WASHINGTON, Feb. 12, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- The Advisory
Board Company announced today that it has acquired GradesFirst and
will include its functionality in the flagship Education Advisory
Board (EAB) technology membership, the Student Success
Collaborative. EAB is the higher education division of The
Advisory Board Company.
Together, the technologies will enable colleges and universities
to better support all students through graduation by marrying
powerful predictive insights with a coordinated case management and
communication network.
Through the acquisition, EAB will enable members to turn insight
into outcomes by extending the reach and impact of the Student
Success Collaborative's core predictive analytics. The
combined solution will feature a centralized platform that offers
advisors and other student success specialists a clear picture of
student risk and the ability to seamlessly connect students to
campus resources. Advisors and administrators will also be
able to clearly see the effect of student support efforts.
"This acquisition provides us with the opportunity to more
comprehensively address one of our member's toughest challenges –
increasing persistence and graduation rates – and improve the lives
of the more than one billion students with whom we interact each
year," said Robert Musslewhite,
Chairman and CEO of The Advisory Board Company. "With our
continued investments in the EAB portfolio and with Royall &
Company, we are now incredibly well positioned to serve
postsecondary learners across the student lifecycle – from finding
the best-fit school and graduating on time to securing employment
shortly thereafter and staying engaged as active alumni and
lifelong learners."
GradesFirst is a student success technology company based in
Birmingham, Alabama, that helps
colleges and universities engage and support at-risk
students. The company's user-friendly tools enhance the
efficiency of student support teams by connecting campus services
in a cloud-based platform, facilitate the scaling of support
services through outreach campaigns, and increase the utilization
of campus resources with targeted outreach and online
scheduling.
"Georgia State University is
thrilled to learn of EAB's acquisition of GradesFirst," said
Timothy Renick, Vice President for
Enrollment Management and Student Success at Georgia State University. "Over the past five
years, we have increased the number of students who graduate from
Georgia State by more than 1,700 a year
with the help of our separate partnerships with EAB's Student
Success Collaborative and GradesFirst. By combining the
capabilities of these platforms into one advising system, we will
be able to identify when students are at risk earlier and more
accurately, and we will be better able to determine the impact of
our interventions. This will allow us to take the next step
in improving graduation rates and helping our students
succeed."
"We couldn't be more excited to join the EAB family and partner
with a company that shares our mission of serving students by
maximizing the impact of academic advising," said Mario Moore,
CEO of GradesFirst. "By leveraging the full strength of EAB's
predictive analytics, we will enhance how campuses engage with
at-risk populations, and help more students stay on a path to
success."
About EAB
Since its launch in 2007, EAB, a
division of The Advisory Board Company, has become one of the
largest providers of research, technology, and consulting services
to colleges and universities nationwide. Through the firm's
innovative membership model, EAB partners with academic and
administrative leaders at more than 1,000 institutions, helping
solve their most pressing problems, and interacts with more than
one billion students each year. For more information, visit
www.eab.com.
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SOURCE The Advisory Board Company