Driving Toward a Degree 2024

This year’s Driving Toward a Degree, based on surveys of 3,000+ higher education administrators, frontline advising staff, and students, highlights the nascent use of generative AI to address advisor capacity constraints and the increasing challenge of advisor burnout and turnover. 

This nationally acclaimed study has explored the evolving landscape of student advising and support in higher education since 2015, emphasizing the role of innovative solutions like generative AI in addressing persistent challenges.

As the U.S. higher education system continues to evolve to meet diverse student needs, the Carnegie Classifications will launch a new classification system to assess colleges on their ability to improve social and economic status for today’s diverse students rather than traditional measures captured in the current Carnegie Classifications. This change will push institutions to strengthen holistic support services. As a result, student support and academic advising systems will become more critical than ever. 

At Tyton Partners, we’re proud to leverage our expertise and strategic insights to help institutions implement effective solutions that enhance student success.

Key findings:

• Early experimentation with generative AI in student success outside of the classroom is percolating at some institutions: 

• • 59% of students use AI tools at least once a month, showing promise as a catalyst to address advisor capacity challenges.   

• • AI tool usage amongst frontline support providers is lagging, with 49% of academic advisors and counselors having never used these tools. 

• • Only 11% of administrators and advisors say their student success data is ready to seed generative AI models. Though generative AI can supplement limited advisor capacity, most institutions are unprepared to leverage it for student success, despite some targeted implementations. 

• New emerging challenge for academic advising leaders to manage against: 

• • For the past 3 years, advisor retention and turnover has steadily increased in rankings for challenges to improving advising. 

• • Nearly 1/3 of primary role advisors indicate that they have been in their role at their institution for less than two years. 

• • A fifth of primary-role advisors with caseload sizes of greater than 400 say they are unlikely to continue their role in the next five years.