ECMC Foundation Grant Supports Georgia State’s National Institute For Student Success

ATLANTA—Georgia State University’s new National Institute for Student Success (NISS) has received a of $560,111 grant from the ECMC Foundation to help other colleges and universities implement the types of innovative, evidence-based strategies that have made Georgia State a national model for student success.

The gift will support high-touch services offered by the NISS, such as diagnostics, cohort coaching and individual consultations with colleges and universities.

The NISS, which opens in early fall, will help institutions identify and resolve barriers to equity and college completion by increasing their capacity to implement proven student-success systems and data-driven interventions. Led by a team of experienced practitioners, the NISS will design, implement and scale some of the most transformative student-support systems in the nation.

Using data-driven approaches, including predictive analytics, chatbots enhanced with artificial intelligence, early alerts, completion grants and proactive advising, Georgia State has more than doubled graduation rates for underserved students and eliminated equity gaps based on race, ethnicity and income level.

ECMC Foundation, based in Los Angeles, works across the country to facilitate improvements that affect educational outcomes, especially among underserved populations, and has partnered previously with Georgia State to support its student success efforts.

“ECMC Foundation is proud to support the National Institute for Student Success,” said Sarah Belnick, senior program director for college success. “We are committed to improving student success efforts and closing completion gaps for low-income students and Black, Latinx and American Indian and Tribal students, and know NISS is the right partner to lead this work with institutions across the country.”

“Georgia State University is honored to continue its long-term partnership with ECMC Foundation,” said Dr. Tim Renick, executive director of the NISS. “With this latest grant, the NISS will work with dozens of higher ed institutions to help more students from all backgrounds graduate at high and equitable rates.”

ECMC awarded a $250,000 grant in 2015 to Georgia State’s Student Success Division to support the expansion of the Summer Success Academy, a seven-week orientation program for academically at-risk students. The foundation awarded a $400,000 grant in 2018 to the division to scale the use of chatbots across the university and to provide coaching to a small cohort of institutions in the University System of Georgia that were interested in adopting and implementing a chatbot on their campuses. The grant enabled the Student Success team to pilot and refine the cohort-coaching model that will be a key service of the NISS.