Artificial intelligence has entered education with a force. It’s nearly impossible to step foot on a college campus today and not experience it either overtly or subtly—and that’s before we even discuss the many workshops for students and professors on how to manage the technology. Most importantly, though, AI has shown to have massive potential for improving the student experience. In many ways, it is already transforming higher education as we know it, with potentially significant benefits for your students.
You’ll find it in the form of machine learning, AI-enabled digital assistants, and more. Put it all together, and this technology can touch and improve the student experience from the moment they first learn about your institution to graduation and beyond. Here’s how.
1. A Smoother Application Process
Digital assistants are already in full force with college admissions offices across the country. They can help counselors send proactive messages. But more importantly, they improve the student experience by acting as smart chatbots to answer student queries at a moment’s notice.
As a result, AI-enabled digital assistants can create a smoother application experience for your incoming class. While counselors are intimately familiar with nuances like SAT scores and application deadlines, most students are not. Especially for first-generation students, that lack of preparedness can become a significant hurdle in their quest for college.
Digital assistants, on the other hand, can increase conversion rates and deposits simply by being available at a moment’s notice. This always-on approach ultimately improves the application experience and eases access to college for a significant portion of your audience.
2. Less Biased Admission Decisions
Especially for schools receiving high-volume applications, the review process is not only cumbersome for counselors—further reducing their availability to help with questions—but can also introduce unintentional bias. AI is beginning to help remove that bias.
According to a 2023 survey by Intelligent, more than half of all institutions now use AI in their admissions process. Among those, nearly 40% said that they have seen it reduce bias in the review stage.
Especially AI software that can review transcripts and recommendation letters, which follow relatively standard formats, can accomplish this goal. But even more advanced tasks, like reviewing personal essays, can benefit from an initial AI review that is able to look at the text without any subconscious weighing of background, race, or gender.
3. Finding Better Funding Opportunities
Back to AI’s impact on the student experience – as students search for colleges and plan their higher education journey, affordability is becoming a more important consideration point. It’s also the biggest reason why students choose not to enroll in a college, or forego higher education altogether.
And once again, artificial intelligence is making a difference.
Broadly speaking, free tools like Scholarship Finder help students find free funding opportunities based on their personal information. More specifically, colleges are beginning to use AI-based algorithms to determine ideal financial aid packages for students that go far beyond the information provided via the FAFSA. And of course, once again, university-specific chatbots can help to simplify the process at the individual school level to make anything from completing the FAFSA to finding institutional scholarships significantly simpler.
4. Receiving Help at a Moment’s Notice
Once your students step foot on campus, their need for help isn’t nearly over. Paying bills, finding tutors, registering for classes, and even something as seemingly trivial as a parking pass all become stress factors they’re looking to solve daily.
But of course, their need for answers doesn’t always align with business hours for your relevant offices. AI has begun to make significant inroads in ensuring that help will be available regardless.
In fact, AI-enabled chatbots provide 24/7 availability for students in need of answers. They learn from the conversations they have to expand their database of answers, while still being able to move the conversation to a staff member in a relevant office as necessary. That process both improves the help students get at all times and office workflows, building significant efficiencies in the process.
5. Improved Alert Systems for At-Risk Students
Not every student who enrolls at your university will succeed. Still, a core goal of any retention effort has to be finding the students who may be at risk of failing a class or even dropping out, and helping them as early as possible. The more proactive the system, the more likely your students will get the help they need to turn it around, even if they don’t reach out.
Many factors play into finding these at-risk students. Low grades, attendance, or even a lack of meal swipes and library access can all play a role. AI systems are now building the models institutions needed to define those factors, and then analyze them in real-time to provide students with the help they need early on.
The result is a more proactive approach to student success, working toward the goal of higher retention and graduation rates.
6. Real-Time Feedback for Student Projects
In the past two years, there has been significant discourse around students using artificial intelligence to cheat on assignments. Sometimes lost in that discussion is the fact that with the right tools, students can actually improve their assignments in ethical ways and enhance their overall learning experience. As a recent article in AI Hub puts it,
In education, chatbots with artificial intelligence systems can guide students with personalized, just-in-time feedback or assistance. These chatbots can answer questions about course content or structure. This helps students keep track of their own learning while keeping them motivated and engaged.
7. Customized Curricula for Student Needs
More broadly, machine learning processes are beginning to build a more personalized learning experience for students at every educational level. From primary school to higher education, AI-enabled platforms offer the ability to analyze student performance and preferences, and then build more customized curricula designed for their needs in response.
As summarized in a recent eLearning Industry article, the goal of this approach is to leverage each student’s unique strengths and weaknesses to build customized pathways for arriving at common learning outcomes. Personalized recommendations and smart tutoring systems add to the learning experience.
For students, that ultimately means a more relevant way to learn what they need to pass a class and learn the skills required for each of their classes and major.
8. Data-Based Study Path Optimization
More broadly, artificial intelligence through machine learning has also created an ability to optimize learning more comprehensively. Schools are now able to analyze trends for which classes and majors tend to be popular, and then use that ability to offer new learning opportunities at every level.
The result is less rigid offerings for students unsure of what to do. About a third of all students enter college not yet having decided on a major. An AI-optimized plan of classes can help them more effectively learn about their options so that by the time they have to choose, they can be confident without losing time toward graduation.
9. Increased Professor Productivity
We know from multiple studies that the professor-student relationship is among the most important pieces of the higher education student experience. And yet, many full-time professors lament that they simply do not tend to have the time to nurture it. Teaching classes, committee assignments, and research expectations can prevent them from spending the mentoring time their students need and crave.
Here, again, artificial intelligence has begun to make a significant impact. Especially when increasing the dataset across multiple semesters, assignments can be graded more dynamically, just as plagiarism checkers simplified the lives of professors years ago. Some of the above points, like dynamically customized learning experiences, can also help to free up time.
Of course, the professor still needs to be the driving force. But by automating these more routine tasks, AI enables professors to take the time they (and their students) need in interpersonal interactions.
10. Dynamic Skills and Career Matching
Finally, as your students approach graduation, their goal becomes finding a career that matches their major, skills, and goals. And of course, that goal becomes yours as well; after all, successful students fulfill your mission while also building a strong alumni base.
It’s why college and university career centers now use AI software in any number of ways:
- Virtual career advice through AI-enabled digital assistants
- Career path prediction for every imaginable field and major
- Job matching platforms based on advanced analytics
- AI-enabled matching between students and alumni mentors in their field
- Data analytics to better understand market trends and apply them to your students
These services tend to be available for students until long after graduation. That turns artificial intelligence into a tool your students can use throughout their careers to help achieve continued, sustainable success.
The Power of AI in Helping Your Students Succeed
Put it all together, and there can be little doubt: AI has the chance to make an impact at every point of the student experience. With the right platform at your side, you can help to ensure that your students get the experience they deserve, from first looking at colleges to planning their careers after graduation.
We’ve only touched the beginnings of what artificial intelligence in higher education can accomplish. Treat it like an asset, and you’ll be able to help your students succeed at every turn.
Learn more about AI solutions for higher education from the expert team at AtlasRTX.
