The New Reality for Academic Leaders

Student success has become one of the defining priorities for higher education leaders. Yet achieving better outcomes has never been more complex. 

Academic leaders are being asked to improve retention and persistence, lower DFW rates, and boost student outcomes, all while navigating constrained resources, a complicated enrollment environment, and students who are learning differently than ever before. Today, 90% of students use generative AI in some capacity in their schoolwork, showing that they are turning to digital resources and AI tools long before they seek help from faculty or campus support services.1

A female college professor gestures while giving a lecture. Focus is on the students listening attentively to the lecture.

For academic leaders, the challenge with relying on retention rates, DFW rates, and grades is that they reveal problems too late. Leaders need greater visibility into student progress while there's still time to positively impact outcomes. This requires a new vision of engagement and relationship between students, faculty, and the institution; one where everyone is on the same page pursuing the same goals and achieving shared success. 

A New Way to Think About Student Success

Today’s institutions have an opportunity to shape student success in real time by turning insight into action. Leaders can build a proactive strategy that connects institutional goals with students’ day-to-day learning experiences, revealing where support is needed before grades indicate a problem. When leadership, faculty, advisors, and student support teams share a clear view of where students are thriving and where they are struggling, they can coordinate interventions, scale what works, and address emerging challengesbefore they become institution-wide trends. 

As higher education evolves in the age of AI, student success can no longer be viewed as an initiative owned by a single department. Today's students expect personalized, responsive experiences that adapt to their needs and learning journeys. If institutions fail to meet students where they are, they risk losing them before they have the opportunity to reach their full potential or even complete their education. Rather than reacting to challenges after they've already affected outcomes, institutions can use timely insights to identify opportunities for intervention, strengthen engagement, and provide meaningful support throughout the student journey.

The truly successful institutions will be the ones that transform that information into action. By equipping educators with the right insights at the right time, institutions can strengthen student engagement and progress, scale academic support, and intervene early to ensure learners remain confident and on track from their first semester through graduation.

Smarter Decisions, Scaling Support with Sharpen Advantage

Sharpen Advantage is an enterprise-level AI study and academic success app powered by prebuilt, vetted content from McGraw Hill and content from your own institution. By connecting student performance with actionable insights and targeted learning resources, it helps leaders identify at-risk students, make informed decisions, and extend support across courses, departments, and campuses.

With Radar, leaders gain real-time visibility into student engagement and learning progress. Instead of waiting for DFW, retention, completion metrics, or grades to reveal a problem, institutions can identify emerging challenges earlier and better understand where support can have the greatest impact.

With Creator, faculty and academic leaders can develop course-, program-, and institution-specific study resources that reflect their own standards and expertise. Students benefit from trusted study activities that help close knowledge gaps while reinforcing the institution's unique approach to teaching and learning.

With Playlist, institutions can deliver curated, personalized learning resources directly to students’ phones throughout their academic journey. Faculty and support teams can build playlists using Sharpen’s growing library of vetted academic content across 180 titles to complement course materials from any provider, as well as custom study activities developed through Creator. This gives students timely, institution-aligned support to prepare for exams and address areas where they are struggling wherever and whenever they are learning.

Together, Sharpen Advantage gives academic leaders the visibility, insight, and tools needed to make smarter decisions, deliver tailored support at scale, improve student outcomes, and achieve their strategic goals.

Explore Sharpen Advantage today to discover how our responsible AI study solution can help boost students’ grades and support your institution's goals.

1Tyton Partners Time for Class 2025, Longitudinal Market Insights