Colleges are using digital “nudges” — texted or e-mailed reminders — to keep students on track, reports Natalie Schwartz on Education Dive. It costs very little to remind students of deadlines, direct them to campus resources or urge them to study for finals.

“So far, the results are promising, with various studies finding they’ve helped to reduce summer melt, boost enrollment and increase retention,” she writes.

First-year students at the University of Washington Tacoma get nudges from Persistence Plus than range from “reminding students about Pell Grant deadlines to notifying military veterans on campus about free donuts.”

“A 2017 study on students close to graduating found colleges using Persistence Plus’s text message-based nudges — including U of Washington Tacoma — saw a 6 percentage point increase in Degree Completion among students most at risk of dropping out,” writes Schwartz.

Nudging high school graduates to enroll in college may lower degree completion, writes Jay Greene.

Many high school seniors change their mind about enrolling in college during the summer after graduation. A long-term follow-up on a “summer melt” study found negative results for nudging, Greene writes.

. . .  students randomly assigned to receive texts to remind them to complete the FAFSA while they are seniors in high school are significantly less likely to complete an AA or BA degree than those who were not nudged into completing the forms necessary to get financial aid and enroll in college.

Once students enroll, sending texts reminding them to renew financial-aid forms has no effect on degree completion, the study found.

Nudging “got more students to complete a form and enroll in college,” but didn’t improve degree completion, Greene writes. “Students were being pushed into doing things that were against their own better judgment.”

The bot doesn’t always know best.