Stepping onto Georgia State University‘s Atlanta campus as a freshman, Tyler Mulvenna knew the odds of graduating were stacked against him. A first-generation student from Newnan, Georgia, Mulvenna initially had been wait-listed, and he missed out on the state’s Hope Scholarship because his high school GPA wasn’t high enough.

That forced him to take out loans, work up to 30 hours a week as a sales rep at a local YMCA, and commute from home by bus to pay for his courses.

Moreover, the university, with its large population of low-income and first-generation students, had been losing 17 percent of freshmen before sophomore year and graduating only a bit over half of its students within six years. Yet today, Mulvenna is a senior on track to get his diploma on time. Freshman year, he says, was “a success.”

[Check out 10 ways to prepare for your freshman year of college.]

Georgia State, like a growing number of colleges and universities nationwide, has stepped up its game in helping first-years make the transition to independent living and college-level work. A main motivation: to change the fact that 20 percent of full-time freshm e n nationwide don’t return and that only 39 percent of students graduate in four years.

Students have many reasons to drop out or transfer, of course, from family problems to lack of funds. But one big factor that colleges can address is the lack of a strong connection to classmates and professors or to the school itself. A number of innovative programs that have been shown to help students thrive are worth looking for as you research schools.

Many colleges and universities aiming to make themselves “stickier” are building in a first-year experience as an introduction to campus life.

[Explore other programs that help boost college student success.]

Georgia State’s first-year program puts freshmen in a learning community, a small group of students who typically take two or more classes together. Mulvenna and two dozen of his peers interested in business spent the first semester taking four courses together plus a class focused on solving problems, tapping campus resources and living in Atlanta. The professor of that class also served as an adviser and mentor.

Each college offers its own twist on fostering community. Since 1933, Yale University has been placing new arrivals into a “residential college” where they’ll live for all four years. Sort of like Gryffindor in the “Harry Potter” novels, each of the 12 colleges has a unique architecture, courtyard, dining hall, library and activity spaces such as a movie theater, recording studio and gym.

Two professors live in each college, dining with students, arranging speakers and other events, and acting as academic advisers. Social life is the focus, rather than academics.

A more modern take on a purposeful housing arrangement is the themed living-and-learning community, in which students with a shared interest take a seminar or two together and also live together on the same dorm floor or in the same campus house. Social events and field trips often enrich the academic offerings.

Research shows that about half of freshmen now engage in some form of service learning, a key practice colleges use to engage first-year students in their studies and the local community while helping them bond with their peers. These programs link volunteer work with a class or other academic endeavor so students can integrate what they’re learning with the hands-on experience.

“One thing the college is great at is building community through service,” says Jennie Caswell, a senior at the College of the Ozarks in Missouri who is majoring in secondary English education. The education classes involve such service activities as working on the college’s Night to Shine gala for people with special needs and helping provide food for local families.

[Discover college programs that help students thrive.]

Colleges with first-year experiences and learning communities have often made a point of improving their freshman advising by having a seminar professor or faculty resident also fill the adviser role. Increasingly, schools are also using big data to support so-called intrusive advising.

Georgia State has culled years’ worth of data to see at what points students veer off the path to a timely graduation. Now its system raises an electronic flag when a student hits a danger zone, such as overlooking a course requirement. A prompt is sent to the student’s adviser, who then reaches out.

Some 45,000 flags were raised last year at Georgia State . Timothy Renick, the university’s vice provost, credits the first-year experience and intrusive advising for a jump in the school ‘s six-year graduation rate from 32 percent in 2003 to 54 percent in 2015.

At Indiana State University, advisers meet at least monthly with freshmen and interim grades are issued so students have a handle on their progress. Those who are first in their families to attend college get a faculty or staff mentor, and students who need extra support are appointed coaches who help with problem-solving and organization.

“I’m shy and procrastinate a lot,” says Loretta Stewart, a junior health sciences major from Indianapolis. “The coaching helped me become a better time manager and advocate for myself.” Freshman retention, which was running only 58 percent in 2011, has risen to nearly 65 percent. Now graduation rates are ticking up, too.

This story is excerpted from the U.S. News “Best Colleges 2017” guidebook, which features in-depth articles, rankings and data.

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