EAB Extends Student Success Collaborative with GradesFirst Acquisition

WASHINGTON, Feb. 12, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- The Advisory Board Company announced today that it has acquired GradesFirst and will include its functionality in the flagship Education Advisory Board (EAB) technology membership, the Student Success Collaborative.  EAB is the higher education division of The Advisory Board Company. 

Together, the technologies will enable colleges and universities to better support all students through graduation by marrying powerful predictive insights with a coordinated case management and communication network.

Through the acquisition, EAB will enable members to turn insight into outcomes by extending the reach and impact of the Student Success Collaborative's core predictive analytics.  The combined solution will feature a centralized platform that offers advisors and other student success specialists a clear picture of student risk and the ability to seamlessly connect students to campus resources.  Advisors and administrators will also be able to clearly see the effect of student support efforts.   

"This acquisition provides us with the opportunity to more comprehensively address one of our member's toughest challenges – increasing persistence and graduation rates – and improve the lives of the more than one billion students with whom we interact each year," said Robert Musslewhite, Chairman and CEO of The Advisory Board Company.  "With our continued investments in the EAB portfolio and with Royall & Company, we are now incredibly well positioned to serve postsecondary learners across the student lifecycle – from finding the best-fit school and graduating on time to securing employment shortly thereafter and staying engaged as active alumni and lifelong learners."

GradesFirst is a student success technology company based in Birmingham, Alabama, that helps colleges and universities engage and support at-risk students.  The company's user-friendly tools enhance the efficiency of student support teams by connecting campus services in a cloud-based platform, facilitate the scaling of support services through outreach campaigns, and increase the utilization of campus resources with targeted outreach and online scheduling.

"Georgia State University is thrilled to learn of EAB's acquisition of GradesFirst," said Timothy Renick, Vice President for Enrollment Management and Student Success at Georgia State University.  "Over the past five years, we have increased the number of students who graduate from Georgia State by more than 1,700 a year with the help of our separate partnerships with EAB's Student Success Collaborative and GradesFirst.  By combining the capabilities of these platforms into one advising system, we will be able to identify when students are at risk earlier and more accurately, and we will be better able to determine the impact of our interventions.  This will allow us to take the next step in improving graduation rates and helping our students succeed."

"We couldn't be more excited to join the EAB family and partner with a company that shares our mission of serving students by maximizing the impact of academic advising," said Mario Moore, CEO of GradesFirst. "By leveraging the full strength of EAB's predictive analytics, we will enhance how campuses engage with at-risk populations, and help more students stay on a path to success."

About EAB 
Since its launch in 2007, EAB, a division of The Advisory Board Company, has become one of the largest providers of research, technology, and consulting services to colleges and universities nationwide.  Through the firm's innovative membership model, EAB partners with academic and administrative leaders at more than 1,000 institutions, helping solve their most pressing problems, and interacts with more than one billion students each year.  For more information, visit www.eab.com.

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SOURCE The Advisory Board Company

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