At scale implies automation, especially guessing at budgets to support these programs. I think schools know there has to be a human at some point in the intera

At scale implies automation, especially guessing at budgets to support these programs. I think schools know there has to be a human at some point in the interaction chain. A frustrating experience I had with this is a school I was at (expensive uni) tried to farm out this responsibility to other students. In a mentorship program designed to do 1:1 student:student pairings and used “SMS intervention” this program asked students to take up to *10* student mentees, with the idea that that the real mentor load is pretty low (quick convos). To me, this felt like an outrageous ask, as if they were trying to sub in students paying to be there with the tasks paid advisors are responsible for. This was at grad school, and I think indicated something funding challenges behind the scenes. I imagine it’s similar/worse at high school levels. Maybe not the same exact problem, but it makes sense why this specific program linked has trouble.