroll students who have the will to graduate and excel in studies. Artificial Intelligence will help identify and target such applicants who are best fit for this criteria. AI will help colleges personalize the education experience across the lifecycle of the student and offer them quality education.
This would help colleges improve their overall reputational value while operating more efficiently.
What are some of the other benefits of Artificial Intelligence for Colleges?
There is no doubt that Artificial Intelligence can improve the overall retention and enrollment rate for colleges across the globe. However, there are many benefits that Artificial Intelligence offers colleges and higher education systems other than just maximizing enrollment and student retention.
Here are some of the biggest advantages of Artificial Intelligence that help in maximizing overall enrollments and improving the student experience:
- Preventing Dropouts
As discussed earlier, one of the biggest advantages that artificial intelligence provides schools and colleges is that it helps identify the warning signs that a student might drop out. When such students are identified, teachers and administrators can intervene and help students with their difficulties before they quit school.
There are a lot of factors that help determine if a student may quit such as poor test or project performance, frequent absenteeism, incomplete work, lack of participation etc. With the help of Artificial Intelligence, educational data mining and predictive analysis can be performed and the administration can intervene before a student drops out.
- Grading more quickly
Artificial Intelligence has made grading very easy and quick, and as time will pass by it will also be able to grade and understand student essays which will give teachers more time to spend resolving student queries and instruction.
Grading takes a lot of time for teachers which is why teachers are sometimes unable to give individual time to their student’s queries and questions. Quicker grading will save a lot of time for teachers and hence it will improve students retention rate as well.
- Providing personalized and differentiated learning
The conventional learning method makes teachers teach the same lesson again and again. In the meantime, some students may get bored of the same repetitive lesson as they might have understood it while others may not have got the hold of it. Meanwhile, some students are too shy to ask questions.
Artificial Intelligence has created a personalized and differentiated learning experience via an educational software that helps students learn at their own pace while teachers can help students who have queries and spend time resolving them.
- Eliminating language and communication barriers
There are students who excel in their studies at the same time there are students who lack behind because of hearing or visual impairments and language barriers. Artificial Intelligence has made it easier for colleges to eliminate these barriers for such students by introducing a PowerPoint plug-in known as the Presentation Translator.
- Better insights for teaching
In many cases, teachers are unable to identify the problem areas for students. What may seem to be very simple and easy for them, may be hard to understand for their students. Thanks to Artificial Intelligence, teachers can now identify the difficult and problematic topics.
This helps teachers reconstruct lesson plans and curricula in accordance with the difficulties faced by students in subjects like calculus and chemistry.
Conclusion
Artificial Intelligence has made life easier for so many people across various industries. Marketers are using Artificial Intelligence to make their brands stand out among the rest across the globe. In such a scenario, how can the world’s biggest business, which is education, stay behind?
Colleges and higher education institutions are not only using Artificial Intelligence to improve their enrollments and retention each year but they are also using it to improve the overall education experience for their students.
Artificial Intelligence has made things a lot easier for teachers and the administration. If you have read the above article, you will have a clear understanding of how colleges can improve their enrollments,and retention and customize the education experience for their students with the help of Artificial Intelligence.