NYT: How A.I. Increased the Graduation Rate at John Jay College by 32 Points

“Good morning. It’s Wednesday. Today we’ll look at software that lifted the senior graduation rate at John Jay College to 86 percent. We’ll also find out where the Revolutionary War traitor Benedict Arnold has not been forgotten — or forgiven.

Dara Byrne was so surprised by the numbers on graduation rates that she triple-checked them. In two years, the graduation rate among students at John Jay College with enough credits to get their diplomas after one more year of study had jumped 32 percentage points, to 86 percent.

“It was jaw-dropping,” she said.

Byrne, then the associate provost, credits artificial intelligence — specifically, A.I.-powered software that analyzed things like whether students’ grades were slipping and whether they had signed up for courses that would give them enough credit hours to graduate.”