Why Graduation Is Higher Ed’s Most Overlooked Growth Lever with Chase Rigby of Tassel

Chase Rigby is the CEO of Tassel, a platform modernizing graduation experiences for universities worldwide. A former Google PM and Chief Product Officer at Canopy, his career sits at the intersection of education, technology, and product innovation.

💡 5 Things You’ll Learn in This Episode:

1. Why graduation is a key (and overlooked) growth moment 
2.  How Tassel simplifies complex commencement logistics 
3.  Where AI improves the student and admin experience 
4.  How graduation drives alumni engagement and giving 
5.  Why Tassel helps students earn money at graduation

✨ Episode Highlights:
[00:02:57] Graduation as a growth and marketing moment
[00:05:22] Unifying registration, tickets, and stage flow
[00:09:17] A student earns $3,500 via digital announcements
[00:11:53] Saving thousands of admin hours with AI
[00:14:18] The “cap-and-gown cartel” and outdated business models
[00:16:56] Better graduation to stronger alumni ties
[00:19:29] Disrupting the cap-and-gown model 

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Transcript

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[00:00:33] Chase Rigby: Some of these schools are also very decentralized, so you know, for example, what the GSV does is not the same thing as what the, the GSE does in their commencements. What Tassel does is it actually can standardize it and make sure that the, the branding, the experience, everything is equitable.

If you have double majors, like they don't have to register here and register there, they don't have to buy a cap and gown or here they, they can record their name. It's said seamlessly across the, so it's. It's a ton of hours and time saved for both the administrators and the students.

[00:01:09] Alex Sarlin: Welcome to EdTech Insiders, the top podcast covering the education technology industry from funding rounds to impact to AI developments across early childhood K 12 higher ed and work. You'll find it all here at EdTech Insiders. 

[00:01:25] Ben Kornell: Remember to subscribe to the pod, check out our newsletter and also our.

Calendar and to go deeper. Check out EdTech Insiders Plus where you can get premium content access to our WhatsApp channel, early access to events and back channel insights from Alex and Ben. Hope you enjoy today's pod.

Hello, EdTech insider listeners. I'm here today with Chase Rigby. CEO of Tassel. He is leading the AI modernization of graduation. Actually, pre-show, we were talking about our Teach for America experience. We both taught in Alum Rock School District, so probably a decade and a half apart. But hey, you know, something's unfortunately and there's always a need for a great educators.

In a rock as well as other districts across the country. Chase was at Google, he was a PM there. He was also Chief Product Officer at Canopy and he's a graduate of Teacher's College, Columbia University. His career has always been at the intersection of technology and education and so it's great to finally have you on.

Welcome to the show, Chase. 

[00:02:32] Chase Rigby: Hey, thanks Ben. Like I said, I feel like a long time listener, first time caller. This is, this is fun to be able to talk about it. 

[00:02:38] Ben Kornell: Okay, so. AI modernization of graduation. We don't talk about graduation very much in education, ironically. And you believe that it's one of the most strategic moments in education.

Why do you believe commencement holds so much untapped potential and what are institutions currently overlooking? 

[00:02:57] Chase Rigby: Yeah, that's a good question. Something you said really sticks with me of like, you gotta put the ED before the tech. In this case, with commencement and graduation, like the ED has been completed, and now you have to think about the technology.

And if you think about, I don't know, think about your own graduation, right, or even any of the listeners, whether that was five years ago or 50 years ago, it's really, it really hasn't changed. It's kind of all the same. It's like this. Very fragmented, expensive process that the students have to jump through all these hoops.

They've gotta go here on this janky website and, and register, and then they've gotta go to the bookstore and pick up a, an overpriced cap and gown, which is kind of a. Glorified bedsheet, if you will. And it just doesn't work for the students. And so the reason why I think that this is such a strategic event for our institutions, we're mostly in the higher ed.

We have over 700 of the largest universities in in North America and in Europe now. And I think that what's really interesting about the data that we see is the students who. If you can get them across the stage, if you can make that friction, if you can reduce the friction for them to get there, you say their name right?

They have this moment to celebrate this, this achievement, this accomplishment. Their, their families in the audience, their little brother and sisters are in the audience. This isn't just an academic exercise, it's really one of the biggest recruiting moments that a, a school can have in, in some cases there are more people that are coming to these commencements and and convocations than they are to the basketball games and the football games.

And so I think what we're seeing is there's been such a shift from schools that have normally thought about this as like. An academic exercise, just kind of check the box, get the kids across the stage and like, call it good. But the schools that are really making advance advancement and having higher retention, uh, of alumni and engagement and increasing their, their, their fundraising efforts, or even just their recruiting pipelines, they treat this event as a marketing event, as a recruiting event.

And so that's what, that's what Tassel does, is it's that. Platform that puts all of it together so that it's just a seamless, awesome experience for the students and also for the administrators. So that's kind of why I think there's been a sea change and so many schools have have been. Coming into the platform and, and we've seen a lot of growth.

[00:05:22] Ben Kornell: Yeah. It also reflects a changing dynamic in higher education where they're not seeing their student body as just a four year or two year or whatever, enterprise, but it's really around this ongoing lifelong community that you're a part of. And you know, it's called commencement. It's the beginning of something.

It's actually not the end of things. And so you see it as a way to rethink not only as a community milestone and bringing that community together, you have generations of alumni coming together, but also a strategic marketing opportunity. Can you give like concrete examples of. How that shows up and maybe even some success stories of universities that have really been doing it well.

[00:06:05] Chase Rigby: We are in probably about 700 of the largest schools. These are four year public privates, state colleges like ucs, the uts, the Ivys, but also in K 12 as well. Large districts and success stories are. The platform ties it all together. So from an administrator standpoint, typically what has been done historically is you have to, I mean, think about graduation, it's, it's a highly complex logistical event and you've gotta tie it together from a bunch of different vendors and spreadsheets, presentations, access database tables like, or even pen and paper.

And so I think where we've seen a ton of success is just. We streamline all of that through a registration form for the student. So we hook into whatever the, you know, CRM or your SIS is, and upload that, that data, so we know everything in terms of who's graduating, what their honors are, all of that data that's needed to then go and crunch.

Which ceremonies are they in? What time are they at? Who needs to register, how their name is pronounced, who needs tickets? Who needs their announcements and their student stories. And I think that that's just even before the event. Right? And then the really cool thing that I think it ties it all together once the data's all prepped, is that it activates the moment when you're walking across the stage.

So all of that gets tied into an Apple wallet or Google Wallet, QR code or a printed card if they, they want to do it analog like that. If you've been to a university commencement, I would say like 90 ish percent. All of that's powered behind the scenes by our software that runs locally there. So the students walk up to however you're queuing it, they scan it and their name is on the jumbotron.

It even has, you know, their degree or their, their dissertation, whatever they decide to put up there. And so it makes it so much better for the student because. One, they're approving and hearing their name before they even get to the stage. You don't have to just wonder, is somebody going to butcher my name?

Which you've probably seen the viral videos that happen like every spring of that happening. So we just take that out and we have one of the largest phonetic databases that. We've been doing this for almost 20 years now, and I stepped in as CE O2 and a half years ago, so the models just keep getting better and better.

One of the really cool things with students that's kind of changing the game, I've talked about how like graduation has always. Cost students hundreds of dollars. What we're doing at Tassel is we are rewiring the business model so that students, instead of spending hundreds of dollars to go to their own graduation, they can make hundreds of dollars coming outta their own graduation.

So one of the really cool features of the platform is our student stories, kind of our graduation. Think of like announcements, you know, and high schoolers or graduates would send out those like paper cards that have their nice foil photo and whatnot. Those are really expensive. So we build that online, but then we also put payments in it, into it so that they can send it out to their network.

It's not just grandma and grandpa and Uncle Rico giving you money now. It's like your network. And that's already been done in other life event verticals like weddings and babies honeymoons. 

[00:09:17] Ben Kornell: Yeah. It almost feels like the logistical space you're entering into is. Like life milestones, like a wedding, and everyone knows that when your family's involved, the stress level is going up and the complexity of logistics is also going up.

So I love that you've like tackled this thing that basically everyone loves, but everyone hates to plan. And you kind of handle that backend and then it can really, everyone can really focus on making it a magical event for the individual student, for their family, for the university itself. It's a great thing to tackle.

But yeah, I hear you. Like I now get all these digital announcements with payments. Where you're like able to virtually give your gift. And by the way, like me going down the post office and sending like a baby onesie just isn't gonna happen. Same thing with my niece who's graduating from Syracuse. Sorry.

So it's way nicer than ven mowing. 

[00:10:14] Chase Rigby: But like to that end, like I'd say when the biggest stories, like just even this fall, so most of our schools have spring ceremonies coming up. That's the. That's the big time, I guess, of our season. But we have a lot of fall. So just this past fall, I'd say success story.

We have one graduate made $3,500 just by sending out this, this announcement that was like, more money than I had, that's more than my net worth when I was an undergrad, you know, and it's life changing money. Uh, so they're, they're putting that towards. Paying off their, their debt or their loans or even using it to re-enroll in, in the next program that they're looking at.

So that's just one of the features, even before they get to cross the stage. And then I think the other big thing that we're really excited about this spring is that we're, we're launching photos where historically photos have just been, I don't know if you remember, like how much photos, it's 50, $60 for just a JPEG right now.

And so again, with AI in our registration form, the graduates can just. Upload their selfie. We take the, the facial, the biometrics, we can match that up. Photographers can click, click, click, and then the students can get those photos for free. We're really trying to modernize and rewire the, the business models that historically have always kind of come at the cost of students and starting to enable that and, and change the entire industry so that it is more of a.

A celebration and a recognition of their accomplishments and their achievements. 

[00:11:34] Ben Kornell: So we've talked a little bit about it from the student perspective, from the university perspective, it's viewed as this cost center, this operational burden. What does it look like after they've worked with Tassel? How does it benefit the school?

What makes it, you know, in your words, so strategic. 

[00:11:53] Chase Rigby: So we've talked a little bit about bringing the cost down. I mean, a lot of our institutions are facing enrollment declines or budgetary issues, and I think a lot of the growth that we've been seeing and some of the benefits the schools is that with what used to take a.

An event team of, I dunno, four or five people. Now, that event team might be one person and what used to be done in pen and paper is really hard to scale. And so some of these schools are also very decentralized. So you know, for example, what the GSB does is not the same thing as what the the GSE does in their commencements.

What Tassel does is it actually can standardize it and make sure that. The, the branding, the experience, everything is equitable. If you have double majors, like they don't have to register here and register there, they don't have to buy a cap and gown or here, they, they can record their name. It's said seamlessly across the, so it's, it's a ton of hours and time saved for both the administrators and the students.

One other big, I would say success story. That's really helped students have a lot of questions about these commencements, like these activities. It's not the, the top of their mind, you know, they're going through finals and so it's a lot of emails and phone calls that are diverted because questions from.

The student or mom and dad, how to get tickets. You know, where do I park? I need a visa letter, like, and those historically are fielded by these event teams or the registrar or whoever it is that's finding it. And so we have just our AI chat bot that will just be embedded on their commencement page and it has all of the information of what, which commencement they're supposed to go to when it starts.

And it just to flex a ton of that. So. Like a success story would be Cal State LA implemented all those features last year, and James, who's the commencement lead down there, said that they, they estimate, they saved probably almost 3000 hours just by deflecting the amount of phone calls and emails that would always load up the queue.

There's just a lot of, I'd say productivity gains and also cost savings for across both sides students and and administrators. 

[00:13:55] Ben Kornell: Yeah. I'm curious what has been holding this. Back, like why hasn't there been more innovation in this space? We see so many other elements of the kind of university tech stack that has modernized also in terms of logistics and operations a lot as professionalized.

Why has graduation and these kind of commencement moments. Lagged so far behind. 

[00:14:18] Chase Rigby: I think a lot of the investment has gone into more on like the curriculum side. There's been a lot on like the, you know, the campus management and stuff, but this is because it's at the very end of the student lifecycle.

It's often gone overlooked, and the only players in this market are literally one a hundred years old, a hundred year old companies that have really monopolized this market and taken away any sort of choice because the way that a lot of these. Contracts work is, a lot of 'em don't necessarily see the light of day for RFPs.

They're done in, in, you know, behind the scenes or single source. And so what we've done is we've started to expand our platform and start throwing our hat in these, in these rings. And that's where I think a lot of schools are kind of. Exiting from the cap and gown, cartel, if you will, where it's becoming so much more of an open market and students have choice.

That's, I think, why historically it's just kind of stayed the same and there's been a lot of stasis in the market, but as we start to connect these dots between registration and tickets and photos and caps and gown, that's starting to, I think, bring the innovation into this space. 

[00:15:27] Ben Kornell: Yeah. It's so interesting because a lot of people who listen to EdTech Insiders, they assume that.

A lot of the innovation in EdTech is around curriculum, but when you actually dial in, there's innovation on multiple fronts, infrastructure, operations, organization, and this would be one of those examples where you know, you have these very traditional universities. That are still running pretty antiquated processes and platforms that could be far more efficient in delivering a world-class experience.

At the same time as they're also thinking about the kind of customer journey of a university in a fundamentally different way, the moment you get your offer letter to enroll all the way to the day you die. There's actually a pipeline for universities to connect with their students, and as they. Turn to alumni and this like event where you turn from student to alumni commencement is actually like one of those milestone moments that if you screw it up, it can really taint that alumni relationship.

You know, as you've been working, it sounds like you're mainly working with the undergraduate staff or even the graduate school staff, but not as much directly with the folks who run alumni relationships. Have you seen the alumni relations groups getting more and more involved in this space? Where does the handoff happen and what insights do you have about that?

[00:16:56] Chase Rigby: Definitely. I think that's like always been the hardest is because who runs commencement? Sometimes it's the, it's actually, it might be the alumni group. It could be the registrar, it could be the event. It just varies by school. There's varying degrees of involvement from the alumni or the advancement, but where it works the best.

Is a school that is, I'd say tightly coupled with the events team, the marketing team, and the advancement or the alumni team, and Tassel connects all those dots because some of the most, I'd say like the golden data, the critical piece that, uh, a university needs when a student is getting ready to graduate is their updated personal contact information like that kicks off the fundraising cycles of, of any campaign that they have.

So we've seen a lot of alumni. Groups start saying, Hey, like we need you to use Tassel because that connects the dots and completes the loop where you can collect the survey information that, that we need. Otherwise, we're going to then having to be managing another survey platform, or we might lose the opportunity to actually collect that email address.

And so what's been really effective for a lot of our schools is putting that in the registration form as you're getting ready to graduate. A lot of 'em will ask questions about, are you employed? Did you get a job? What's your updated contact info? And so that, that way they can put it all together and they don't have to go and try and get that after the fact when the student's already taken off and, and doesn't care.

This is like a critical junction and like it's kind of the last task that like a student has to do. Like I always joke that we live in the space between that. Last, final, and that first job. And that's like where Tassel is and where it thrives. And so the schools that are most successful connect all those dots.

And I think that, yeah, we've even proven with some of our own data that a student that goes through Tassel, gets across the stage, has a perfect experience. They're three times more likely to give in the future. They're twice as likely to attend an event on campus Again. They're even more likely to send their family there or refer a friend to and, and speak highly of the institution.

So I think the, the alumni affinity and engagement just goes up if you get this moment right. 

[00:19:06] Ben Kornell: Totally. What's your sense of the state of play in the competitive market? Are the Joss of the world and these legacy players also? Responding to this competitive threat and like, do you see the whole space evolving or is this more of a story of legacy players and, and more of a new entry disrupting the space?

[00:19:29] Chase Rigby: I think like, I mean, you've seen this play out across other even. I mean within ed tech or higher education or even other verticals, you, you've seen kind of how these stories have played out, legacy providers and kind of new entrants coming in. You're either kind of unbundling or you're bundling, and we're at a point where schools are wanting, you know, there's a lot of consolidation, there's some headwinds for our market.

And I think that's actually become a tailwind for us. The cap and gown, cartel, as I like to, to call them, they very much are tied to their old business models. They can't move, they're, they're manufacturers. They're not software companies. As much as they've tried to create some of that, they have a lot of.

Things tying them down. A lot of that, to give you an example, is because their business models exist through kind of a independent sales reps and fields reps and a bunch of different LLCs and independent contractors, they're tied to that. The only way that they can sell to schools is are through these independent contractors.

So these middlemen create a lot of expensive margin. They, they add margin, then they have to go through the bookstore and the distributors. Our model is just direct to the school. It's direct to the student. And so in terms of like competition, I don't think they're singing in our praises in terms of some of the advancements that we're making, especially with photos and with cap and gown.

As we get into their market, there's kind of a cottage industry that's been more collegiate where everybody kind of respected, Hey, we stay in our lanes. We do cap and gowns, we do photos, and those lines are now like we are blurring those lines because we realized that. We can make it so much more affordable, more accessible, and more inclusive and just easier for these institutions.

So, you know, I think that there's always gonna be a world where some of those companies are, are around. But we are seeing schools that, I mean, I was just at a really large private school yesterday and they were saying how. That business model just is not working. Students, I think out of their, they had about 1100, this is a, a big, the business school, they had about 1100 graduates and only 60 of them actually bought the photos because they're pay walled and they're, you know, 60 to $75 a piece.

And so for them, like it's not worth it because in a world of. Social media and virality, like you want to give all your students those photos because what are they gonna do with the photos? They're gonna blast it out. And you know, it's kinda the same thing that like Disneyland has done is like you used to have to pay $30 to see the photo of you on Splash Mountain and.

Now they just give it to you because they know you're gonna put that on Insta or whatever. Everyone else is gonna want to come and ride Splash Mountain. So the brand impressions and the, the recognition is worth so much more than what has historically been done. And I think that's where like the legacy providers, whether it's Cap and Go or photos, they aren't able to provide that.

'cause their model depends so much on. Manual services or middlemen layers, and we are a software company, so we're just activating those experiences in the software. 

[00:22:34] Ben Kornell: I mean, this has really been an exciting conversation in part because you've been able to break through in a space that has been mired in mediocrity for decades, if not an entire century.

And I think it should be inspiring for other entrepreneurs who are tackling other segments of the education experience from K to Gray that have also been locked in like that. If people wanna, who are inspired, either as a university, as a high school, or as an entrepreneur, if they want to find out more, what's the best way for them to.

Find out more about Tassel. 

[00:23:10] Chase Rigby: Just Tassel.com. You can also like, uh, reach out even directly. I think there's a lot of opportunity and, and I don't know the story, if I can kind of give you an idea, like Tassel itself has been around for 20 some old years, but it was known as a company called Marching Order.

And two years ago, you know, I, I spent my career at Google and then I went in and, and did a kind of a PE turnaround of an EdTech company called Canopy. And I realized that there are so many point solutions within the higher ed space that are really good products. But they were bootstraps maybe 20 years ago.

They're maybe more Web 1.0. But schools love them 'cause they work. And so I actually, after selling Canopy, we, I decided to raise money and do a search fund to go and find one of these companies that we could actually. Take and improve and kind of marching order was more of a tech enabled service, I would say.

It really was just kind of more of the stage crossing feature that we have, and that was where I, I found this company and worked with the founder to say, Hey, I think we could actually take this a lot further and turn it into more of a platform. And so I would say if there's any entrepreneurs out there that are thinking like, man, I want to build, I think building is, especially in education, like the best thing you can do.

But sometimes you don't have to do that from zero to one. Like sometimes there's really good market fit and really good logos that you can find these, these companies, these assets and you can turn them into where you would want to go. So if there's anybody that's on that side, like reach out to me on LinkedIn, or I can tell you all about. 

[00:24:41] Ben Kornell: You know, we're in such a fragmented space that if you have the distribution to start with, start building, starting with your point solution, building out from there.

That can be a really powerful opportunity and you've already got some relational credentials to like grow from, and that's the kind of thing that entrepreneurs often are sorely lacking in the zero to one space. So it is really inspiring and thanks for sharing a little bit behind the hood of everything you've done at Tassel.

We unfortunately have to wrap here, but thanks so much. Chase Rigby, CEO of Tassel, and you can find him at Tassel.com and reach out to him online or on LinkedIn. Thanks so much for joining us today. 

[00:25:20] Chase Rigby: Hey, thanks, Ben. Thanks, Ben. I really appreciate it. 

[00:25:22] Alex Sarlin: Thanks for listening to this episode of EdTech Insiders. If you like the podcast, remember to rate it and share it with others in the EdTech community.

For those who want even more, EdTech Insider, subscribe to the Free EdTech Insiders Newsletter on substack.

This season of EdTech Insiders is brought to you by Cooley. LLP Cooley is the go-to law firm for education and EdTech innovators offering industry informed counsel across the pre-K to gray spectrum. With a multidisciplinary approach and a powerful EdTech ecosystem, coolly helps shape the future of education.

This season of EdTech Insiders is brought to you by Starbridge. Every year, K 12 districts and higher ed institutions spend over half a trillion dollars, but most sales teams miss the signals. Starbridge tracks early signs, like board minutes, budget drafts, and strategic plans, and then helps you turn them into personalized outreach, fast, win the deal before it hits the RFP stage.

That's how top Ed tech teams stay ahead.