GEAR UP (an acronym for Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs) is a competitive federal grant program administered by the Department of Education. It was founded by the United States Congress in 1998 to increase the number of low-income students prepared to enter and succeed in postsecondary education.
GEAR UP Kentucky (GUK) strives toward this mission for its state by providing services to middle and high school students in 12 school districts. Additionally, GUK supports the success of first-year college students at nine public colleges and universities through its GEAR UP Scholars program.
For GEAR UP Kentucky, connecting with students’ families isn’t just a nice-to-have, complementary service; families are key partners in each student’s development and, thus, connecting with them is crucial to GUK’s mission.
But reaching parents and guardians has been a constant challenge. Emails often get lost in inboxes, physical addresses change and phone calls are left unanswered.
For GEAR UP Kentucky, connecting with students’ families isn’t just a nice-to-have, complementary service; families are key partners in each student’s development and, thus, connecting with them is crucial to GUK’s mission.
But reaching parents and guardians has been a constant challenge. Emails often get lost in inboxes, physical addresses change and phone calls are left unanswered.
Fortunately, GUK has a vital tool in its communication arsenal, allowing them to connect with more families—and, in doing so, increase FAFSA completions, reduce Summer Melt and help students successfully transition to their first year of postsecondary education.
Here are the top ways GUK has leveraged Modern Campus Message two-way conversational text messaging.
Through texting, GUK is able to involve parents and guardians in topics that students discuss with their high school and higher ed advisors.
Missy Brownson Ross, Associate Director of Communications & Outreach, designs text campaigns aligned with the academic calendar—such as holiday messages, resources related to course registration and final exams, and invites to in-person or virtual events.
Before students matriculate into college, GUK helps them garner financial resources by texting students and families reminders about starting and completing the FAFSA. GUK staff also use texting to encourage more students to meet with financial aid advisors for personalized support.
The summer after 12th grade, GUK sends targeted texts to students and families, based on the students’ fall plans.
Students who intend to enroll at one of GUK’s partner universities and colleges, known as GEAR UP Scholars, are introduced to the GEAR UP staff at their new campuses.
Family members of high school graduates who are unsure of their postsecondary plans, AKA exploratory students, are texted personalized ideas for next steps. GUK staff will encourage these students and families to still consider post-secondary options, such as short-term certificates and online programs.
Through texting, GUK is able to gently encourage students to continue their education and provide families with suggestions for overcoming barriers to matriculation.
Message also enables GEAR UP Kentucky to stay in touch with families during their residential college readiness programs, called Summer Academies, hosted on partner college campuses. Through texting, the central office or individual school staff have been able to quickly reach families about time-sensitive, need-to-know information, including a COVID outbreak.
Modern Campus Message has proved crucial to GEAR UP Kentucky in meeting its federal reporting requirements.
Dr. Cody Davidson, Associate Director of Evaluation & Reporting, would otherwise have to devote dozens of hours with his team to gathering, calculating and summarizing data related to their text campaigns. But Message’s robust data and analytics dashboard does the bulk of the work for them!
Given that GUK staff serving high schools in 12 districts and at 9 partner postsecondary institutions, as well as central office staff, all have access to Message, it might seem all-too easy to overload students with too many texts.
But Message was designed to simplify communications across large teams! GUK’s central office staff coordinate streamlined text campaigns, thanks to a master calendar showing all of the messages each school has scheduled. Central staff can also send messages to all students within GUK (or to a specific demographic, such as all 12th graders), then turn over response duties to school staff.
Modern Campus Message enables GUK’s diverse teams to work in concert, with central office leaders initiating messages to thousands of students and family members, and school staff chiming in with an extra personalized touch.