How Shelton State Grew Dual Enrollment 68 Percent With Text

Q: How did Shelton State grow dual enrollment 68 percent?

SSCC connected Mongoose Text and Web Chat to TargetX and moved from spreadsheet planning to automated, two-way outreach. Within three months, dual enrollment rose 68 percent.

Q: How quickly did results show up?

Within three months of the partnership.

Q: Does Mongoose connect to TargetX?

Yes. SSCC uses a two-way TargetX connector, so outreach runs from CRM data instead of spreadsheets.

TL;DR

A small admissions team can’t scale outreach from spreadsheets, but automated, two-way texting tied to the CRM can. Shelton State Community College (SSCC) in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, connected Mongoose Text and Web Chat to TargetX and saw results within three months. Dual enrollment rose 68 percent, freshman enrollment 7.5 percent, and transient enrollment 8.6 percent, and event attendance grew 60 percent. Moving off spreadsheet planning also saved staff time.

68% more dual enrollment
7.5% more freshman enrollment
60% higher event attendance
Results within three months

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Within three months of connecting Mongoose to its CRM, Shelton State Community College saw dual enrollment rise 68 percent. Freshman enrollment rose 7.5 percent, transient enrollment rose 8.6 percent, and event attendance grew 60 percent.

SSCC is a public two-year college in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, serving more than 4,600 degree-seeking students with a focus on access and student success.

Why spreadsheets couldn’t scale recruitment

SSCC faced real recruiting challenges and needed a better way to reach and connect with prospective students. It set a goal of growing freshman enrollment 10 percent, but its outreach was planned in spreadsheets. The team wanted an engagement platform that was easy to adopt and could automate outreach at scale.

How SSCC built texting into dual enrollment and admissions outreach

SSCC chose Mongoose on peer recommendations and its reputation for client support. The team connected Mongoose Text and Web Chat to TargetX through a two-way connector, so outreach runs from CRM data instead of spreadsheets. Within three months of the partnership, the results were showing.

A two-way TargetX connector that keeps texting tied to the CRM.
Automated, personal outreach in place of spreadsheet planning.
Text and Web Chat together to reach prospective students.

Results

68 percent increase in dual enrollment.
7.5 percent increase in freshman enrollment.
8.6 percent increase in transient enrollment.
60 percent growth in event attendance.

Moving from spreadsheet planning to automated engagement also saved staff time, so a lean team can do more.

What other community colleges can take from Shelton State

If outreach still lives in spreadsheets, connect texting to your CRM first so the right students get the right message without manual list work. Then ask questions students can answer. In Mongoose’s 2026 community college benchmark, a message with a direct question earns 3.6 times the reply rate, and here’s why Smart Messages earn more replies. For a broader look, see what community colleges need from communication tools in 2026.

Other Alabama and two-year schools have seen similar results. Jacksonville State University uses Mongoose across admissions and dual enrollment and broke enrollment records in three of four years, and at Gateway Technical College, students with 6 to 10 text conversations enrolled at 55 percent, compared with 3 percent for students with none.