FPF Commends New America's Report on Predictive Analytics in Higher Education

New America released a report today that addresses the use of data in higher ed analytics – predicting student outcomes and managing university academic programs based on prior data. The growing ability to gather and analyze this data allows colleges to  intervene with struggling students, put in place mentoring programs, create support structures addressing “whole student” welfare, and ultimately improving academic outcomes and graduation rates.

This is an excellent report showing the great potential of this use of data. In particular, we commend the sensitivity to flagging the privacy and security issues.  It will be important to ensure those privacy policies are prioritized and well addressed throughout the development and expanded use of these analytics tools.

FPF runs a Higher Education Working Group focused exactly on these  issues, and the work being done to address and handle them responsibly. We work with many of the higher education advocacy groups, along with colleges and universities, to represent the privacy interests in these discussion, in suppor of their ultimate goals of better student support and learning outcomes.

For companies or organizations interested in this work, please contact us to learn more about joining us to be part of these discussions. Contact [email protected] for more information.