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 SEM America |
| Strategic Enrollment Management WORKS |
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| SEM WORKS AMERICA E-NEWSLETTER, Volume 3, 2008 |
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INTRODUCTION
There have been many changes this past year in enrollment patterns. Changes include recruiting and retention practices and the resulting impacts on things such as Pell Grant availability and higher attrition rates for online students.
Today, the good news is that your institution can still actively enroll students and WIN - but only if you are prepared to take heed of expert advice about innovative recruitment strategies, understand and apply marketing best practices that are tried and true in the business sector, and seek out ways to really listen to your students and their feedback about what they want from their institution of choice.
The articles included in this issue of SEM America cover the aforementioned topics and much more.
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RECRUITMENT
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- StARs Program — A Great Recruiting Tool: Arizona State University has found one method of recruiting that capitalizes on two characteristics of the millennial generation …their desire for social networking and their love of technology as a means of communication. This 'student ambassador for recruitment' or StARs program allows current ASU students to speak in an unedited voice to prospects who inquire online about various aspects of the university. Read more.
- Minority Numbers Climb as Majority Numbers Drop: While many colleges are already ensconced in planning and strategies to increase their enrollment of minority students, the pool of prospective applicants is going to increase by the year 2042, according to the US Census Bureau. The Bureau goes on to say that by the year 2050, whites, who currently comprise approximately 66% of the population, will drop to 46%. More projections on Hispanic, African-American, and American Indians and Alaska Native gains over the next 30 to 40 years can be found here.
- Marketing Best Practices… Not Just for the Business Sector Anymore: While many marketing tips and tools are originally designed for the private business sector, colleges and universities can also benefit from solid marketing best practices. Competition in the marketplace, product placement, pricing, and image issues have become the ultimate equalizer of educational institutions and corporate America, making it more difficult to distinguish between the competitive environment of an ivy-league university and a corporate giant like BMW. And to add insult to injury, technology has made the competition more ferocious and changed the game for every industry in relation to such things as segmentation, benchmarking, and advertising. The 60 second marketer offers some excellent tips on how to enhance your marketing efforts and increase your return regardless of your industry. To view a series of 60-second video clips on topics related to branding, direct response marketing, email marketing, interactive marketing, and new and emerging mediums click here.
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ADMISSIONS
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- It's An Enroller's Market: In today's world of higher education, enrollers — that is colleges and universities, have the market over and above enrollees (students). With increased applicant pools, many universities are choosing to make mid-year (January or February) offers to students even after they've made a full complement of offers for the start of the academic year in September. And students who get these offers from their "first choice" university are taking the bait. As one student so aptly put it, "I waited four years to go to USC, I think I can wait four more months." Get the whole story.
- Online Enrollments Up — a Blessing and a Curse: Today, how could any one in the field not know that online course registration is a burgeoning area of enrollment for all institutions of higher education? And while the convenience factor for students taking a course at home might have been one of the original factors that spurred online registrations, it's now the price of gas that has pushed internet enrollment to an all-time high. This is both a blessing and a curse. The blessing comes in the form of increased enrollment, but the curse can come in the form of increased dropout rates by students who enroll online without first considering their personal readiness for coursework that requires more self-discipline and self-imposed structure for success. Read more.
- Rising Enrollment Causes Pell Grant Shortfall: While many colleges are basking in the glory of increased enrollment this fall, the pink slip for this happy event has come in the form of a $6 billion shortfall in Pell Grants. Apparently a worsened economy has resulted in greater numbers of Pell-eligible students with lower expected family contributions returning to college to either train for a career not lost to foreign trade, to enhance their current job skills, or to avoid attending the bigger, expensive universities that are too far from home. Read more.
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RETENTION
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- All Retention Efforts Are Not Equal: The retention of adult students is a different proposition than that of younger college students. Whereas issues of readiness, self-discipline, poor study habits, or personal crisis can toy with an 18 year olds' decision to stay enrolled, adult students are more likely to be juggling such things as children, daycare, aging parents, spouses, workplace demands, and the stress that goes along with providing financial support for a family. In an effort to provide relevant and timely support to these students, Indiana University offers a host of services and programs designed specifically with adults and their unique needs in mind. Read more.
- Swirling Students Play Havoc with Retention and Graduation Rates: Swirling is a new term that refers to students who enroll in a variety of institutions across time, and sometimes simultaneously. For obvious reasons, their constant "comings and goings" can make retention rates look bad, and graduation rates look worse. But the truth is… many students who appear to have dropped out of one college, enroll in and often graduate from another. In this article, Lopez, Sturtz, and Bermudez from the Connecticut State University System discuss how a student's ability to swirl reflect a more accessible education system, and that old methods of measuring retention and graduation no longer apply. Find out more.
- Recruiting to Retain: Admission officers are charged with the responsibility of turning inquiries and prospective students into enrolled and retainable students. Tim Robinson, however, dares to ask the question "Is it fair or unfair to expect enrollment managers to assume responsibility for the student experience after enrollment?" He discusses the idea that perhaps a good "fit" at the stage of recruitment can only really be measured by whether or not the student is ultimately retained over time. Read more.
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SPECIAL TOPICS
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- From the Horse's Mouth: While there is a place in higher education research for hard data, surveys, interviews, and literature reviews…nothing can replace the authenticity of focus groups where students get to "say it in their own words." Open-ended questions in a loose format can surface ideas and themes that might otherwise get overlooked in hard data, and inform and clarify other data collected. This link offers seven different video clips collected by CSSSE (Community College of Student Engagement) as part of an initiative called SENSE (Survey of Entering Student Engagement) where students comment on a variety of subjects including entering college, financial aid, classroom experiences, and their advice to colleges.
- Four Year Private College Almost Triples its Enrollment: The University of the Incarnate Word is an accredited private university with a student base of more than 6,700 undergraduate and graduate students. Dr. Louis Agnese Jr., its president since 1985, took a small, four year private college with an enrollment of less than 2,500, and through much discussion, arguing, participation, committee-convening, planning, side-stepping of nay-sayers, inventive marketing and fund-raising tactics, grew a small southern four year private school of the 70s into a large, thriving, multi-ethnic university of the new millennium. Read Dr. Agnese's story.
- Beyond Predictive Modeling: According to Campbell, DeBlois, and Oblinger (2007), there is a force more powerful than even predictive modeling for tackling difficult enrollment, fund-raising, and retention issues in higher education. It is called academic analytics. They describe these analytics as a marriage between "large data sets, statistical techniques, and predictive modeling" to mine institutional data to produce "actionable intelligence". Read more.
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Return to Top
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This e-newsletter was edited by Maggie Killoran for SEM WORKS, based on publicly-available information. Neither the editor nor SEM WORKS assume liability for comments or information posted by others. Please send your comments to Kara Mohre, Director of Marketing at [email protected]
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