Beyond Free Tuition: How Real-Time Data Helps Students Stay in College
This spotlight is part of a series examining work presented at the 2025 Strategic Data Project Convening. The theme of the convening was “Now What?”—interrogating how to move forward amidst technological advance, ethical questions, and the shifting education landscape.
If we offer college for free, students will go—but will they stay and complete their degrees?
That’s the question Hope Chicago, a scholarship-focused nonprofit, hoped to answer with its innovative, data-driven approach to improving student outcomes. The nonprofit removes financial barriers to postsecondary education, but their mission goes beyond just providing access to college—they’re focused on ensuring students succeed once they get there.
Currently, Hope Chicago partners with five community high schools in Chicago’s South and West Sides where the average household income is below $23,000. Through these partnerships, they've worked to support 4,000 families with the opportunity to pursue and complete a postsecondary education or workforce credential completely debt-free. At SDP Convening, SDP Fellowship alumna Megan Lane Conklin and Marissa Combs shared more about their forward-thinking model.
For the nonprofit, covering tuition is just the starting point. In addition to financial support, Hope Chicago provides family-centered advising, comprehensive wraparound support (such as building students into cohorts and connecting them with campus-based contacts), and economic opportunities aimed at helping students thrive both academically and personally. They also offer one parent or guardian of each student the opportunity to attend partner institutions or participate in workforce development training debt-free.
To better understand students’ evolving needs, Hope Chicago introduced the Pulse Survey—a tool designed to help identify and address challenges in real-time. First launched with their third cohort in fall 2024, the survey was administered at five key points during the semester: before classes began, two weeks into the term, before midterms, after midterms, and at the end of the semester. Each survey was timed intentionally to collect unique information based on where the student was in their academic year. For example, the survey sent before classes began covered registration status, preparedness to start classes, and social adjustment, while the pulse survey sent at the end of the term covered the most helpful sources of support over the term and plans to return to college in the spring.
The surveys were distributed via Typeform, a mobile- and desktop-friendly platform. Individualized links eliminated the need to collect unique identifiers or personal information. Students had 72 hours to respond, and their answers were automatically fed into a spreadsheet for immediate review and action from the Hope Chicago team.
To encourage participation, Hope Chicago raffled cash prizes ranging from $75 to $100 to ten students per survey. They also made sure to share results with the students, which helped build trust and showed students that their voices were being heard.
The real power of the Pulse Survey came from how quickly the data was used to support students. Within one week, Hope Scholars who flagged a challenge—either directly or indirectly—were identified and moved to a spreadsheet shared with program managers, including their contact information and a brief description of their needs and/or obstacles. The program managers are then able to quickly determine and apply the best intervention for each individual Hope Scholar.
These interventions varied and were determined by the specific challenges presented. Sometimes, it was a phone call or email check-in, and in other cases, students were referred to on-campus contacts for additional support. Every step in the process was tracked, including whether the case had been resolved.
During fall 2024, 224 obstacles were identified among 187 students. Of those 224 obstacles, 200 —almost 90%—were resolved through timely and targeted outreach. The outcomes were both measurable and meaningful. There were substantial increases in the third cohorts first term performance, particularly in class passage rates. Among students with a high school GPA between 2.5-2.9, 60% of the third cohort passed three or more classes in their first term, nearly doubling the 32% pass rate in their first cohort.
The benefits of the pulse surveys didn’t just stop with students. Program managers began using a case management model, using survey data as a structured, consistent reason to check in with students. For comparison, during the fall 2023 semester, the support team sent 4,024 emails to students, averaging 3.8 emails per Hope Scholar. By the fall 2024 semester, after the surveys were introduced, that number had surged to 19,786 emails—15.8 per student on average.
Partner institutions also responded to the data. With the insights from the pulse surveys, many began using the feedback to guide their own outreach and accountability efforts, reaching out directly to students flagged as at-risk or in need.
Hope Chicago’s experience shows that real-time data and a commitment to action can transform educational outcomes. By listening closely and responding quickly, they’re helping students not only get to college—but stay, succeed, and graduate.