The problem we solve
Every retention framework points at the same five drivers. First Six answers each with a surface, and measures which one is weighing on your cohort, early enough to act.
The challenge
Most first-year attrition is set in motion in the opening weeks: before census, before the first results, while a new student is quietly deciding whether they belong here. By the time the usual signals arrive (a failed assessment, a run of missed classes), the moment a light touch would have mattered has usually passed.
And the reasons students leave are not mysterious. Every retention framework since Tinto and Bean points at the same five: they don't feel like they belong, they doubt they can keep up, they can't afford to stay, the course isn't what they expected, or they're simply not okay. What no institution has had is a way to see which of those five is biting, in their own cohort, early enough to act.
Outcomes
What changes when First Six is running for your team.
A surface on every driver
Each of the five reasons students leave has a part of the product aimed at it, live in the window that decides attrition.
The 'why' behind attrition
See which driver is biting in your cohort (belonging, money, academics) instead of guessing from a national average.
Early signal, early support
A dip in week two becomes a nudge or a human reply, not a withdrawal form.
Support, not a risk score
The signal is aggregate and student-initiated; individual follow-up is scoped to support staff and logged.
Related Stakeholders
How First Six helps
The same six-week method, pointed at what your team needs.
01
Orient against expectations
The structured six-week arc, bookended by Zero Week before day one, keeps the course from drifting away from what a student signed up for.
02
Build belonging on purpose
'Find your people', targeted events and a warm weekly check-in turn a new enrolment into a student who feels they belong.
03
Catch the wobble early
A quiet check-in and a human inbox surface a dip (academic, financial or wellbeing) while the help still needed is light.
04
Measure the why
After a wobbly check-in we ask which of the five is weighing most, and show the cohort breakdown and when each peaks: your own data, aggregate and privacy-safe.
What you get with First Six
Three things this gives your team from the first week.
A surface for every driver
Belonging, academics, money, expectations, wellbeing. Each of the five reasons students leave has a place in the product built to answer it.
Measured, week by week
A gentle check-in follow-up captures which driver is biting, shown to staff as an aggregate breakdown and a week-by-week shape of when each one peaks.
We ask, we never scrape
The signal comes from the student, not from mining grades, log-ins or social feeds. Cohort views are aggregate and small-group suppressed, and any individual follow-up is permission-gated and audit-logged: support rather than surveillance.
Outbound webhooks
Subscribe your own systems to signed First Six events (request created, crisis, updated, resolved), delivered over HTTPS with an HMAC signature you verify.
Help desk & CRM (email-to-ticket)
When a student asks for help, open a ticket in the help desk your staff already watch (ServiceNow, Salesforce, Jira Service Management, Zendesk), via email-to-case.
Calendar (ICS)
Add events to the calendar students already use.
Student information system
Sync enrolment and audience groups from your student information system. CSV roster import is available today; the direct push endpoint is in early access.
SAML 2.0
Single sign-on via SAML 2.0. In progress.
OpenID Connect (OIDC)
Standards-based single sign-on via OpenID Connect.
Microsoft Entra ID
Single sign-on via Microsoft Entra ID using OIDC.
See the drivers, and the surface for each
Book a demo and we'll walk the five drivers, the surfaces, and the measurement, live.
Frequently asked questions
What teams ask us most.
Early-alert tools hand you a risk score inferred from grades and log-ins, and a list of students to watch. First Six asks the student, gently, which of the five drivers is weighing on them, and shows the cohort view in aggregate with small groups suppressed. We surface the real reason rather than predicting a name.
Belonging, academic self-efficacy, financial stress, misaligned expectations, and wellbeing: the factors every retention framework since Tinto and Bean converges on. They're also the exact categories the check-in follow-up uses, so the measurement lines up with the model.
No. The cohort breakdown is aggregate only, with small groups suppressed, so understanding a cohort never means watching a person. Where a student needs following up, the support staff responsible for their cohort can open that student's own answer, so the help offered fits what they said rather than being a generic nudge. That access is permission-gated, scoped to their own institution, and written to a tamper-resistant audit log every time. Students are told this on the screen where they answer.
First Six is configured per cohort and connects to your single sign-on, so a pilot can run for one intake without a long integration project.