How San Diego Mesa College built an automated student support engine with AI

About San Diego Mesa College

San Diego Mesa College serves a diverse student population across a four-campus district. As one of the largest and most successful of California’s 116 community colleges—and the largest within the San Diego Community College District—Mesa takes pride in its high academic standards, excellent programs and services, and a personal approach to helping every student succeed.

The challenge: Meeting student needs at scale without losing the personal touch

San Diego Mesa College faced challenges common to many large community colleges. Limited staff capacity, siloed processes, and underutilized tools made it difficult to deliver consistent, timely support to students.

Key challenges included:

• Limited staff availability: A growing volume of student inquiries strained the team’s capacity.
• Information silos: Students struggled to find accurate answers across multiple departments.
• Inconsistent chat bot content: Bots were scattered across departments, didn’t communicate with each other, and required duplicate updates.
• Manual processes: Follow-ups and coordination across departments were time-consuming and prone to gaps.

The result was frustration—for students, who were often left without answers, and for staff, who lacked visibility and the ability to keep content up to date. Mesa needed a solution that could scale to meet demand, ensure accuracy, and maintain the personal support students rely on—without overwhelming staff.

The solution: Centralizing student support and building a smarter system with AI

Mesa College reimagined their approach to student support by consolidating multiple departmental chat bots into a single, centralized system and pairing it with live human support. This combination ensured students could get accurate, timely answers while making staff work load more manageable.

Key strategies included:

• Centralized bot management: Consolidated multiple departmental bots into one unified “brain,” providing consistent, accurate answers across Admissions, Counseling, Financial Aid, and general student services.
• Live chat integration: Created a live agent team to handle questions, leveraging the bot’s knowledge base for faster responses while providing human support.
• Collaborative team approach: Staff from different departments met bi-weekly to review questions, update bot responses, and share best practices, fostering cross-departmental collaboration.
• Ongoing optimization: Weekly reviews of chat logs and student feedback allowed the team to refine bot responses for accuracy and relevance continuously.
• Enhanced student resources: Developed new tools like a “Find My Instructor” page and a contact directory, making it easier for students to navigate the institution.

By combining automation with human support and ongoing collaboration, Mesa College created a smarter, more efficient system that worked for students and staff alike.

San Diego Mesa College’s journey shows how thoughtful integration of technology with human oversight and collaboration can transform student support. By centralizing resources, empowering staff, and continuously refining the system, the team created a smarter, more efficient, and more connected experience—ensuring help is always available when students need it most.

Solution spotlight

Gravyty is the AI-powered engagement platform purpose-built for higher education, K-12 schools, and nonprofits. From first engagement to first gift, Gravyty empowers institutions to deliver smarter, faster, and more personalized engagement at every step of the student and donor journey. With solutions for 24/7 student support, alumni engagement, fundraising and stewardship, Gravyty helps teams scale their impact, break down silos, and provide always-on support without burning out staff.

Ivy & Ocelot from Gravyty empowers enrollment teams to create always-on, high-touch communication—without increasing staff workload. From multilingual chatbot support to data-powered content improvements, Ivy & Ocelot helps higher education institutions like Purdue University Northwest drive meaningful engagement, streamline support, and ultimately increase enrollment yield. 

Get a personalized demo to see how Ivy & Ocelot from Gravyty can transform your student engagement strategy.