Case Study: Delta College achieves holistic, higher-retention advising with Ellucian CRM Advise

Holistic Advising Throughout the Student Journey

Delta College confronted a gap between its advising goals and how it was using technology: after implementing CRM Advise in 2015 they realized by 2018 they were leveraging only about 10% of its capability and needed a new, holistic approach to support students from application to graduation. To address this, Delta partnered with Ellucian—using CRM Advise and Ellucian Managed Services—to move away from a transactional, generalist advising model toward a coordinated, caseload-based strategy.

Ellucian helped Delta implement configurable CRM Advise dashboards, faculty access, multi-channel communications, early alerts and student self-service via Ellucian Experience, supported by on-site Ellucian Managed Services. The change narrowed advisor caseloads from roughly 500–600 to 250–350 students, drove nearly a 2% retention gain from fall 2021 to fall 2022, and produced an 800% increase in student email volume in 2018, creating a centralized hub that improved collaboration and personalized support.

Delta College

Shelly Raube

Dean of Student Success