Student retention in higher education: tech or empathy?

The 2024 Higher Education Census released by Inep, Brazil's National Institute for Educational Studies and Research, is very positive when it reports that the country reached 10,226,873 enrollments. However, a fact that many forget is the number of withdrawn enrollments and students who leave university.

When we look at that data, the challenge of student retention in higher education becomes clear: every year, a large share of those who enroll never make it to graduation. Is this your case?

Find out now how to recover students who withdrew or abandoned their program, combining technology to see the risk and humanism to act on it.

Why is withdrawal about more than academic performance?

Withdrawal is rarely just a performance problem. Capable students leave college for financial, personal, work, health and mobility reasons. Understanding those reasons is the first step of any policy for student retention in higher education, because each cause calls for a different response from the institution.

Caption: Data shows who is at risk and human support brings the student back: that combination sustains student retention in higher education.

We already know that thousands of students leave university classrooms every year. However, when we stop to think about the real reasons that lead to academic abandonment, what information emerges?

Common sense says that withdrawal rates in higher education are high because students are unprepared for academic life. The view most often shared by people who work in the sector, however, tends to point to a much more complex scenario.

Winning back students who left and attracting those who have not enrolled yet draw on the same toolkit. That is why it pays to review your student recruitment strategies before looking at dropout alone.

Highly qualified students leave university because of financial, personal, health and mobility problems, among many others.

Many of them are working students who see higher education as the starting point for a better life, but who also face everyday setbacks: being the head of a family while finishing a degree, helping out at home while paying tuition, or taking care of their own health or their parents'.

What does the latest data show about dropout?

It is important to highlight that distance learning presents significant challenges when it comes to dropout. The 16th Higher Education Map by Semesp, based on the 2024 Census, recorded dropout of 41.6% in distance learning and 24.8% in on-campus programs in Brazil throughout 2024.

Online programs carry more and more weight in that equation. According to the statistical notes on the 2024 Census, distance learning already accounts for 50.7% of enrollments and 66.8% of new students in Brazil, up from 23.4% of new students in 2014.

Here is how dropout breaks down by delivery mode and type of institution:

Table: Higher education dropout rate in Brazil in 2024, by delivery mode and type of institution, according to the 16th Higher Education Map (Semesp, 2026).

Following a whole entering class is even more revealing. In the same Higher Education Map, cumulative dropout among students who enrolled in 2020 reached 64.7% in Brazil's private institutions by 2024, and 68.1% in distance learning. The numbers are broken down further in an overview of how to reduce dropout in higher education.

So what can you do to change this scenario, keep classrooms full, fulfill the social role of your institution and still deliver business results?

How do technology and humanism fight higher education dropout?

Technology and humanism fight higher education dropout because they solve different parts of the problem. Technology predicts dropout and course withdrawal before they happen. Humanism puts the institution in the student's shoes, so it can understand the difficulties that student is going through and offer a workable way forward.

Humanism and technology. Those are the two answers you are looking for, and neither works well on its own.

That is why data analysis has stood out as one of the main student retention tools in higher education. By understanding the social context your students live in and comparing that data with their behavior at your institution, you can detect warning signs that help prevent dropout.

A drop in academic performance, frequent absences and sporadic access to the VLE (virtual learning environment) can bring far more powerful insights than a simple indicator that the student is disengaged.

To find out whether there is a real problem behind that behavior, you can use technologies such as big data, BI (business intelligence), marketing attribution and web analytics to discover the root cause and act proactively to retain your students and build their loyalty.

Here is how each risk signal translates into a technology action and a human action:

Table: Common dropout risk signals and the combined data and relationship response to each one.

You can also go further, adding your team's experience to the know-how of people who have worked in the education market for years and keep developing increasingly personalized student retention strategies, from recruitment to loyalty. Reopening enrollments depends largely on that combination.

How does AI for student retention anticipate dropout?

AI for student retention anticipates dropout by cross-referencing academic, financial and digital behavior data and flagging which students are most likely to leave. With that alert in hand, the team prioritizes outreach and acts before the withdrawal, while there is still room for a solution.

The use of machine learning algorithms to predict dropout has been gaining ground in research and at institutions. These techniques tend to identify behavioral patterns and risk factors, enabling more precise interventions to retain students.

Predictive analytics does not need to start out sophisticated. Many institutions tend to get good results with just a few well-chosen indicators, such as attendance, grades, VLE activity and financial status, as long as the data is reliable and up to date.

The other front is service. An AI agent for student retention talks with students on WhatsApp or the student portal, answers questions about grades, deadlines and payments at any hour, and hands the conversation to a human staff member when it picks up a risk signal.

The same caveat applies to any tool: AI for student retention widens the institution's ability to listen, but decisions about discounts, deadline flexibility or a change of program remain human.

How can you win back students through re-enrollment?

Winning back students through re-enrollment depends on understanding why they left, offering a specific solution for that reason and making the return simple. A generic "come back to college" message rarely works, because a student who withdrew for financial reasons needs a very different offer from someone who left for lack of time.

We could say that a simple email marketing campaign would bring a good number of students back to your college. But the truth is much more complex. Solving financial, health, family or work problems can be far more complicated than we imagine. That is why these tips matter.

1. Don't treat your students as a crowd

Each student has their own needs and challenges and lives in a unique context. In this sense, stop treating your academic community as a shapeless mass of young people. Segment and personalize every contact.

Audience segmentation is essential to make the dialogue closer and reach a definitive solution to the problem presented. Otherwise, you may see the same recovered student withdrawing again the following year.

2. Use the technology at your disposal

Segmenting and personalizing communication is just one of the ways technology can support the recovery of higher education students.

Marketing automation can be used to engage students throughout their journey, keeping them loyal to your brand for the entire program. Focus on great experiences and prevent withdrawals.

3. Invest in predictive analytics

Anticipating the barriers your students may face throughout their degree is another way to keep withdrawals and dropouts from growing. This is possible thanks to technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence, which cross-reference behavioral patterns in your academic community and learn from them.

4. Remove the barriers to returning

Many students run into difficulties when they try to return to college. Programs that no longer exist, revised curricula and red tape are some of those barriers. So remove them!

Make the re-entry process easy, intuitive and, preferably, online. The easier it is to return, the less likely the student is to leave your institution a second time.

5. Make paying easier

Your institution has costs to keep its doors open, as we all know. But your students may not have enough money to cover tuition all at once. That is why student financing programs and new installment options keep gaining ground.

Invest in different payment options, and your students will think twice before giving up on their dream of finishing a college degree.

Student aid programs have proven effective at improving completion rates. For example, the 2023 Higher Education Census showed that 58% of students on Prouni, Brazil's University for All scholarship program, completed their degree, compared with 36% of students outside the program.

In addition, the completion rate among students backed by Fies, Brazil's federal student loan fund, was 49%, against 34% for those without it, according to the same report by Brazil's Ministry of Education and Inep.

How should you use email marketing campaigns for re-enrollment?

Email marketing campaigns work for re-enrollment when they are segmented by the reason for withdrawal and bring a concrete offer, such as a payment plan, credit for completed courses or a new evening class. The email opens the conversation, and human support closes the return.

A good starting point is reviewing email marketing best practices for colleges, such as a clean list, a clear subject line, a recognizable sender and a single call to action per message.

In practice, educational marketing campaigns aimed at re-enrollment tend to follow a short sequence. The first email rekindles the relationship, the second presents the solution to the reason the student left, and the third makes the next step easy with a direct link to online re-entry.

Timing also matters. Re-engagement educational marketing campaigns tend to perform better when they coincide with the re-enrollment period and the opening of new classes, because students are already thinking about the next term.

Automation and CRM (customer relationship management) make that flow sustainable. When the institution connects academic and financial history to its email marketing campaigns, each message arrives with the right context, and the team tracks who replied. mkt4edu builds this kind of sequence in email marketing projects for educational institutions.

How do you combine student recruitment and retention strategies?

Student recruitment and retention strategies come together when the institution uses the same data, the same brand promise and the same care for the experience from the first contact to graduation. A retained student starts being won during recruitment, through the expectations your communication creates.

Many institutions still split the two fronts into different teams, goals and tools. The result tends to be recruitment that promises what the journey does not deliver, and retention that discovers the problem too late. That mismatch is examined in detail in an analysis of how to bring student recruitment and retention teams together.

Student recruitment strategies become more efficient when they incorporate what retention has learned. Knowing which profiles finish the program helps direct media spend toward people more likely to stay, not just to enroll.

Student recruitment strategies with clear information about tuition, routine and delivery mode also reduce frustration in the first months, the period when dropout risk tends to be highest.

On the retention side, student retention strategies benefit from recruitment history: the source channel, questions raised at enrollment and stated expectations. That combined picture is what turns student recruitment and retention strategies into a single plan rather than two parallel campaigns.

General student retention, with CRM and AI methods and tools, is also covered in a guide to student retention techniques, which complements the focus on winning back students who have already left.

What is the relationship between educational marketing, technology and customer satisfaction?

The relationship between educational marketing, technology and customer satisfaction lies in the fact that students judge an institution the way customers judge a service: by the whole experience. Technology makes it possible to measure that experience, and educational marketing turns what was measured into communication and visible improvements.

The question of whether you sell your brand or the student experience sums up the point: the brand attracts, but the day-to-day experience is what sustains persistence and generates referrals.

Understanding the relationship between educational marketing, technology and customer satisfaction changes what an institution measures. Beyond enrollments and dropout, the dashboard gains satisfaction per term and service response time.

Good educational marketing strategies use those indicators to act before a crisis. A drop in satisfaction in a specific program, for example, tends to show up before withdrawals rise in that program.

Another of the Educational marketing strategies with a direct effect on retention is communication throughout the program, not only at the start. Content about careers, internships and employability reinforces why students began and helps maintain the bond during the hardest terms.

When does educational consulting help retain students?

Educational consulting helps retain students when an institution already knows it has a dropout problem but lacks organized data or the staff to build the strategy on its own. Outside support speeds up the diagnosis, defines indicators and sets up a routine for monitoring students.

Good educational consulting focused on enrollment looks at the entire funnel, from recruitment to graduation. It maps where students get lost, prioritizes the highest-impact actions and helps connect marketing, the registrar, finance and academic coordination in a single flow.

When choosing an educational consulting agency, check whether it understands the academic and regulatory routine of higher education, not just media buying.

Proven experience is another criterion. A student recruitment and retention agency should show results at institutions similar to yours, with figures for enrollment, re-enrollment and dropout reduction. mkt4edu gathers that track record in its case studies of educational institutions.

When the educational consulting agency also executes, the diagnosis becomes a campaign and a service agent without changing hands. A student recruitment and retention agency that works this way shortens the gap between discovering the problem and acting on it.

Frequently asked questions about student retention in higher education

What does your institution lose by postponing student retention in higher education?

Postponing student retention in higher education costs enrollments that recruitment investment has already paid for. With cumulative dropout in Brazil's private institutions at 64.7% for the 2020 to 2024 cohort, every term without monitoring widens the loss of revenue and reputation.

If you want to know where your institution is losing students and what to prioritize first, the mkt4edu team analyzes your dropout and re-enrollment indicators and suggests a tailored retention plan in a conversation with educational marketing specialists. Which class at your institution would you like to win back first?