12 cities, 49 days, and 52,000 miles later...

Maybe you’ve heard of us. Maybe we're good friends.

If there’s one thing you should know about Stellic: our mission is to serve each student’s journey to graduation and the countless mechanisms around it. From degree planning, to transfer articulation, advisor referrals, and graduation clearance — our work spans wide on the campuses we partner with.

That’s why it’s crucial we have dialogue with you: the people doing the work. This fall, we invested our time traveling to the places where you go to learn and connect, meetings such as AACRAO SEM, NACADA, EDUCAUSE, and NECHE. 11 conferences and 1 user Summit later, we met and listened to a couple thousand of you.

The diversity and volume of those conversations inspired us to distill and share what we learned in this post. Some will naturally tie back to what Stellic does. Others won’t. Hopefully it can inspire continued dialogue across your different corners of higher ed. 

Here are the 5 trends, strategies, and gaps we learned from the road this Fall.

1. What two dozen CIOs had to say at EDUCAUSE

Our objectives at EDUCAUSE were simple: hear the challenges that keep technology leaders up at night, and get their perspectives on the future. We made a point to listen more than talk.

Whether at dinner or over coffee — here’s a story we heard many times from CIOs and leaders:

5 years ago institutions needed to fill in-person gaps with technology from every angle. Now, a huge number of schools need to grapple with “what do we need?” when looking at their tech stack. What should they do? It’s inefficient to have many disparate point solutions, but overhauling the tech stack in favor of one system that ‘does it all’ demands significant resources and comes with risk.

Instead, many folks were advocating for a balance, where possible, between point solutions and feature-rich infrastructure. A best-of-breed approach stands out as the middle path: add or keep products that integrate well with your infrastructure of today (and tomorrow), and that quickly improve experiences for as many end users as possible. In many contexts (especially with contexts of degree management), Stellic can very well be that balance.

2. We must better serve transfer students

Folks at AACRAO SEM were engrossed in the latest enrollment data from National Student Clearinghouse. One thing on most people’s minds: though 4-year first-year enrollment is down, community college enrollment has climbed. 

We know that 80% of community college students want to obtain a 4-year credential (per CCRC's report), but they need support transferring to their best-fit institution. Currently, prospective students lack visibility into how their transfer credits will apply to degree paths, requirements, and time to completion. If institutions want to safeguard enrollment: transfer student enrollment and processes are where to give attention.

And Stellic wants to help you do this! So, we took AACRAO SEM as an opportunity to introduce Explore. These are the main ways the product will support this area of enrollment and student success:

• Provide pathways for prospective students to visualize their degree path
• Attract and enroll more transfer students
• Cut down transfer articulation and evaluation to a fraction of the time

3. Take care of advisors and student success teams

Advisors have a tough job. Many of them have high caseloads and spend valuable time on the mechanics of registration. It’s causing isolation and disconnection, and leading to turnover in the field (see our whitepaper about Tyton Partners' report).

As our biggest users next to students, we care deeply about helping them spend time in the right ways and making their jobs more meaningful. Our philosophy boils down to a few tenets:

• Empower students to take ownership over degree planning (with guardrails in place), making advising sessions less transactional and more transformational
• Equip teams with proactive intervention so they know exactly which students need more of their attention
• Redirect students to the right support channels, such as Financial Aid for FAFSA questions

We plan to keep building our product according to their needs. In October, we went to NACADA 2024 to meet with our end users and got their feedback on the newest features to make sure we're developing in the right ways.

4. Addressing the stop-out crisis

National Student Clearinghouse has reported that 42 million students fell in the “some college, no credential” category. It’s reached crisis levels — so it goes without saying that solving the situation is nuanced. No single initiative or technology will be a silver bullet.

Many institutions look to re-enroll students who attended in the past. States like California and New Jersey have implemented "return to learn" initiatives. And data suggests this strategy is working (re-enrollment is up 9%). Stellic can play a role in the preventative pieces of the puzzle. Here are a few examples of where the product can make an impact:

1. ‘What-if’ functionality to show students which degree they are closest to completing (an ongoing development in 2025)
2. Prospective student pathways to show prospective students the most efficient path to graduation
3. Early intervention alerts (based on real student data) to warn advisors and support staff when students meet signs of stopping out, such as GPA or attendance

5. Why “digital transformation” is not elusive

Perhaps our largest takeaway from hundreds of conversations is that schools want their technology to do more. They want to raise the bar on efficiency, communication, and experience, checking as many boxes on their strategic plan as possible. We don’t just hear this on the road — it’s often the first thing you tell us.

A common perception nowadays is that institutions need millions of dollars and a decade to substantially improve end-user experiences, data access, workflows, and administrative mechanics. People often call this a “digital transformation”.

The motivation (and need) behind those projects is real, but the common perceptions are not. As your institution takes stock of its current and future state, consider investing your resources and energy into solutions that uplevel — without uprooting. This path will provide the experiences that campuses need, without the pressure to rehaul infrastructure to make it happen.

If you’re interested in upleveling degree planning, advising, audit, and/or transfer in 2025 and beyond, send us a note here.

Closing Thoughts

Our team is invested in spending time with our partners and future partners where they are. Connecting with advisors, success staff, Registrars, VPs, CIOs, and even students, helps us continue to scale the impact of success with you and your students. We want to hear what you have to say about your institution, and how Stellic can play an active role in solving these strategies and gaps at your school.

We look forward to the kinds of conversations we’ll have next year.