Selling Student Success: A Critical Analysis of Predictive Analytics Vendors in Higher Education

• In Event: AI and Educational Innovation Ecosystems

Abstract

As predictive analytics become increasingly embedded in higher education, commercial vendors offering these tools play a growing role in shaping institutional decision-making, particularly through identifying students deemed “at risk.” This qualitative study analyzes 177 public-facing vendor materials to examine how companies marketing predictive analytics for student success frame the problems they aim to address and promote their products and services. Drawing on Yosso’s Community Cultural Wealth (CCW) framework (2005), we investigate how vendors construct the problem of student success, including how they portray students in deficit- or asset-based terms. We further explore how vendors’ solutions align with their problem framing, paying particular attention to their implicit or explicit theories of change. We identify three key findings: (1) vendors primarily frame the problem that their products address as one of institutional finances; (2) most vendors acknowledge structural barriers but rarely recognize students’ strengths; (3) proposed solutions to student success challenges, which are anchored in prediction algorithms, do not always align with problem framing. While vendors frequently invoke equity-oriented language to position their tools as student-centered, our analysis reveals an emphasis on financial value and a limited engagement with students’ assets, ultimately narrowing pathways for supporting student success. We also find a constriction of educational value, as vendors increasingly frame student success as a means to enhance institutional financial outcomes. The study highlights the limitations of equity language in predictive analytics marketing and calls for greater transparency, cultural responsiveness, and alignment between rhetoric and implementation in vendor-developed tools.

Author

• Catalina Vasquez, University of Texas at Austin
  Presenting Author