March 7, 2018
Personalized Text Messages Help Students Stay on STEM Path
Personalized text nudges are helping STEM community college students stay on track—and stay in school—at significantly higher rates.
5 min read
STEM students who received Persistence Plus nudges were 10 percentage points more likely to stay enrolled than their peers, showing measurable impact from behavioral text interventions.
Nudges targeted students’ time management, resource use, and sense of connection—key factors in persistence and degree completion.
Expanding the model can strengthen STEM completion pipelines, boost economic mobility, and help meet regional workforce demands.
In a randomized trial this past summer, community college students in STEM fields who received personalized text message "nudges" to keep them on track stayed in school at a rate 10 percentage points higher than those who did not receive nudges. The study, a joint effort by Jobs for the Future (JFF) and Persistence Plus, followed about 2,000 students at four U.S. community colleges to gauge the impact of text message communications on college completion and student success.
More than two-thirds of associate degree candidates in STEM fields do not complete their studies, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Half of those students switch to a non-STEM major and the other half leave college without earning a degree. The Nudging to STEM Success initiative launched last summer with funding from the Helmsley Charitable Trust, with the goal to build student success rates, both generally and particularly in STEM fields.
Read how Persistence Plus and JFF are using behavioral nudges to empower STEM students—and reshape the future of college persistence and completion.
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