Does Academic Advising and Coaching Improve Student Outcomes?

Summary

Some of the strongest causal evidence in higher education comes from advising and coaching. Randomized studies show that regular, goal-focused support raises persistence and graduation. This brief reviews that evidence and describes how PlanexAI gives advisors the information to act on it.

Coaching, tested in a randomized trial

In a randomized experiment with more than 13,000 students, individual coaching that helped students connect daily tasks to their goals and build skills like time management raised both retention and degree completion, and the effect persisted after the coaching ended^[1]. The intervention was contact and structure, not content delivery.

Comprehensive support, at scale

The City University of New York’s Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP), which pairs advising with financial and structural supports, nearly doubled the three-year graduation rate in a randomized evaluation: 40 percent of the program group earned a degree, against 22 percent of the control group^[2]. Advising was a central component, delivered proactively rather than on request. The result has since replicated: a randomized demonstration of the same model at three Ohio community colleges again nearly doubled the three-year graduation rate, from 19 to 35 percent^[4].

What keeps students enrolled

A meta-analysis of 109 studies found that academic goals, academic self-efficacy, and academic-related skills were among the strongest psychosocial predictors of whether students persist^[3]. These are exactly the things a good advising relationship builds, and they are visible in a student’s week-to-week behavior.

How PlanexAI maps to this

PlanexAI gives advisors a caseload view of student progress: upcoming deadlines, activity, and where a student is falling behind. That is what makes proactive, goal-connected outreach practical at scale, the pattern the coaching and support research points to. The software does not replace the advisor; it surfaces who needs a conversation and when.

What this evidence does and does not show

The coaching and ASAP results are causal, from randomized trials, but they evaluate specific programs delivered by people, not any one software tool^[1][2]. PlanexAI provides the information layer that supports proactive advising; the advising itself is the intervention. We do not claim the product alone produces the graduation gains these programs achieved. The predictors from the meta-analysis are correlational^[3].

Common questions

References

1. [1] Bettinger, E. P., & Baker, R. B. (2014). The effects of student coaching: An evaluation of a randomized experiment in student advising. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 36(1), 3–19. https://cepa.stanford.edu/content/effects-student-coaching-evaluation-randomized-experiment-student-advising
2. [2] Scrivener, S., Weiss, M. J., Ratledge, A., Rudd, T., Sommo, C., & Fresques, H. (2015). Doubling Graduation Rates: Three-Year Effects of CUNY’s Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) for Developmental Education Students. MDRC. https://www.mdrc.org/work/publications/doubling-graduation-rates
3. [3] Robbins, S. B., Lauver, K., Le, H., Davis, D., Langley, R., & Carlstrom, A. (2004). Do psychosocial and study skill factors predict college outcomes? A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 130(2), 261–288. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.130.2.261
4. [4] Miller, C., Headlam, C., Manno, M. S., & Cullinan, D. (2020). Increasing Community College Graduation Rates with a Proven Model: Three-Year Results from the Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) Ohio Demonstration. MDRC. https://www.mdrc.org/work/publications/increasing-community-college-graduation-rates-proven-model