Intentional Interventions: From Small Nudges to Systemic Change

Editor’s Note: Intentional Interventions

Last week, we confronted an unsettling truth: our education system does not just favor some—it actively leaves others behind. Those with privilege glide forward while equally capable students face invisible barriers. The system operates like an exclusive club, offering the best opportunities to a select few while others remain shut out.

When we examine why some students face obstacle after obstacle while others glide smoothly through educational pathways, we cannot escape the moral question at the center: Have we not discriminated among ourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

Recognizing injustice is only the first step. But recognition alone does not feed the hungry, open locked doors, or break generational cycles of exclusion. If we tell students, “Go in peace, succeed and thrive,” but offer no meaningful support, what has our knowledge accomplished?

Today, we move from recognition to action. If barriers are systemic, solutions must be intentional. We explore the interventions—both small and systemic—that have the power to change educational trajectories and lives.

The research offers hope: sometimes the smallest nudges—a text message about financial aid, a brief conversation about belonging, an algorithm designed with equity at its core—can create ripple effects that challenge generations of exclusion. But these interventions require more than good intentions. They demand that we learn to do right, seek justice, and actively defend those systematically overlooked.

This isn’t just about helping individual students beat the odds. It’s about changing the odds themselves. This isn’t just about fairness—it’s about the kind of world we want to build. If talent is universal, then justice demands that opportunity be as well. The question is no longer if we will act—but if we will dare to build an education system where the doors open for all, not just the privileged few.

Let’s begin.

— Dr. G

Last week, Arya’s story showed how capable students are limited by invisible barriers of information and support. Despite her achievements, she was restricted to local college options, with pathways to selective institutions hidden in plain sight.

Arya’s experience raises a critical question: If systems create barriers, what interventions effectively remove them? What actually works to help students not just access but thrive in higher education?

The Power of Small Nudges

In the quiet libraries and crowded cafeterias of American high schools, thousands of college-capable students quietly eliminate selective colleges from consideration—not because they lack ability, but because they lack information. This silent sorting occurs not in dramatic moments of rejection but in the everyday moments when students decide which college websites to visit, which applications to complete, which financial aid forms to tackle.

In 2015, researchers Caroline Hoxby and Sarah Turner published findings from their Expanding College Opportunities (ECO) project that challenged this pattern. The intervention was remarkably straightforward: they sent high-achieving, low-income students personalized information about college options, application fee waivers, and guidance on how to apply to selective colleges that matched their academic profiles.

The results transformed educational trajectories. Students who received these materials were 46% more likely to apply to selective institutions that matched their academic abilities and ultimately attended more selective colleges with higher graduation rates and better resources. What changed wasn’t the students’ capabilities—it was their access to information that their more privileged peers take for granted.

More recent research has confirmed and expanded on these findings. A 2022 study on “Nudging at Scale” found that text-based reminders about FAFSA completion increased application rates by 17% when combined with dedicated counselor support. These simple nudges proved particularly effective for students without college-educated parents to guide them through the process.

But why do such seemingly small interventions have such an outsized impact? The answer lies at the intersection of sociology and behavioral economics.

Students from families without college experience often lack what sociologist Pierre Bourdieu called “cultural capital”—the informal knowledge or “know-how” and social connections that help navigate complex systems. For students like Arya, the invisible architecture of college admissions—knowing that private colleges sometimes offer better financial aid than public ones, understanding which majors require specific high school courses, recognizing the importance of early application deadlines—remains hidden without intentional intervention.

Simultaneously, behavioral economists have demonstrated that even small barriers can derail the process entirely when facing complex decisions with many steps and limited information. For a student already balancing schoolwork, family responsibilities, and often part-time jobs, each additional form, essay, or deadline becomes not just a task but a potential breaking point.

“These students weren’t making poor choices because of lack of ability or motivation,” explains Hoxby. “They simply lacked information that more privileged students take for granted.” The ECO project didn’t change students’ capabilities—it simply removed information barriers that had nothing to do with merit.

Remember Jon from last week’s essay, who joined Success Academy (pseudonym), a college-promoting community-based organization, in middle school? As a DACA student navigating the college application process, Jon faced not only the typical hurdles of first-generation students but also the complex legal landscape affecting undocumented students. His connection to Success Academy provided targeted support that transformed his possibilities.

“After I had gone through that process in high school I was able to pretty much do everything like transferring from North Seattle to UW and fill out the applications on my own,” Jon explained, his voice carrying a quiet pride in this hard-won know-how.

The guidance he received didn’t just help him with immediate college decisions—it empowered him with knowledge that supported future educational transitions.

Similar principles explain why text message reminders about financial aid deadlines have increased FAFSA completion rates by up to ~20% among low-income students. These nudges work precisely because they arrive when a student might otherwise get derailed by competing priorities or confusing processes—a digital tap on the shoulder saying, “Don’t forget this important step.”

These findings challenge common beliefs about why capable students from underrepresented backgrounds don’t attend selective colleges. It’s rarely about motivation or ability. More often, it’s about missing information, complex processes, and lack of support at critical junctures—gaps that small, targeted interventions can bridge.

Beyond Nudges: The Power of Belonging

When these technical barriers accumulate, they create a deeper psychological hurdle: a sense that “this place isn’t for me.” Information gaps don’t just hinder navigation—they undermine belonging. Last week, we explored how academic and social integration profoundly influence college persistence, as Vincent Tinto’s research demonstrated. But what interventions actually foster this sense of connection?”

Research consistently shows that a sense of belonging can be even more powerful in determining who persists in higher education than even financial factors. For many students, the question isn’t just “Can I get into college?” but “Will I belong there once I arrive?”

This question became reality for Arya at the University of San Diego. Despite her academic capabilities, she found herself in an environment where connection proved elusive:

“I didn’t connect with a lot of people there...I wanted to make my group of college friends, but it didn’t work out that way.”

Her sense of disconnection was amplified by incidents of racism on campus, including anonymous posts on YikYak that targeted students of color.

Sitting alone in her dorm room, reading these anonymous messages, Arya felt a growing unease.

“Even when I read the racist comments in my dorm, I would feel uncomfortable because it could have been anyone in my living unit writing those comments.”

In those moments, academic ability becomes secondary to the emotional weight of isolation and alienation. Without interventions that directly addressed belonging, Arya ultimately reverse-transferred to a community college closer to home, where the academic challenges might be less rigorous, but the social climate felt more welcoming.

Her experience illustrates why belonging interventions can be so transformative. In a landmark study referenced briefly last week, psychologists Gregory Walton and Geoffrey Cohen implemented a brief social-belonging intervention with first-year college students, sharing stories suggesting that worries about belonging are common during the transition to college and typically diminish over time. This seemingly modest intervention raised Black students’ GPAs over the next three years, cutting the achievement gap between Black and white students by ~79%.

More recent research has expanded on this work, showing that these interventions are particularly effective during periods of transition and crisis. Even brief belonging exercises improve completion rates for historically underrepresented groups—a modest but meaningful gain that impacts thousands of students when implemented broadly.

“It wasn’t about changing students’ abilities,” notes Walton. “It was about changing their interpretation of everyday challenges from evidence that ‘people like me don’t belong here’ to normal difficulties everyone faces.” For students carrying the additional weight of being the “only one” or the “first one” in their classrooms, this reframing can be the difference between persistence and withdrawal.

Similarly, peer mentoring programs connecting first-generation freshmen with upper-class students from similar backgrounds have substantially improved retention rates at institutions across the country. These mentoring relationships help students develop a sense of belonging that sustains them through inevitable challenges.

K’Vonte and Jon’s experiences with Success Academy illustrate this principle. As K’Vonte explained, his eyes bright with the memory”

“Without Success Academy, I would have never known about independent [private] schools or really been thinking too much about getting into a college or anything because it’s just not something that they stress too much in public school.”

The peer relationships they formed created an essential support network: “We come from the exact same background so we...could help each other out. It was great having somebody there that had been through the exact same thing you had,” Jon reflected, his words carrying the weight of what it means to find true understanding in an often alienating educational landscape.

What makes these interventions so potent isn’t just the support they provide but the messages they convey: You belong here. Your challenges aren’t evidence of personal deficiency but normal aspects of a difficult transition. You’re not alone. These messages don’t just comfort—they transform struggle from a sign of inadequacy to a natural step in growth.

These findings align with what social psychologists have long documented: human beings are fundamentally social creatures whose performance and persistence are profoundly shaped by their emotional connections to others. When educational institutions intentionally foster these connections for students who might otherwise feel isolated, the effects ripple through every aspect of the college experience.

The Promise and Peril of AI in Educational Interventions

Earlier in our series, a reader (jcb) posed a thought-provoking question: “Is it even possible with the way current AI models are trained to avoid admissions bias?”

This question cuts to the core of whether technology can help bridge educational divides or simply reinforce them in new ways.

At its best, AI can amplify equity. At its worst, it can automate exclusion. The difference lies in how we wield it.

As technology evolves, artificial intelligence is increasingly being deployed to scale interventions that were once possible only through intensive human relationships. AI-powered advising systems now help students navigate course selection, identify well-matched colleges, and receive personalized guidance through administrative processes. The rapid integration of AI into admissions processes reflects institutions’ growing reliance on technology to enhance efficiency and decision-making.

Yet as AI takes on a larger role in education, debates persist about its ethical use. What remains clear is that ongoing oversight and accountability are essential to ensuring AI serves as a tool for justice rather than exclusion. Without continuous audits, even well-intentioned AI systems can drift toward reinforcing inequities rather than dismantling them.

The potential benefits are substantial. Georgia State University’s AI advising system increased graduation rates by 7% overall and closed graduation gaps between white students and historically underrepresented groups. The system identifies struggling students early, connecting them with advisors before small challenges become insurmountable obstacles.

“Technology allowed us to dramatically expand our reach,” explains Timothy Renick, who led the initiative. “We went from being able to have meaningful interventions with a small fraction of at-risk students to reaching nearly all of them.” For students navigating complex degree requirements or facing academic difficulty, these early interventions can mean the difference between dropping out and persisting to graduation.

Similar AI systems are helping high school students identify colleges where they’re likely to thrive academically while receiving adequate financial support. These tools aggregate data on graduation rates, financial aid patterns, and student experiences to recommend institutions aligned with students’ needs and goals—potentially addressing the very information gaps that led to Arya’s limited awareness of college options beyond her vague desire to attend school in California.

Yet these technological interventions also raise profound ethical questions. As scholar Ruha Benjamin notes in Race After Technology, algorithms trained on historical data often reproduce historical patterns of exclusion. An AI college recommendation system trained on past admissions data might guide students toward the very patterns of undermatching it was designed to prevent. If the algorithm learns that students from certain zip codes or high schools historically attended less selective colleges, it may perpetuate rather than disrupt these patterns.

Without safeguards, AI admissions systems risk amplifying historical biases—penalizing underrepresented students based on past inequities rather than potential.

“The question isn’t whether we’ll use technology in education,” observes education researcher Ezekiel Dixon-Román. “It’s whether we’ll design technology that reproduces inequality or disrupts it.”

This tension highlights a critical point: Technological interventions aren’t inherently good or bad. Their impact depends entirely on who designs them, what data trains them, and what values guide their implementation. An AI advising system designed with equity at its core and regularly audited for bias can expand opportunity. The same system, designed without these considerations, risks becoming yet another gatekeeper disguised as an objective guide.

This approach also aligns with another reflection from jcb, shared after last week’s essay, which reinforces the broader systemic conversation beyond just AI:

“I went to a private high school and had access to a very strong support system, both cultural, financial, and familial. We had good college counselors and overall an unspoken culture of educational performance amongst my peers... I can’t imagine even trying to navigate all of that with just my own ‘hard work and determination.’”

These accumulated advantages, often invisible to those who possess them, create vastly different starting points that interventions must address. AI, like education itself, can widen or narrow these disparities. The difference lies in whose voices shape its development—and whose futures it is designed to serve.

From Individual Interventions to Systemic Change

The most promising interventions share a common feature: they recognize both individual agency and systemic barriers. They don’t place the full burden of change on either students or institutions but create pathways where motivated students can access opportunities previously beyond reach.

When the University of Texas implemented its Texas Success Initiative, combining early alerts with intensive advising and peer mentoring, students became significantly more likely to pass their gateway courses—a critical early indicator supporting higher eventual graduation rates. What made this approach effective wasn’t just identifying struggling students but creating multiple layers of support.

Similarly, graduation rates nearly doubled when the City University of New York launched its Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP), providing comprehensive financial, academic, and personal support. The program costs more per student initially, but research shows it actually saves money in the long run by dramatically improving degree completion.

Success Academy, the college-promoting community-based organization that supported Jon and K’Vonte, exemplifies this multi-layered approach. Beyond just providing information about college, it created a comprehensive support system that addressed academic preparation, social-emotional support, and college guidance. “Success Academy is often quote unquote the parent for that process,” explained Brienne, the organization’s director of college counseling, recognizing that ~85% of their families are first-generation college-bound and “have no idea how to navigate the college choice process.”

These examples illustrate a key insight: The most effective interventions don’t just help students navigate broken systems—they begin to transform the systems themselves. They shift from asking, “What’s wrong with these students?” to “What’s wrong with our institutions that so many capable students struggle to succeed?”

This approach recognizes what sociologist Karen Pittman eloquently stated: “Being problem-free is not the same as being fully prepared.” Interventions that merely remove obvious barriers may help students survive, but those that actively build capabilities and connections help them thrive.

The Path Forward: A Call to Collective Action

As colleges increasingly adopt AI tools and data-driven interventions, we stand at a critical crossroads. Whether AI and interventions expand opportunity or reinforce barriers depends on us. The tools exist, but only intentional action can determine whether they serve equity or exclusion.

The stakes couldn’t be higher. A 2024 study on “The Impact of COVID-19 on College Access and Persistence” found that the pandemic exacerbated existing inequalities, with first-generation and low-income students facing unprecedented challenges in accessing and completing college. These barriers will persist without decisive action from all sectors of society.

For educators and policymakers, equity must be at the core:

• Design with diverse voices—including students like Arya, Jon, and K’Vonte.

• Audit interventions continuously to prevent bias.

• Use AI to extend, not replace, human relationships.

• Address systemic inequities, not just surface barriers.

For community organizations and individuals:

• Become mentors for students navigating educational transitions.

• Create community-based supports complementing institutional efforts.

• Amplify student voices in educational policy conversations.

• Hold institutions accountable for creating truly inclusive environments.

The research is clear: Intentional interventions—from simple text nudges to comprehensive support programs to ethical AI advising—can dramatically improve educational outcomes, especially for students from historically marginalized communities. These approaches work not by “fixing” students but by meeting them where they are and removing barriers that have nothing to do with ability or potential.

Last week, we recognized that the way forward isn’t choosing between agency and systems but understanding their interdependence. Now we see that the most powerful interventions embody this truth—they honor individual journeys while transforming systems that create unnecessary barriers.

As we design the next generation of educational interventions, we must remain guided by a fundamental truth: Our goal isn’t simply to help students navigate unjust systems but to transform those systems themselves. This transformation requires not just new technologies or programs but a renewed commitment to the belief that talent is universal, even if opportunity is not. We don’t just change individual lives when we design interventions that truly honor this principle—that meet students where they are while creating pathways to their aspirations. We create ripples that expand outward, touching families, communities, and our shared future.

In next week’s essay, we’ll examine a surprising historical dimension of educational equity policies by exploring who has benefited most from affirmative action—and why the answer might challenge conventional wisdom about educational opportunity in America.

I invite you to add relevant further readings in your comments.

Many thanks for reading,

Dr. G