A program that supports low-income college students with intensive data tracking and financial and social supports is helping to close the achievement gap by improving graduation rates and overall college performance, a promising find as persistence rates widen between disadvantaged and wealthy students.

Students in the Dell Scholars Program — the majority black or Hispanic, many the first in their family to attend college — are 23 percent more likely than their peers who aren’t in the program to earn a bachelor’s degree in four years, according to research in a forthcoming paper in The Journal of Human Resources. Program participants are also 53 percent more likely to graduate if they attend a less-selective college, are more likely to have a higher GPA, earn college credits faster, and are less likely to take on student debt.

Participants receive not just financial aid — each gets $20,000 in scholarships and a laptop — but services like help finding daycare for their children, mental health support, and continued assistance even if they don’t maintain a specific GPA.

Despite having only four employees, the Texas-based Dell Scholars team monitors its 1,800 students across their U.S. colleges using data-tracking software that catalogues their GPA, whether they’ve dropped classes and are on track to graduate, their financial aid status, and information from well-being surveys that identify whether a student may be depressed or is feeling supported.

You can accomplish a lot of this for not a lot of money if you’re able to leverage some of the technology that not only personalizes the interaction but makes you more proactive to help students before there’s a crisis,” Kevin Byrne, Michael and Susan Dell Foundation.

Read the full article by Kate Stringer about college persistence from The 74