A Dayton software company is taking a new tack on an age-old problem for colleges: how to keep students on track for graduation.
StudentZen, a web-based business founded less than a year ago by partners Marcus Milligan and Afshin Ghafouri, allows college counselors track their school's academically at-risk students and help them stay on course to get their degree.
"It's both a safety net and a compass for when you first get on campus," explains Milligan, president of StudentZen. Not only does it track students' progress in the classroom, but also help college counselors keep an eye on off-campus distractions, he adds. "(Students) don't have to be alone in trying to figure out how to overcome these issues."
The company's program, RetentionZen, features a suite of tools including a case management system, an early alert system that lets college instructors provide input, and counseling journals and goals programs that keep track of the student's progress. In all, it cuts down on a deluge of paperwork while allowing counselors more time to spend in one-on-one with students seeking help.
The program was developed six years ago at
Sinclair Community College in Dayton, where it proved an early success in increasing the school's student retention and graduation rate, while raising student GPAs.
Early this year, Milligan, a former Sinclair staffer, and Ghafouri, an IT entrepreneur, persuaded the school to let them take the program into the commercial ring with funding help from the
Ohio Third Frontier Entrepreneurial Signature Program through the
Dayton Development Coalition.
Since February, the company has signed up nine community college systems, including the Lone Star and Austin Community college systems in Texas, the 10th- and 15th-largest systems in the country. Closer to home, another customer is
North Central State College in Mansfield, which reports that the tool has driven annual student contacts from 300-500 in the past to more than 15,000 this year.
Sources: Marcus Milligan, StudentZen, and Beverly Walker, North Central State College
Writer: Dave Malaska