The ‘Moneyball’ Solution for Higher Education

Iris Palmer was quoted in a Politico article regarding the potential implications of implementing a predictive analytics system for higher education.

Iris Palmer, a senior education policy analyst at the New America think tank who tracks the use of predictive analytics in higher education, said it’s a “really hard line” for universities to walk. “On one hand, if you know that a student doesn’t have the academic record to be successful in a major like nursing or engineering, don’t you have the obligation to tell them that ahead of time before they waste their time and energy? And shouldn’t you be able to say, ‘Hey, there’s this alternative you might want to try to be better suited to your academics’?” Palmer said.

On the other hand, Palmer said, the systems have to be rolled out carefully because “we have historical inequalities and structural and racial issues that can be embedded into their systems if we’re not careful in how to build and how we implement the systems.”