What 80 Million Messages Taught Us About Higher Ed Communication in 2025

In the fast-changing world of higher ed, one thing is clear: conversations—not just messages—are what move students forward. This year, Mongoose analyzed over 80 million messages and 16 million unique conversations to uncover how colleges and universities are using Mongoose Text and Chat to guide students, engage alumni, and improve outcomes.

We’re excited to release two 2025 benchmark reports, one for 4-Year Institutions and one for 2-Year Institutions, each packed with data, insights, and actionable best practices for communication teams across the student lifecycle.

Whether you’re in Admissions, Student Success, or Advancement, these reports are designed to help you understand what’s working, what’s not, and where your biggest messaging opportunities lie.

Download the Benchmark Reports

What’s Inside Each Report

Both reports break down real-world data across millions of text conversations and chatbot interactions, covering:

• Best times and days to send messages
• What types of messages get the most replies
• Which conversation topics drive resolution or frustration
• When students and alumni opt out (and how to prevent it)
• How AI and Smart Messages are changing engagement strategies

But the insights don’t stop there. Each report is tailored to the unique context of its audience.

For 4-Year Institutions: A Deep Dive by Team

The 4-Year Benchmark Report analyzes messaging patterns across Admissions, Student Success, and Advancement teams, including:

• Admissions: Students who engage in two-way text conversations are 7.5x more likely to enroll than those who just receive notifications.
• Student Success: Appointment messages see the highest resolution rates, while tech support and mental health conversations remain key improvement areas.
• Advancement: Planned giving conversations are rare (just 0.05% of total), but represent a major opportunity. Data corrections and university updates continue to drive high sentiment and resolution.

It also breaks down Smart Message trends, opt-out behaviors, and timing strategies that drive engagement across different student and alumni segments. A chat tool analysis across all institution types shows an 83% engagement rate, with nearly half of all chatbot conversations happening outside of business hours.

For 2-Year Institutions: Messaging with Purpose

The 2-Year Benchmark Report is built for Community and Technical Colleges, focusing on outreach that supports access, flexibility, and retention for a diverse student population.

• Best Times to Engage: Late mornings and early afternoons (10 AM–3 PM) drive the highest reply rates.
• Message Design: Messages under 100 characters and those that ask a question perform 3–4x better than longer, static texts.
• Conversation Trends: Registration, financial aid, and orientation are top topics—but tech issues and transfer guidance have the lowest resolution rates.

Unlike 4-Year Institutions, 2-Year Community & Technical Colleges showed more steady engagement across weekdays, with a clear drop-off on Saturdays. These findings underscore how flexible, student-centered messaging can make or break retention and satisfaction.

Powered by the Mongoose Conversation Intelligence Platform

Both reports are built on insights from the Mongoose Conversation Intelligence Platform (CIP)—an AI-powered system that helps institutions go beyond message delivery and actually understand how each conversation is going.

The Conversation Intelligence Platform identifies:

• Emotional sentiment (appreciation, frustration, neutrality)
• Whether conversations were resolved or require follow-up
• Engagement trends by topic, time, and department

And we’ve made those insights even more actionable with the launch of the Conversation Intelligence Dashboard—a new, visual layer of analytics available to all Mongoose users.

With it, you can:

• Track how conversations are trending across departments
• Spot topics driving the most engagement (or opt-outs)
• See which teams are responding—and resolving—in real time

This dashboard makes it easier than ever to scale empathy, not just outreach.

Ready to See How You Compare?

Whether you’re at a large public university or a small community college, you’ll find something in these reports to guide your strategy this year.

Download the Benchmark Reports

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