New Report: Nonprofit's Student Success Coaching Reached Nearly 600,000 Learners in 2025, Driving Gains in Enrollment, Retention, and Re-Enrollment

InsideTrack finds 80 percent of coached students persisted to the next term, and nearly 1,700 partner staff were trained to extend coaching on campus

PORTLAND, Ore., October 20, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- InsideTrack, the national nonprofit best known for adapting executive-style success coaching for students in higher education, today released "InsideTrack Impact Report: Catalyzing Growth Through Human Connection". The report shows that InsideTrack coaches directly supported 203,000 learners in 2025, and that 1,696 partner staff trained in InsideTrack's methodology served an estimated 390,000 more. Students who met with a coach reached 80 percent term-to-term retention, and coaching helped 26,000 prospective students enroll.

"Institutions are being asked to grow enrollment, retain more students and prove the value of a degree, often with fewer staff and tighter budgets," said Ruth Bauer, president of InsideTrack. "These results show what is possible when every learner has a well-trained coach in their corner, and when institutions build that capacity into their own teams. Twenty-five years in, human connection remains one of the most reliable levers we have for student success."

Nationally, colleges are holding on to more first-year students, but too many still leave before finishing. Of the 2.62 million students who started college in fall 2024, about 77 percent were still enrolled somewhere the following fall, and 69.1 percent had returned to the institution where they started, according to data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Just 61.1 percent of students who entered college in fall 2019 earned a credential within six years, and an estimated 43.1 million Americans have stopped out without one. Meanwhile, one in three enrolled students considered stopping out in the past six months, most often citing emotional stress, mental health and cost, according to the 2026 Lumina Foundation-Gallup State of Higher Education Study.

The report details results across every stage of the learner journey in 2025. Coaching helped 26,494 prospective students enroll, and students who met with an enrollment coach applied at a rate of 35 percent, compared to 27 percent for those who did not. Students who met with a retention coach reached 79.8 percent term-to-term retention. Coaches also served 39,830 stopped-out learners, achieving a 10.8 percent re-enrollment rate across partnerships. Notably, school community and belonging was the most common topic in coaching meetings (33.5 percent), ahead of academics (27.3 percent).

At Penn State World Campus, prospective students who engaged with a coach between 2021 and 2026 were more than 10 times as likely to enroll. At Jackson State University, fall-to-fall retention reached 76.8 percent, compared to a historical rate of 68.4 percent. InsideTrack also works with a network of 39 HBCUs supported by Ed Advancement, the Thurgood Marshall College Fund and UNCF. Across that network, coached students posted 90.4 percent fall-to-spring retention, compared to 82.4 percent for non-coached peers, and 2,322 coached students have graduated since 2021.

Statewide re-enrollment efforts showed strong impact. CA Reconnect — a three-year re-enrollment program including 21 colleges and universities across the state — found that learners who connected with a coach were four times more likely to re-enroll. In that program, 13.7 percent of re-enrolled learners completed a degree within their first year, nearly three times the national rate. In North Carolina, NC Reconnect is led and funded by the John M. Belk Endowment. There, re-enrolled continuing education and career and technical education students saw median annual earnings increases of $17,000 to $20,000.

The report also highlights InsideTrack's growing role in building institutional capacity. Across 56 training and development partnerships in 2025, InsideTrack trained 1,696 partner staff and awarded 1,093 coaching credentials. After University of Maryland Global Campus trained all 189 of its success coaches in InsideTrack's methodology, the university saw a 30 percentage-point increase in coaching staff retention.

At Western Governors University, the nation's largest nonprofit university, 121 Program Mentors and 35 leaders earned InsideTrack certifications in 2025. That was the first phase of an effort to equip all of WGU's nearly 2,000 Program Mentors, who serve 195,000 students. The work responds to a strain felt across the field: advisors have named high caseloads the top barrier to better advising every year since 2021, according to Tyton Partners' Driving Toward a Degree survey.

The report arrives as InsideTrack marks 25 years in higher education and its first year as part of the Lemnis Collective. Since 2001, InsideTrack has partnered with 425 organizations and supported more than 3.6 million learners.

The full Impact Report, Catalyzing Growth Through Human Connection, is available here.

About InsideTrack: InsideTrack delivers the enrollment, retention, completion and career-readiness outcomes that help higher education institutions — and the students they serve — truly thrive. We partner with colleges and universities to bring evidence-based student success coaching to their learners, helping students develop the self-efficacy, motivation, belonging, and resilience to finish their credentials, prepare for meaningful careers, and secure quality jobs. As a mission-driven nonprofit organization, we deploy both direct coaching programs and institutional staff training to create scalable, long-term impact. Since 2001, we have supported more than 3.6 million learners across 425+ institutions. InsideTrack is a division of Lemnis, a public charity dedicated to expanding learning for all. Learn more at insidetrack.org.

SOURCE InsideTrack