Getting Your Institution Ready for 2026: Data-Driven Retention Strategies for Higher Ed

• 2026 retention will reward data you can act on now, not reports you read later.
• Conversation Intelligence turns student messages into signals like sentiment, emotion, trends, and unresolved follow-ups.
• Use those signals to prioritize outreach, reduce melt, and close support gaps across Admissions, Student Success, and Advancement.

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Among the top challenges higher education technology leaders will face in the new year, building a data-centric culture and training decision-makers to effectively use and interpret that data will deeply impact institutional resilience, according to the 2026 EDUCAUSE Top 10: Making Connections.

What Makes Today’s Universities Successful

A university’s resilience often translates into increased retention rates, higher enrollment yield, and continued alumni support. These outcomes, however, mostly depend on staff maintaining meaningful connections with students throughout their academic journey.

Over the last few years, many institutions have grappled with stalled retention, uneven engagement among historically disadvantaged student groups, inconsistent advising follow-up, and limited visibility into students’ struggles. Relying on anecdotal assumptions or lagging indicators, rather than real-time, actionable data, has only added to these issues.

There is still hope for improvement: Higher education technology solutions, such as Conversation Intelligence tools, can empower institutions to strengthen their 2026 retention planning and build connected, personalized, and responsive student experiences. 

How Conversation Intelligence Sets the Stage for Meaningful Student Interactions

Data-driven decision-making is a prerequisite for student success. Institutions must know – not guess – what students need to stay on track with their academic goals and what challenges might derail their progress. 

Conversation Intelligence gives institutions that clarity by turning everyday conversations into real-time insights, including:

• Sentiment: Reveals students’ attitudes toward their campus experience, showing whether they view something positively, negatively, or neutrally.
• Emotional Signals: Uses Emotion AI to analyse conversations and uncover the emotions driving prospects, students, and alumni decisions.
• Conversation Resolution: Determines if conversations are resolved or need follow-up, improving support outcomes and overall engagement.
• Trending Topics: Identifies the topics students are talking about most, enabling timely, relevant outreach that addresses their concerns, needs, and interests.

These insights help counselors and advisors personalize outreach across audience segments, provide proactive support to at-risk students, and optimize retention strategies across the student lifecycle.

They also allow university staff to foster positive experiences and successfully navigate difficult conversations around program withdrawal, financial aid, academic and mental health support, and tech support issues. 

What About Student Data Privacy and Security?

Conversation Intelligence Platforms like Mongoose address these concerns by fully complying with higher education regulations such as FERPA, TCPA, GDPR, and SOC 2 Type II. This allows institutions to safely capture and act on conversational insights while maintaining students’ trust.

Turning Real-Time Insights into Campus-Wide Engagement

Here are a few ways enrollment, student success, and advancement teams have leveraged Mongoose’s AI-powered conversational data to scale personalized outreach, ensure timely follow-up, and optimize support workflows:

Admissions/Enrollment

The team at OSU-Cascades used Mongoose to modernize their student communication strategy and tighten the enrollment pipeline handoffs. By combining targeted text messaging campaigns with timely follow-ups triggered by prospect behavior, the institution increased contact rates with admitted students from 36% to 57%, reducing summer melt by 58%.

Student Success 

Dutchess Community College (DCC) wanted to keep its 4,500 students connected and supported without overwhelming staff. Mongoose’s AI-powered insights enabled advisors to spot disengagement early and improve student support by surfacing sentiment in conversations, tracking trending issues, and prioritizing high-risk students for timely intervention. As a result, the advising reply rate increased to 7% while opt-outs dropped under 1%.

Advancement Teams 

Presbyterian College (PC) replaced inefficient email and phone donor outreach with Mongoose’s personalized texting platform, raising $390,000 from 902 donors. AI-driven insights, including conversation resolution and sentiment, helped staff build genuine trust with alumni and follow up at the right time.

We don’t have 4,500 staff members. But with Mongoose, we’re giving 4,500 students the experience of someone who cares.

BRIAN SONDEY, ASSOCIATE VP FOR ENROLLMENT AND STUDENT SUCCESS AT DCC

3 Data-Driven Retention Planning Tips to Kick Off the New Year

1. Simplify Support With Relevant, Timely Follow-Up

Leverage sentiment insights, emotional signals, and engagement levels to automate appointment reminders, financial aid nudges, and resource links. By delivering the right message at the right time, your staff can ensure each student feels seen and supported as they navigate key milestones in their path to graduation.

2. Monitor and Address Unresolved Conversations  

Unresolved conversations are a leading cause of student disengagement and, in some cases, program withdrawal. Mongoose’s Conversation Intelligence Dashboard makes it easy for counselors and advisors to track these interactions, intervene promptly, and foster a positive student experience.

3. Stay on Top of Trends to Identify Access Barriers

Analyze patterns in course enrollment, financial aid inquiries, and support service usage to uncover obstacles faced by first-generation students and historically underrepresented groups. These insights enable your institution to support students more effectively through administrative, academic, and financial challenges while also informing DEI initiatives.

Strengthen Your Retention Strategy with Mongoose

Ready to turn real-time conversation insights into stronger retention outcomes? Book a demo to see how Mongoose can transform your campus engagement through data-driven communication strategies and proactive student support. 

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