Students' abilities to succeed academically and socially in a campus environment vary greatly. They always have. The solution for institutions with large applicant pools is to admit cohorts of students with homogeneous abilities. For many institutions that is not an option.

These institutions need to find ways to support each student according to their respective abilities. The institutions who do this most successfully realize that drop-outs and the circumstances that lead to them are "behaviors", not "attributes". This distinction is very important. Institutions have become very good in running academic and student affairs based on student "attributes" - in a very institution-centric fashion. To become student-centric, they must respond to every student's behavior (i.e., do they go to class, do they participate in class, do they submit assignments, etc.).

Early-warning systems are a good first step to monitor student behaviors. However, they alone do not move an institution from an institution-centric MO to a student-centric MO. Customized support interventions in response to undesired student behavior do. The Gates Foundation promotes such an approach as "Learner Relationship Management". The technology for it is easily available and implemented, the processes are not. They require that processes and organization on campus follow student needs, rather than have student experience be driven by decisions made in autonomously acting departments. Can it be done? Yes - many institutions have succeeded in improving completion rates without lowering academic standards. Is it necessary? For many, if not most, institutions it is - they currently provide costly and ineffectual or unneeded support mechanisms to students, and student-centric responses will expose those.