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The Student Money Management launched a texting pilot program with Modern Campus Message in December 2016. The goal is to help students better budget their money throughout the semester.
Staff use Message to send targeted texts to first-time students. Texts remind learners about financial aid deadlines, upcoming workshops and tips on money management. Staff feedback is an important driver of the content for the program’s weekly text message. Though the initial calendar of text messages is developed at the beginning of each semester, it is continually revised as staff learn what tactics work best.
In summer 2018, ACC found that first-time students who were a part of the texting intervention were 13 percentage points more likely to enroll in the fall of their second year than students who were not a part of the texting intervention.
The effects were even stronger among part-time students, who average a 46% persistence rate compared to a 56% persistence rate of full-time students. ACC found that part-time students who received texts were not only 15 percentage points more likely to persist than other part-time students who did not receive texts, but these students even persisted at higher rates than full-time students who did not receive texts.