10 Proven Academic Intervention Strategies for Struggling College Students
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In 2025, the stakes for higher education have never been higher. According to Deloitte, students, parents, and funders alike are increasingly outcomes-focused, demanding flexible, competency-based education pathways. Yet many institutions continue to struggle with high attrition rates, inconsistent academic support, and limited evidence-based interventions in education.
Student disengagement and underperformance are widespread across disciplines, particularly in high-stakes health professions programs. With retention and graduation rates at risk, implementing effective intervention strategies for students at-risk has become a top priority for academic leaders.
Understanding the challenge. Why students struggle in college
Today’s college students face a complex web of challenges, from financial pressures and mental health issues to insufficient academic preparation. Undergraduates cite difficulty managing time, stress, or coursework as top barriers to success.
Despite these known obstacles, many institutions lack robust proactive academic interventions for students who are underperforming. Traditional advising or occasional tutoring is often reactive, leaving students without the support they need when it matters most.
In this article, we explore 10 proven academic intervention strategies for struggling students—backed by research, supported by technology, and ready to be implemented across a range of disciplines.
10 intervention programs for at-risk students
1. Early alert systems
These systems use data from various platforms—grades, attendance, LMS activity—to flag at-risk students early. Early alert systems in higher education identify students exhibiting signs of academic risk—missed assignments, poor attendance, low quiz scores—early in the term. Once flagged, these students can be connected to advising, tutoring, or wellness resources, well before a crisis point. Institutions that integrate early alert systems into their learning management environments create a feedback-rich culture that fosters timely support, improved accountability, and stronger student outcomes.
Overview of students at-risk within the Student Performance and Course Metrics dashboard by Enflux
Case Study
Learn how advanced learning analytics helped create student success intervention programs at Palm Beach Atlantic University
2. Structured peer mentorship programs
Structured peer mentorship programs pair academically successful upper-level students with those who are underperforming or new to college. These programs provide modeling of effective learning habits, emotional encouragement, and a sense of peer belonging. As an intervention program for at-risk students, peer mentorship is a low-cost, high-impact approach that improves persistence and academic confidence.
3. Mid-semester feedback surveys
Feedback surveys administered mid-term give instructors a snapshot of student perceptions and challenges while there is still time to make meaningful changes. These surveys prompt instructors to adjust pacing, clarify confusing content, or address engagement issues. For students, the process helps them feel more involved and supported in their own learning, which can boost motivation and persistence.
With the support of AI in higher education, academic leaders can now go beyond static survey data. Platforms like Enflux analyze mid-term feedback alongside academic performance metrics to highlight patterns—such as underperforming student cohorts or consistently misunderstood concepts—enabling more targeted education interventions. This proactive, data-informed approach helps faculty implement timely instructional changes and develop action plans for underperforming students, ultimately improving student retention and course outcomes.
By combining performance dashboards with their own course materials, educators can now create AI-powered assessments that align with cognitive-level objectives and offer real-time feedback. These tools guide at-risk students with personalized, self-paced study plans, turning remediation into a proactive and student-driven experience—without adding more to the faculty’s workload.
4. Supplemental instruction (SI) sessions
Supplemental instruction is a peer-facilitated academic support model where students attend regularly scheduled review sessions tied to difficult courses. Unlike traditional tutoring, SI sessions focus on collaborative learning, problem-solving, and concept mastery. This academic intervention strategy is particularly effective in STEM and health science courses where conceptual rigor is high and failure rates can be significant.
5. Mastery-based remediation modules
Mastery-based remediation allows students to focus on specific areas of weakness without repeating entire courses. These modules are often online, self-paced, and built around adaptive learning principles, enabling personalized pathways to recovery. As a result, such education intervention programs accelerate learning while also preserving student morale by reinforcing the idea that setbacks are not permanent.
6. Academic coaching for self-regulated learning
Academic coaching involves individualized sessions focused on building students’ executive functioning skills—planning, time management, goal setting, and metacognition. Coaches help students analyze their habits, design strategic learning plans, and reflect on academic progress. This proactive intervention strategy for students shifts the focus from content mastery alone to learning HOW to learn—a crucial skill for lifelong academic and professional success.
7. Learning analytics dashboards
Faculty and advisors often work across multiple disconnected systems—LMS platforms, assessment tools, surveys, and student records—making it difficult to see the full picture of student learning. Platforms like Enflux address this challenge by integrating siloed data sources into unified real-time learning analytics dashboards, providing a comprehensive view of student performance, curriculum alignment, and assessment trends.
These real-time analytics help identify patterns early—such as uneven performance across cohorts or misaligned course objectives—and support more timely, targeted academic interventions. When used in conjunction with accreditation support tools, the same dashboards can simplify reporting processes and enhance quality assurance efforts.
For instance, curriculum mapping dashboards can align student progress with profession-specific accreditation standards, including CAPTE criteria for Physical Therapy, ACPE Standards 2025 for Pharmacy, and ARC-PA’s competencies for Physician Assistant programs. By visualizing how learning activities, assessments, and student outcomes map to these benchmarks, programs can more easily monitor clinical readiness, identify competency gaps, and prepare robust documentation for site visits or self-studies—all within a centralized, data-informed framework.
Integrate data from your LMS, assessment tools, experiential learning platforms, SIS, national surveys, and internal systems—all in one platform
8. Integrated writing and study skills workshops
Academic support centers can run integrated workshops that embed writing and study strategies directly into disciplinary content. For example, nursing students may attend a workshop on clinical documentation, while pharmacy students practice dosage calculation problems. These contextualized sessions reinforce relevance and make abstract skills tangible.
9. Collaborative faculty advising models
Student advising is most effective when it moves beyond one-off check-ins and becomes a coordinated, team-based process. A collaborative advising model—grounded in shared, real-time data—ensures faculty, advisors, and support staff are aligned in how they monitor and support student progress. Without timely insights, even well-planned strategies can end up being reactive or misaligned with a student’s actual needs.
Real-time learning analytics can significantly improve this process. Instead of relying on spreadsheets, static reports, or inconsistent communication, integrated advising dashboards consolidate essential performance indicators—such as course averages, at-risk status, grade distributions, and unposted assignments—into one shared view. These tools reduce manual effort, save valuable time, and lay the foundation for an evidence-based academic intervention strategy.
Faculty and advisors can use filters and custom performance thresholds to quickly identify students who may be underperforming or vulnerable. Detailed drill-downs into assignment-level data enable more targeted advising conversations, while term-by-term academic histories provide context to support timely decision-making.
By aligning on a shared set of insights, institutions can implement intervention programs for at-risk students that are proactive, data-driven, and personalized. When real-time reporting and shared visibility are embedded in the student advising process, academic interventions become more strategic, more consistent, and more likely to support long-term student success.
Enflux Student Advising dashboard with a summary-level grade distribution for each course
10. Portfolio-based assessment models
Portfolio-based assessment allows students to compile a body of work—such as case studies, presentations, reflections, and clinical tasks—that demonstrate competency and growth over time. This academic intervention strategy supports personalized, competency-based learning and helps students reflect on their academic journey beyond what traditional exams can capture.
Portfolios also provide direct evidence of student learning outcomes, curriculum coherence, and progress toward professional standards, making them powerful tools for both student success and accreditation documentation. Accrediting bodies increasingly value these authentic assessments, especially when they map explicitly to competencies that align with national standards and workforce demands.
In health professions programs, portfolios might include SOAP notes, OSCEs, reflections, or clinical evaluations aligned to national standards (e.g., CAPTE, ACPE, ARC-PA). When tied to clear rubrics, this form of evidence-based intervention supports both formative feedback and summative assessment.
Broader impact: from student success to institutional transformation
To meet the evolving demands of higher education, institutions must adopt evidence-based interventions in education that are flexible, competency-aligned, and responsive to the diverse needs of their students. Increasingly, programs that highlight students’ real-world competencies are setting the standard for academic excellence and institutional relevance.
At the core of any effective student success strategy are well-structured academic intervention strategies. Institutions that prioritize intervention programs for at-risk students are more likely to see measurable gains in retention and graduation rates, achieve more efficient use of instructional resources, and strengthen alignment between educational outcomes and workforce expectations.
Academic leaders who take proactive steps now will not only help reduce student attrition, but also position their institutions as forward-thinking and workforce-ready. And the foundation for these strategies already exists in your data—if you know how to interpret and apply it effectively.
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