A Scalable Data Pipeline for Early Detection and Decision Support in Higher Education: YuumCare

Early identification of behavioral risk patterns in large student populations remains a challenge in higher education, particularly when support systems depend on voluntary help-seeking. This study presents YuumCare, a structured and scalable framework that operationalizes population-level digital screening through a reproducible data pipeline for early detection and decision support. The framework was implemented during the first weeks of the academic term in a public higher education institution in Latin America, where 466 first-year students (38.9% coverage) completed a structured questionnaire capturing indicators of emotional well-being, academic pressure, and help-seeking attitudes. Responses were processed through a structured data pipeline comprising data ingestion, preparation, feature construction, and rule-based classification, transforming distributed self-reported data into standardized features and interpretable institutional signals for consistent analysis at scale. Results show that emotional strain, evaluation-related anxiety, and adaptation difficulties emerge early and frequently co-occur, while most students report low willingness to seek professional support. The classification process indicates that approximately one third of the cohort presents moderate to critical levels of need, providing a structured representation of vulnerability. The proposed approach connects digital screening with institutional decision-making through an interpretable and operational workflow that does not rely on complex infrastructure. Beyond descriptive findings, the study contributes a lightweight and reproducible data framework that supports scalable monitoring and coordinated response under real-world constraints, demonstrating the feasibility of transforming self-reported behavioral data into actionable decision-support signals for population-level monitoring in higher education.