Transcript Slide 1

The Art and Science of
Enrollment Management
Brenda Porter Poggendorf, PhD
LECNA Presidents Meeting
February 2015
Background
•
33 years in Lutheran higher education
•
Admissions, financial aid, student affairs,
president’s assistant
• Worked with two very different presidential
styles
•
Research in student persistence (based on
ELCA data and colleges)
•
Two high school daughters!
Recruitment
• There is no silver bullet.
Challenges are great.
• Changing demographics
• Ability and willingness to pay
• Increasing competition for fewer students
• Changing student behaviors
1. Process/Promotion
2. Product
3. Price
4. People
5. Persistence
Process/Promotion
•
Systematic (Funnel)
• Be strategic, not just busy
• Message (product vs. process)?
• Timing?
• How delivered?
•
Reports/Data
• Regularly
• Power of projections
• Know when to start and stop activities
Process/Promotion
• Reliance on others from across campus
(admissions as generalists, specialists or matchmakers?)
• Public relations
• Information technology
• Faculty
• Coaches and other staff
• Students
• Alumni and parents
•
We don’t control the messaging (as much) anymore.
Process/Promotion
•
Vendor Partners
• Value added?
• Who’s in control?
• How many should you have?
• Print vs. Digital?
Questions you might ask about
process/promotion
1. Are we watching the hood ornament or the
roadmap?
2. How many vendors do we have and what are
their roles?
3. What can we stop doing in order to redirect
funds toward a more fruitful endeavor?
4. How diversified are our communication streams?
Product
•
Difficult to tweak our way to increasing
enrollment.
•
Just as we need to find new ways to craft and
broadcast/target our message to expanding
markets, we need to focus on new programs.
Product
•
Academic (flagship programs?)
•
Out-of-the-Classroom
•
Focus on Mission
•
Outcomes, Outcomes, Outcomes
Questions you might ask about Product
1. Do we have programs that are especially strong
and that we can showcase more?
2. What new programs would attract and enroll
students (new market)?
3. Does your website and other marketing
materials clearly tell visitors what your graduates
are doing?
4. Does our faculty have departmental recruitment
(and retention) among their annual goals?
Price and Net Tuition Revenue
There is no silver bullet.
1. Merit vs. need aid
1. Can we go back?
2. Full pay students
3. Reducing the Discount Rate
4. High Price/High Discount vs. Low
Price/Low Discount
College Costs: The Rest of the Story
The Atlanta Business Chronicle, January 2015
College Board report recently focused on increases in
published costs and high price of 4-year private
colleges.
And
Average family income was lower in inflation-adjusted
dollars in 2013 than it had been in 2003.
So
No wonder all the talk about cost of education
College Costs: The Rest of the Story
The Atlanta Business Chronicle, January 2015
In 2004: sticker price for private college was $25,000
net price was < $15,000
In 2014: sticker price for private college is $31,000
net price is $12,000
College Costs: The Rest of the Story
The Atlanta Business Chronicle, January 2015
Oglethorpe president suggests:
• Focus on core enterprise / unique value proposition
• New revenue streams
• Enrollment growth (English Language Institute)
260 students in 2 years, now enrolling as degree
seeking students.
• Partnership – long-term land lease with
apartments for upper class students (50%
increase in endowment with an up-front fee and at
least one new campus building)
Questions you might ask about Price/NTR
1. How many full pay (even high pay) students do we
have among our students? Who are they? Where do
they come from?
2.What is the impact of our net price calculator?
2. Can we create a revenue stream of full/high pay
students that allow us to discount for the ones who
need it?
3. What other revenue streams can we initiate to take
pressure off of growing enrollment and tuition
increases?
People (Leadership & Staffing)
•
There is no formal training program for
enrollment leaders. It’s an apprenticeship
program.
•
The role of the admissions office is to find
ways to better understand and overcome
challenges, not to accept them.
(diagnosis vs. prescription)
Desired Qualities in EM Leaders
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
People skills
Relationship building
Data analysis
Ability to collaborate
Ready, aim, fire (be nimble)
Tenacious
Energized by a challenge
Many good people are leaving the profession.
People (Leadership & Staffing)
•
Compensation
• According to Compease:
Adm Counselor $33,200-$49,800
Asst. Director $37,200-$55,700
•
Staff development and retention
• Who are you hiring to recruit?
• Revolving door vs. longevity models
Grooming EM Leaders
•
Professional development
•
Conferences, programs, education
•
Mentoring
•
Consultants
•
Provide clear and helpful feedback
and evaluation
How can presidents help?
•
Set realistic expectations
•
•
Number ++ Quality ++ Net Revenue
Balance and prioritize competing desires
Agreement across Cabinet/Campus
•
The importance of outcomes
•
Create culture where everyone helps.
•
Everyone’s an expert (not)
Questions you might ask about People
1. If our chief enrollment officer does not have all
the desired qualities, is he/she surrounded by
others who have them? (gap analysis)
2. Does our institution have depth in the
admissions team?
3. Does my chief admissions officer offer
prescriptions with the diagnosis?
4. Can our recruitment staff speak “financial”?
Persistence (Student Retention)
•
More expensive to recruit replacements than
to keep the students you’ve got.
•
Despite years of focus, graduation rates
among all higher education institutions have
not improved.
•
4-year graduation rate for Lutheran colleges:
• Range 15% - 82%
• Mean 47%
•
Institution-specific.
•
There is no silver bullet.
An approach to measuring your persistence rates
Who did I talk with?
•
Faculty taught primarily 1st year students
•
2nd year students
• Administrators with significant experience at their
current institution or were familiar with their institution
•
Academic Affairs
•
Student Affairs
•
Enrollment Management
Findings:
•
Student-Institution Fit
•
Culture of Community
•
Facilities
•
Student Support Services
•
Early Alert/Early Warning System
•
First year advising
•
Orientation programs
Student Institutional Fit:
•
Students who know, understand & accept the institution
(culture, expectations, location)
•
Student responsibility
•
Institution responsibility
•
Admission office often cited
Culture of Community
•
Friendly
•
Learn names early
•
Set by institutional leaders
•
“customer service”
•
Involvement and engagement
•
Expect persistence
•
•
Fellow students as supporters, not competitors
Importance (for students) of relationship between faculty
and administrators
“Retention is not the goal, it’s what is
reported. It’s a result of what we normally
do.”
“How do we create a culture in which
people view themselves as practitioners of
student success? That’s a mindset.”
Questions you might ask about Retention
1. What is the predicted retention of our students given who
they are and are they persisting at a rate higher or lower
than that?
2. How can we better focus on student-institutional fit as we
recruit students? Who should be involved in the
discussion?
Questions you might ask about Retention
3. Is our entire campus community focused on student
success?
4. Do our policies and practices encourage student
persistence?
Lawlor Group Study
Enrollment Officers
1. Perceptions of value/willingness to pay
2. Ability to pay
3. Competition from peer institutions
4. Demand for evidence of successful outcomes
5. Negative publicity about expense/ROI
Lawlor Group Study
College Presidents
1. Ability to Pay (2)
2. Perceptions of value/willingness to pay (1)
3. Demand for evidence of successful outcomes (4)
4. Sustainability of financial aid discounting model (7)
5. Expectation of targeted (personal and relevant)
communication. (8)
Lawlor Group Study
Public Institutions
1. Changing demographics (ethnicity)
2. Insufficient net tuition revenue
3. Negative publicity about the expense/ROI of college
4. Demand for pre-professional course offerings
5. Sustainability of financial aid discounting model
Final Thoughts
 Recruitment isn’t just for admissions anymore. It
takes a campus.
 Is your campus more like the speedboat that can turn
on a dime or the ocean liner that must go miles as it
slows before it can make a U-turn?
 Does your senior leadership team include at least one
person who questions and encourages “other”
thinking?
Final Thoughts
 Yes, we live in challenging times in higher education,
but
 As we apply our liberal arts critical thinking skills, we
can find opportunities that will help us move forward in
positive directions for our colleges.
 Many good ideas are born out of a crisis. How can we
create a campus environment that fosters those same
creative ideas in the absence of a crisis? If we wait,
that crisis is likely to appear.
There is no silver bullet, no one-size fits all.
Leadership is the ability to establish standards and manage a creative climate where
people are self-motivated toward the mastery of long term constructive goals, in a
participatory environment of mutual respect, compatible with personal values.
-Michael Vance