Let the market speak.  I remember being told when I was young that I had two ears and one mouth for a reason...to listen more than speak.  The same principle is true when assessing the market response messaging from adult students.  A listening ear will notify us quickly that a shift in priorities is occurring.  Blended online may be on its way out.

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From an enrollment strategy perspective, would you rather be a big fish in a small pond or a small fish in a big ocean?  Believe it or not, the two are not mutually exclusive.

If your answer is to be a big fish in a small pond, you have already capped your institution’s growth potential.  It won’t be too long in the future when your institution's dominance in that small pond will begin to starve with the lack of resources to draw upon.  If you have not planned appropriately, your big fish strategy will mean you have a large infrastructure to support and an ever dwindling pool of potential candidates for new enrollments.

Blending business acumen with educational leadership demands knowledge of the current environment. With this knowledge, based on fact not on desire, higher education strategy can be formed with a much greater degree of potential success.  So I ask "If your institution were a business (which it is) what product would you put the most resources into?"  It would be the product with the greatest opportunity to be consumed by the marketplace.  One of the research sites that I frequent is the National Center for Education Statistics.

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Its a new year.  And a new theme is already in the web atmosphere of discussions within higher education.  How do you cope with more students and less money?

It comes down very simply to business modeling, or what we call business acumen.  In the simplest terms, if you were producing widgets at a loss, gaining more sales would just put you deeper into the hole financially.  It actually would become a disincentive to grow.  The longer this situation persists without being addressed the greater the vulnerability to failure.  Often instead of addressing this with rethinking the business model, higher education responds with across the board budget cuts leading to morale problems especially in your high performing work units.

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The future growth of higher education is post web-browser learning.  The growth we are now seeing in online learning is a stepping stone to mobile elearning....and yes, that means your cell phone or pda.

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This past weekend ES attended and presented at the SACS COC Excellence in Education Exposition.  This offered us the opportunity to connect with many current and previous partners along with establishing new relationships for the future.

During our visit and my discussions with many college and university senior executives, several themes became very evident.  Below is a brief synopsis:

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As we bring 2009 to a close, Education Strategy recognizes that the hallmark of Andragogy (Adult Learning) is reflection.  That doesn't just go for students in our partner programs...it goes for us as well.  So I thought it would be appropriate to do a compilation of the top ten principles learned or remembered in 2010 that have a direct impact on Targeted Enrollment Growth.

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Approaching a new academic year can be quite daunting.  I'm in touch with many higher education executives who are barely treading water as they attempt to count the numbers of incoming students, deal with returning faculty and get the wheels of the administration rolling again from registration to financial aid.

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Within the last 30 days both Newberry College of South Carolina and Mississippi Valley State University have launched their first new cohorts of 14-15 students each.  This is an exciting time and proof in product that a partnership with Education Strategy leads to enrollment growth. 

In both cases, three months or less following our first day on campus led to new student orientations and the beginning of a new focus on adult students.  For each institution, this is the beginning of a balanced enrollment portfolio targeting a new market segment.  This translates into longevity and sustainability.  Newberry's second cohort is on target for mid August and MVSU's second cohort will begin at the end of this month.

These are exciting times and we salute the efforts of both institutions. Congratulations!

Nathan

Friday is decision day for fall enrollments at most colleges and universities.  It is also a day that produces significant stress for academic administrators across the country.There is relief.  President Obama has some significant initiatives that will affect financial aid eligibility and enrollments very quickly.  Combining that knowledge with the 2008 Sloan-C findings and the specific situation found at many institutions one finds the advantages of triangulation.  While navigating the storm of economic downturn, triangulation will provide you with three key indicators to not only tell you where you are today, but where you are heading and how fast you are attaining your goals.The First Indicator: The Funding SourceMost private higher education is highly aid dependent.  As the government places a higher priority on funding higher education, your clients have a greater ability to pay for your services.According to the Associated Press last Friday, April 24th, President Obama again touted his plan...

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