An Access College Close to Home

Georgia Highlands College (GHC) has served northwest Georgia since 1970. An access-mission state college in the University System of Georgia, it offers two- and four-year degrees across five locations and online, with no test score requirements for admission. In 2025, GHC was named a top 10 finalist for the Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence.

That access draws a wide mix of students. Recent high school graduates share classes with parents returning to school, adults working full time in hospitals and veterans earning their first degree.

Each of those students follows the same path from inquiry to application, admission, orientation and registration. In February 2025, GHC launched its application in Element451. Since then, a four-person team has connected every stage of that path in one system, resulting in new student enrollment growth by 17.9% and total enrollment growth by 12.5%.

When Every Step of the Student Journey Was Manual

Before Element451, here's what that looked like at GHC:

• Prospective student records kept in spreadsheets
• Manual mail merges to tell applicants about missing requirements
• Report requests to IT just to see who needed outreach
• Daily work lists pulled from the student information system, one application type at a time
• A homegrown status dashboard where changing a single line of wording could take weeks
• No way for students to upload documents, so paperwork could take more than a week to reach the processing team

Students felt those gaps most. Applicants told the team they had applied and heard nothing back, or could see a missing requirement but not how to submit it.

"We as faculty and staff at an institution put up with a lot, and we're used to managing things the best we can. But students don't do that," said Jennifer Hicks, Executive Director of Enrollment Management. "They want the ease, they want the personalization, the kind of instant gratification."

Staff and students alike needed a single place to see what came next.

Element451 became that place, from first inquiry to the first day of class

Growth Across the Student Journey

Gains From First Application to First Day

In the fall 2026 enrollment cycle, Element451 helped GHC grow at every stage of the funnel, from application to enrollment:

Students were also more likely to follow through: admitted first-time freshmen and transfers enrolled at a higher rate than the year before. Total enrollment, including continuing students, rose 12.5%.

Freshman, transfer and dual enrollment numbers all climbed*. Dual enrollment students are high schoolers earning college credit at GHC.

*Figures compare fall 2026 enrollment as of Aug. 28, 2026, with the same point in the fall 2025 cycle.

An AI Agent Fills President's Scholars Day

In spring 2026, GHC's president launched President's Scholars Day for high-achieving prospective students identified through Georgia Match. The state program sends high school students letters listing the Georgia public colleges they're already eligible to attend, based on their high school records. Invited students could meet the president and members of his cabinet and interview for scholarships.

Email and text invitations were running, but sign-ups lagged. The team saw this as an opportunity to utilize Element451’s AI Agents to scale outreach. An agent named ‘Sam’ called every invited student with a personal invitation on behalf of the president's office.

Sign-ups quickly climbed, and the day became one of GHC's largest recruiting events. Sam made sure every eligible student heard a personal invitation while there was still time to register.

"Almost instantly, the number of sign-ups just shot through the roof," Hicks said. "I really don't think we would have gotten the number of students we did if we hadn't implemented Sam to give them a call."

Personalized Outreach at Every Step

Prospective students used to receive the same generic messages. Today, outreach matches what each student expects and guides each one to the next step:

• Segments such as homeschool students and adult learners receive their own messages and preview day sessions
• Communication analytics show which messages land, so the team can adjust content and timing as the cycle runs
• Admissions processors review and decide applications in Element451, and students upload documents directly
• Admitted students land on a personalized dashboard that shows their next steps
• Orientation sign-up includes an advising questionnaire, so students are preregistered for courses before they arrive
• Payment reminders show each student's exact balance as of that morning, replacing a generic robocall

GHC doesn't require an enrollment deposit, so orientation sign-up is the clearest sign that an admitted student plans to enroll. Bringing orientation into Element451 puts that signal in the same record as every message, event and application step. The specific balance in each payment reminder adds urgency that helps students stay enrolled through the start of the term.

Students have noticed. "The feedback from students is: thank you for making this easy," Hicks said.

The same approach now reaches current students. Registration reminders go out well before deadlines and prompt students to schedule advising appointments early. Hicks has seen more continuing students register early, a shift she connects in part to that outreach. Early registration gives students time to resolve financial aid questions before the term, supporting an 11.5% growth in continuing student enrollment.

The AI Agent Students Trust First

GHC's website chat is now powered by an AI agent that draws from the college's Knowledge Hub. It handles the routine questions that once took a staff member's time each week, or went unanswered: when registration opens, where to check a status, how to find login details.

For some students, it has become the trusted first stop. One student told the agent he wanted to ask his questions there first, so he'd feel prepared before talking with a staff member.

"From a student perspective, they're opting for that option first sometimes," Hicks said. "We have to appreciate that and meet students where they are."

That trust is backed by people. The team reviews agent activity to make sure every answer is accurate, and approves what goes out to students. "Some people assume that a process that involves AI takes the human element completely out of it," Hicks said. "That has not been my experience."

So Easy to Use, Departments Are Lining Up

GHC's past systems required deep technical expertise to change. Updating the greeting in an email could take weeks. In Element451, most staff can add a checklist, build a form or update a message themselves.

"We are having to gatekeep at this point because so many people want to use it," Hicks said. "They see it and they're like, 'This is so easy. Please let me in.'"

Adoption has spread across campus:

• The Atrium Health Floyd School of Health Sciences now runs nursing and dental hygiene applications and information session sign-ups in Element451
• Admissions processors, who had only ever worked in the student information system, helped shape the build and now love how easily they can make decisions and move students forward
• Paper forms have become digital forms with seamless document upload capability, including GHC's border state waiver, which lets students from the five states bordering Georgia pay the equivalent of in-state tuition
• Marketing and communications turned plain-text emails into designed messages with images and buttons that highlight what actions students should take

A Clear Next Step for Every Student

In the fall 2026 enrollment cycle, GHC grew new student enrollment 17.9% and total enrollment 12.5%. A four-person team built the system behind that growth alongside their other roles. Prospect records, applications, orientation, payment reminders and registration now share one record for every student.

That shared record shows the team where students stall, so they can remove the roadblock for everyone who follows. "Everything in one system connects the entire student journey," Hicks said. "Doing that allows us to figure out where roadblocks are, where bottlenecks are happening."

Peers have noticed, too. Hicks regularly hears from colleges considering Element451 and meets with them to share what GHC has built.

Following Every Student From Inquiry to Graduation

GHC is extending Element451 beyond enrollment. The team is building advising appointment scheduling and bringing course data into the system, so the same record follows each student from first inquiry through their time at the college.

More departments are joining in phases, each bringing its own applications, events and forms into the shared system.

The aim is a single student record that stays useful long after enrollment, from the first campus visit to the day a student graduates.