The world of business sees an expansion, with increasing influence on other industries and areas of life. Higher education is a clear example, as institutions that wish to develop in the long-term have to treat the development as a business. Among other things, that means setting clear goals regarding student success, enrollment and retention rates, as well as ensuring they don’t lose touch with students after they graduate.

No institution can succeed in driving the desired results without data. After all, with data being one of the most critical aspects of business success, it’s only logical that it would come to rule higher education as well. Today, there are different ways in which higher education is leveraging student data. Let’s have a closer look at some of them:

Improving Student Recruitment and Enrollment Process

In facilitating more efficient recruitment and enrollment process for the students, higher education institutions need quality data. Considering that institutions nowadays have to invest funds into recruitment before a student even enrolls, it’s crucial that they have a healthy pool of suitable candidates to avoid losing funds on students who won’t be a good fit. Accurate student data helps institutions improve the efficiency of these processes by making it easier to identify who the right candidates are and ensuring that enrollment runs smoothly.

Increasing Student Retention

Once the right candidates are recruited, student retention rates improve as well. However, higher education institutions can fall prey to inefficient administrative processes that make the life for students much harder than it should. It can affect retention rates, which is why it’s crucial to keep student data accurate to be able to update them on everything they need to know promptly.

Building an Alumni Network

Having a healthy alumni network is vital for many higher education institutions, and it’s impossible to create one without student data. It doesn’t only help to have the best alumni lead the fundraising efforts for the institution, even though that’s a significant part of an institution’s long-term development. They can also benefit from alumni networks in other ways, including the ability to attract more new students by increasing their employability, as alumni get included in offering them career support.

Encouraging Student EngagementFinally, institutions that make an effort to keep their student contact information accurate enjoy higher student engagement as one of the benefits of using data correctly. Additionally, a higher education institution could make use of data to provide post-graduation support to their students, which is something that a vast majority of students would appreciate. Higher engagement naturally drives all other student success factors, making the institution benefit in more ways than one.

Runner EDQ’s CLEAN_Student software integration aims to remove administrative inefficiencies and data errors by keeping student data clean and accurate. Higher education institutions need accurate student data if they wish to leverage it in the best ways possible. For more information on how Runner EDQ’s software solutions help institutions accomplish this and facilitate long-term development, visit our website.