Student retention is a major strategic priority for Australia’s tertiary education sector.
Senior leaders and staff in these institutions understand the complexity involved in tackling this issue. What has changed is the scale of the challenge as the cost of living, study and work pressures mount for current students.
In the landscape of changing learner expectations, tighter funding, and increasing scrutiny of student engagement and completion rates, Ian Armstrong, APAC Business Development Manager at Ellucian, explores the central role of data in identifying at-risk students and intervening earlier to keep them on track to complete their studies.
Why do Students Drop Out of Australian Tertiary Education?
The recently published Accord Review of higher education in Australia emphasised the importance of student retention.
But according to the most recent available figures from the Australian Department of Education, 12% of domestic students who began a bachelor degree in 2023 did not return in 2024. While this is a slight improvement on 14% for the previous year, it still represents tens of thousands more students dropping out early and millions in lost tuition fees for these tertiary education institutions.
Attrition figures for the 2024/25 academic year were not yet available at the point of publication. This data does not include attrition rates for overseas students either, which are not typically tracked nationally. It’s worth noting that those students who drop out before the official census cut-off date will also not be included, so the full picture of early departures may be much higher than the official figures suggest.
The reasons behind poor student retention can be complex and often vary from one institution to the next. There is no single approach to address the issue. Institutions will achieve better outcomes with a holistic strategy that combines people, processes and technology.
Students are increasingly struggling financially, which may leave them unable to afford essentials such as rent, food, Wi-Fi or regular access to a laptop to complete their studies. Many are juggling full-time study alongside work or family responsibilities. Some are the first in their family to attend a tertiary education institution, while others come from various access and equity groups or lack support networks when studying away from campus. For some students, the challenge is simply a gap between their expectations and the reality of study and campus life.
A combination of one or more of these issues can lead students to disengage, or even question whether tertiary education is worth the time, effort, and cost.
Understanding why students leave before completing their studies is essential. It’s particularly important for preventing dropouts in the first four weeks, which can have major implications for students’ future opportunities, and the institution’s funding.
Institutions can gain great insight from the data being recorded each and every day, which can be used to help them deliver valuable learning experiences, keep students engaged, and protect their reputation for providing a quality education.
How Can Institutions Reduce Student Attrition and Improve Retention?
The opportunity cost of a student leaving an institution early is far greater than the support investment needed to help them stay, which can improve outcomes for both their careers and the institution’s reputation.
Institutions that use student and course information strategically can better support learning, intervene early to address challenges and ensure that the initiatives introduced to support student engagement deliver meaningful results.
Identify Students at Risk
With the right tools, institutions can analyse student data quickly to spot changes in behaviour or engagement that might indicate they are at risk of dropping out. This creates opportunities for staff to provide meaningful support earlier in the student’s learning journey.
A student might be fully engaged at the beginning of a semester, for example, then start to miss tutorials in week six. With an automatic alert set up, their tutor can be notified straight away. They can then arrange a quick check-in, or some extra guidance with a challenging class or unit to help the student feel supported and re-engage in their studies.
Students often do best when support is personalised, automated, and flexible, so they have multiple options for how and where to get the help they may need.
Predict and Prevent Issues
Bringing student data together from multiple systems provides a clear view of engagement patterns from across an institution and can highlight any emerging issues that could impact retention levels. Some students with work or caring responsibilities who have missed sessions might benefit from more flexible tutorial times or the ability to access recorded sessions online when it is convenient for them. Targeted check-ins or extra study support could also help students who have fallen behind on assignments to refocus and complete outstanding tasks.
Timely, relevant support that meets students’ needs can help them overcome challenges, and maximise their chances of success whilst giving them choice in selecting the support that is right for their circumstances.
Monitor Impact
With automated data analytics, institutions can monitor the impact of the interventions they put in place to improve retention issues over time.
Monitoring indicators such as attendance, engagement, assessment results and student satisfaction help staff to understand what retention strategies are working, and where adjustments are needed. If a mentoring program improves the attendance of first-year engineering students and helps them submit assignments on time, the initiative could be expanded to other faculties or adapted for students in later years who are struggling.
By continuously monitoring outcomes such as attendance, assessments, assignment completion timelines, and student satisfaction, staff can ensure interventions are effective and students get the appropriate guidance to achieve their goals.
How Can Ellucian Help Institutions Improve Student Retention?
Ellucian has decades of experience working with tertiary education institutions across APAC and internationally to make better use of data for strategic decision-making and support student success.
Purpose-built for tertiary education, our student success platform incorporates the latest advances in AI technology to help institutions to overcome the challenges they face in delivering better student outcomes.
Ellucian Advising is a powerful suite of intelligent tools institutions can use to consolidate data from many systems, monitor student performance and deliver personalised support, at the right time and place, to help students progress.
- Combine data from multiple systems to view a full picture of student progress
- Intervene early to support students with automatic alerts for those at risk
- Tailor interventions to meet the needs of each student
- Enable collaboration across departments to provide a consistent student experience
- Track student engagement, performance, and trends to inform decision-making
- Monitor retention and progress towards retention KPIs
- Streamline workflows to automate communications for success
Ellucian Insights gives a clear, data-driven view of performance across any institution to support strategic decisions on retention and student outcomes.
- A data dashboard of institution-wide performance to highlight retention trends and patterns
- Real-time reporting on student outcomes, faculty performance, and course effectiveness
- Measure progress against institutional goals to track KPIs and inform strategic planning
- Data sourced from any institutional system to ensure decisions can be made with all the right details within the right time frame for maximum impact
Ellucian Smart Plan empowers students by giving them control of their own academic journey.
- A clear view of degree requirements and milestones so students can track their own progress
- Explore different scenarios, such as changing majors or adjusting course schedules, and see what impact options have on graduation timing
- Build study plans using AI to adapt automatically to class selections, completed classes and any transfer credits or Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL).
- Automatically highlight potential issues early, such as missing course requirements or schedule conflicts, and adjust plans to stay on track for completion.
- Provide options for changing schedules due to work or family commitments and clearly show the impact on both completion timelines and costs.
Learn more about how our student success platform can help your institution improve student retention.
