Freezing Summer Melt Over the past few years, several large research projects have been implemented to ward off summer melt. Most notably, the use of texts by NCAN and uAspire to “nudge” students to meet deadlines and check off to-do items over the summer months showed promising results:
• As opposed to students who did not receive the texts, those who did were 7.1 percentage points more likely to enroll.
• For those with undefined college plans upon high school graduation, receiving the texts increased their likeliness to enroll by 11.3 percentage points.
• 85 percent of those who received the texts indicated they had been alerted to something they were unaware needed to be completed. 8
However, new research in the fall of 2019 has dampened the enthusiasm for this behavior-based approach, with lead researcher Ben Castleman unable to reproduce the results from his earlier studies: “The broad takeaway is that when we implemented a nudge at a large scale, there wasn’t a large difference in college enrollment or persistence.” 9 It’s important to note these recent findings as a reminder that not all interventions will work with all students, and that nudging may not be a silver bullet. However, nudging via text does not have to be summarily dismissed as a failed idea. A similarly lackluster study by a University of Toronto professor pointed to lessons learned about how we may be able to use text nudges more efficiently to achieve outcomes:
• Habits are hard to change, so use texts to instead focus on binary tasks in a time-based situation (like FAFSA completion).
• Nudges may work best when we change the default action instead of asking students to initiate. For instance, instead of putting the onus on students to register for orientation, schedule it for them and provide them with the date and time they must attend.
• Text nudges are more effective when the sender is familiar. Give students a point-person and begin texting early to establish rapport. 10
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