RUSH University

The annual Ellucian Impact Award recognizes higher education institutions implementing flexible, scalable technology with which they can evolve ahead of changing learner needs and workforce demands.

RUSH University, a teacher-practitioner model institution integrated with RUSH University Medical Center, specializes in graduate and professional healthcare education on the West Side of Chicago, Illinois. RUSH University's implementation of Ellucian Colleague’s Student Planning module significantly improved student data tracking, degree planning, and report generation. By eliminating tuition revenue losses related to variable credit errors, RUSH University has saved approximately $12,000 to $24,000 per year.

The Challenge

RUSH University consists of four separate colleges, each with different modalities to track student progress, assess faculty workload, and determine course offerings. RUSH University's College of Nursing used a third-party database, but the reporting features were inefficient, and the information recorded often conflicted with that of the institution's ERP software, Ellucian Colleague. Data inconsistencies doubled the work for staff, who frequently had to re-enter corrected information.

Inaccurate data also posed a serious risk for persistence by over or underestimating the number of credit hours students needed. When students have to extend their time to completion, the odds of them stopping out increases exponentially. In some instances, the College of Nursing would ultimately absorb any loss of tuition revenue given that the source was administrative error.

RUSH University's former "just before graduation" approach to checking degree completion left substantial room for students to get off-track somewhere along their journey. Because critical system challenges sometimes failed to properly administer degree audit checks and students had no way to self-verify time to completion, there was a high risk of missing graduation requirements.

In search of a better system, College of Nursing made plans to retire their legacy database. But before committing to an entirely new solution, their leaders explored Ellucian Colleague's capabilities to see if its Student Planning module could meet their needs.

The Solutions: Transforming Degree Planning

The Student Planning module was designed for students to actively track their degree progress, letting them adjust their study plan and create "what if" scenarios as needed. While this flexibility gives students much greater agency, it posed a problem for the College of Nursing, whose program coordinators used batch registration to slot students into necessarily rigid curricular tracks. If the institution was going to use Student Planning, they would need to get creative.

Fortunately, Student Planning is built to be flexible. RUSH University was able to reverse the security roles of students and program coordinators to make modifications to study plans in the module. This still allowed students to see their study plans and select "what if" scenarios without risking pre-arranged degree tracks.

Students also have new opportunities to shape their education with real-time updates to their degree progress. This transparency allows them to make immediate modifications to their schedules in collaboration with faculty advisors. Students have gained easy access to important documents and processes such as unofficial transcripts, verifications, and name changes.

And because the Student Planning module has modernized data tracking, RUSH University was able to migrate from a manual degree audit system to Ellucian Degree Works in preparation for the second phase of Student Planning's implementation, further empowering both students and staff to clear paths to completion.

Simpler Processes and Fewer Errors

With the Student Planning module, the College of Nursing can more easily share data between departments and has streamlined processes, including enrolling students in the correct classes for their degree path and forecasting future course needs.

Program coordinators who regularly manage students' study plans describe an average workload reduction of 50 to 75 hours per month thanks to the module's implementation. Additionally, the Office of the Registrar reduced the time to award degrees from three weeks to less than three days. These efficiencies enable staff to spend less time correcting errors or performing redundant transactions, and more time focusing on student needs.

The College of Nursing also estimated a reduction of 25% in the time spent each month generating reports. And because that data comes from Colleague, the single source of truth for student information, analysts know that their findings are reliable.

Finally, Student Planning has effectively eliminated tuition revenue losses related to administrative errors. This has resulted in revenue savings of approximately $12,000 to $24,000 per year.

Looking Ahead

For the College of Nursing, the Student Planning module has significantly increased degree planning's efficiency and effectiveness. With the right tools, staff have addressed data integrity issues, streamlined data entry, simplified report creation, and provided a structure for both students and staff to stay on top of degree progress. In an interview with the College of Nursing team to gather feedback on the module's implementation, they unanimously agreed that Student Planning has been a "lifesaver for the College."

On top of these benefits, the College of Nursing didn't have to purchase an entirely new solution. By utilizing Colleague and tailoring Student Planning to their needs, the College of Nursing estimated a cost savings of $50,000.

With the successful pilot of the Student Planning module, RUSH University plans to extend implementation to all four of their colleges, ensuring students across all campuses and disciplines have the tools they need to stay on track to completion.