An innovative partnership between John Jay College, Google and DataKind harnessed artificial intelligence (AI) to help boost senior graduation rates by 32 points in only two years, ensuring that even more students can access the many benefits associated with earning a four-year college degree.

(Watch a video and read the New York Times article about the initiative.)

With support from Google, John Jay collaborated with DataKind, which uses data science and AI to improve the capabilities of social impact organizations, to build a predictive AI model designed to identify students most in need of additional support. Advisors, who often have 750+ students in their portfolio, then proactively engaged each student to provide customized assistance such as one-on-one coaching.

In two years, 200+ John Jay students benefited from this initiative, which pushed the senior graduation rate to 86%. This week, Google announced a grant that will allow DataKind to scale the AI-powered intervention to six additional CUNY campuses and build a roadmap so that colleges and universities nationwide can benefit. 

This initiative demonstrates John Jay's commitment to student success and ensuring finances are not a barrier to earning a valuable degree. John Jay was also recently ranked #4 for social mobility and #5 for public colleges by U.S. News & World Report, #1 in the country for criminal justice, forensic science and legal studies by University HQ, #7 in “best bang for the buck” by Washington Monthly and #11 nationwide for economic mobility by Third Way.