Civitas Learning: Predictive Analytics to Steer Better Student Outcomes

The United States must produce roughly one million more graduates a year by 2025 to ensure the country has the skilled workers and entrepreneurial leaders it needs–not to mention more deeply engaged and informed citizens. Of the 30 million students in higher education today, about half will graduate, with huge disparities based on the income levels of incoming students. Today, a child born poor in the United States is more likely to remain poor than at any time in our nation’s history. For the first time, younger generations will be less educated than their elders. Civitas Learning is on a mission to help solve this problem. “By harnessing the power of insight and action analytics, we partner with forward-thinking colleges and universities to help students learn well and finish strong,” said Charles Thornburgh, CEO and Co-Founder of Civitas Learning. “As daunting as the challenge of one million more graduates sounds, we can reach the goal together by helping our community colleges and universities improve outcomes for current students, and find creative new pathways for returning students.”

Reaching this goal would increase today’s annual output of associate and bachelor’s degree-holders by about 3.5 percent a year for the next decade – a goal that’s very achievable.

Civitas Learning helps higher education institutions by systematically tapping into the wealth of current and historical student data across diverse systems, and piecing them into coherent and useful student stories. “As the pieces come together, it builds up the story where we can literally watch how different students progress, and see when and where they face challenges,” says Thornburgh. These stories, which are brought to the front lines in well-designed, user-friendly apps by Civitas, help faculty members identify struggling students who need more instruction and also help advisors with those students who are at most risk.

Civitas Learning’s Illume™ Platform and App provides the core insights necessary for institutions to take action. It helps analyze key institutional