Pass rates get the headlines. Persistence pays the bills. A student who passes a gateway course but doesn't come back next term is still a loss: for the student, and for a college that just lost years of tuition and a future graduate.
So when we evaluate CircleIn at a partner school, persistence is the first number we look at. Across every evaluation we've run so far, the pattern is the same.
In all 17 evaluations with persistence data, across 15 colleges and universities, students who used CircleIn persisted at higher rates than students who didn't. The median gap was 10 percentage points. The largest was 22.
Different schools, same result
The schools behind these numbers don't look alike. They include community colleges, an HBCU, regional public universities, public research universities, a private research university and one of the largest college systems in the country, where 72,415 students used CircleIn in a single term and persisted at a rate 19 points higher than non-users.
Any single result can be explained away. A pattern that holds across that range of institutions is much harder to dismiss.
Why persistence moves
Research on student departure points to two things that keep students enrolled: succeeding academically and feeling like they belong. CircleIn is built around both.
- Academic help when it's needed. Classmates and a course-mapped AI tutor are available at 3 a.m., not just during office hours.
- A network from day one. Every student is placed with their section and with everyone at the college taking the same course. No one has to be invited to the right study group.
- Support staff in the same space. SI leaders, tutors and faculty reach students where they are already studying.
How we measure it
Each evaluation uses grade and enrollment data from the partner school and compares students who used CircleIn with students who didn't, in the same term. When adoption concentrates in harder courses, we compare students within the same course so course mix doesn't distort the result. We report the difference in percentage points.
These are comparisons between users and non-users, not randomized trials. Students who choose to use a study tool may differ in other ways. That's exactly why consistency matters: the same direction, at 15 different schools, in 17 out of 17 evaluations.
Pass rates follow where faculty lead
Pass-rate lifts were large in many evaluations, especially in courses where faculty built CircleIn into the course, and smaller or flat in a few places overall. Persistence is the result that held everywhere.
What it's worth
Every additional student who returns is another year of tuition retained. At a college where 5,000 students use CircleIn, a 10-point persistence lift means roughly 500 more students coming back. You can run the numbers for your own college on our Outcomes page.