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Digital Holistic Student Supports Initiative Aims to Improve How Colleges Use Technology to Support Students

Key Takeaways

  • Gates Foundation-funded initiative launched: Achieving the Dream, DataKind, and MDRC are leading the Digital Holistic Student Supports initiative to study and improve how colleges use technology and data to support student completion.
  • Institutions receive $500,000 grants: Participating colleges will co-design and test new digital student support approaches over two years; five institutions have joined, with a sixth to be added.
  • Focus on data integration and proactive support: Areas include digital transformation roadmaps, improved data governance and literacy, unified data systems, dashboards and predictive analytics, and building capacity for large-scale digital change.

A new Gates Foundation-funded project is bringing together a group of access-oriented institutions and nonprofit partners to study and improve the digital tools colleges and universities rely on to support students. For the Digital Holistic Student Supports initiative, Achieving and Dream (ATD) and DataKind, a global nonprofit focused on data science and AI, will "design and implement digital approaches that strengthen how institutions support students toward completion," according to a news announcement, and then work with nonprofit social policy research organization MDRC to evaluate and document lessons learned from the effort. The goal: to "help institutions harness their existing data, align people and processes, and deploy technology in ways that enable timely, personalized, and proactive support."

Participating institutions will receive a $500,000 grant from Achieving the Dream to co-design and test new approaches to student support over a two-year period. Five institutions have already joined the effort: Fayetteville State University (NC), Prince George's Community College (MD), Durham Technical Community College (NC), Clovis Community College (NM), and North Central State College (OH). A sixth college will be added later this year.

Areas of focus for the institutions, according to the project website, include:

  • Develop a digital transformation roadmap aligned with institutional strategy and student success goals (community colleges only). 
  • Strengthen data maturity through improved governance, literacy, and data use across the institution. 
  • Implement a unified data system that securely integrates core institutional data sources. 
  • Use dashboards, predictive analytics, and other tools to support more proactive and holistic student support. 
  • Build institutional capacity to lead and sustain large-scale digital and organizational change. 
  • Contribute lessons learned and provide promising practices to inform broader reform across access-oriented higher education institutions and the ATD Network. 

"Colleges are navigating a moment of profound change, with students bringing increasingly complex goals, responsibilities, and expectations to their postsecondary journeys," said Dr. Karen A. Stout, president and CEO of Achieving the Dream, in a statement. "This initiative is about ensuring that technology serves as an enabler — not a replacement — for strong relationships, sound practice, and institutional responsibility. By partnering with DataKind and MDRC, we are helping colleges use data and digital tools more intentionally to deliver timely, personalized support that keeps students on track to complete credentials that matter for their lives and their communities."

For more information, visit the Achieving the Dream site.

About the Author

Rhea Kelly is editor in chief for Campus Technology, THE Journal, and Spaces4Learning. She can be reached at [email protected].

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