National Institute for Student Success Executive Director Timothy Renick testified Wednesday before a congressional subcommittee examining innovation in American colleges and universities.

Renick was among a panel of four education experts testifying before the House Education and the Workforce Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Development. He discussed Georgia State’s transformative efforts over the past decade to boost graduation rates, close achievement gaps and ensure success for students from all backgrounds.

Renick, who was senior vice president for Student Success at Georgia State before the establishment of the National Institute for Student Success, also discussed innovations like micro-grants targeted at students in jeopardy of stopping out for financial reasons, and artificial intelligence-enhanced chatbots that allow Georgia State to reach students at scale.

“These data-informed approaches can be self-sustaining, even revenue generating, by helping institutions hold on to millions of dollars in tuition-and-fee revenues that previously were being hemorrhaged,” he told the subcommittee. “But just as importantly, they are helping to transform communities and their economies.”

Asked by U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.) about the data colleges need to help students succeed in college and in the workforce, Renick explained the prevailing problem isn’t a lack of data, but an inability to “operationalize” the data. Renick went on to discuss how first-year students at Georgia State get information on the marketplace for their given major so they can make better-informed career decisions earlier in college.

“If they’re majoring in political science, we’re sharing with students what political science graduates of Georgia State are doing: What companies they’re working for, what organizations, what titles, what their salaries are,” Renick said. “And we’re doing that in the first year, so that when they’re making decisions about their majors, they have the kind of information they need to be informed.”

Renick’s testimony begins at the 28:10 mark.