Top 10 Higher Education Enrollment Management Trends for 2015

In the spirit of the end of the year approaching, I felt it necessary to put together my #BigIdeas2015 post on the top trends facing enrollment managers in 2015 ... and without further ado, here we go!

1) You will continue to be asked to do more with less.

It's no secret that recruitment budgets are not getting any bigger. All it takes is a quick look at the NACAC State of College Admissions Report to realize that cost per enrollment continues to be high, while budgets remain flat (or worse, decreasing). Admissions offices will need to look closer at each investment they are making and truly evaluate it's ROI if they want to survive another brutal travel season.

2) Students will continue to start online

As we said earlier this year in the annual Social Admissions Report, students are starting their research online and valuing the information they find. It's also not just about social media ... it's about about understanding where students are doing their research, and more importantly being there when they are doing that research.

3) Re-Targeting will become the norm (and most institutions will stink at it)

Somewhat related to #2, earlier this fall the Lawlor Review did a great job covering a new(ish) tool for savvy marketers, re-targeting. Re-Targeting is something that you can easily deploy on your ".edu" to ensure site visitors are getting nearly immediate follow-up after they leave ... but what good does that do you if you don't know if the person who just left is a parent, faculty member, alum, member of the media, or just your mom checking out your great web design work? Re-targeting that is focused on students actively demonstrating interest is going to win in the admissions arena ... Not simply retargeting visitors to your .edu.

4) International will become critical

As the saying goes, "the world is shrinking" ... but so is the population of college-bound students in many geographic regions. While for some schools with a national brand it may be easy to get students to travel across the country or around the world, but many institutions are going to have to work at it. And, of course, with limited time and resources you'll likely have to pursue a combination of an on-the-ground presence and armchair recruitment.

5) Transfer will no longer be a footnote

Most good enrollment managers have already been fine-tuning their transfer student recruitment strategy. What once was a "take what you get" approach is now a more active, focused, and overall bigger piece of the overall enrollment puzzle. Recruiting transfer students is harder than it looks ... The ones who master it will win the tuition discounting, net revenue, and headcount games.

6) Coopetition will supplant competition with your "peer institutions"

Last week I read an article published by Carol Barash at Story2. Her column focuses on admissions trends (more focused on application trends than overall enrollment issues). Her #8 is great ... so great that I'll just copy it here:

Colleges will sponsor and participate in collaborative college outreach events: It is getting too expensive for every college to run its own private road shows. More and more groups of similar colleges will create events together to recruit students from diverse high schools and try to extend their reach to parts of the country where they have not previously traveled.

7) Outcomes (or ability to show them) will be the end game

By now you've all seen or at least heard of Ivory Tower. Well, the tower is just the tip of the iceberg. With most students having "buyer's remorse" after college, the ability to show positive outcomes of the investment in education at your institution will continue to become more and more important. And as we all know, those outcomes start with your recruitment messaging.

8) Yield will continue to rise in importance

Why yield is not a primary factor in rankings is beyond me. In my opinion, our ability to find, admit, and enroll the right students should be a benchmark that is more widely publicized. Schools with lower yield are either

• Flooding their applicant pool to boost selectivity
• Not properly aiding their students (more on this in a separate post)
• Focusing on the wrong interactions at the wrong times (or more positively, the right interactions at the wrong times)

Additionally, if you find yourself in a yield "pinch" it's going to be important to have a solid strategy for bridging your enrollment gaps.

9) Mobile content will be king

To say that sometimes we are slow to adapt would be an understatement. Ask yourself and your marketing team, "is our site mobile-optimized"? The reality is that many institutions still cannot answer that question with a resounding "yes!".

The 2015 Social Admissions Report (coming January 27, 2015) dedicates a lot of content to how students use mobile to not only access social media, but also digital content and how they engage with your institution throughout their college search.

10) Student lifecycle management will be your next directive

When I worked in enrollment management at a regional private school in Connecticut, many of my colleagues would lament how "involved" we had to be at areas outside of admissions ... Running check-in and registering students for classes at orientation, proctoring placement tests, helping at move-in day ... the list goes on and on.

The reality is that in many ways my prior institution was ahead of the curve with how entrenched enrollment management really is. True enrollment managers cannot only look at recruitment. They need to think about retention as well ... and ultimately down the road need to think about supporting students in their careers.

Does this mean an admissions counselor is going to wear every hat on campus? No. But what it does mean is that top enrollment officers need to look back to #1 on my list and truly evaluate every interaction students are having throughout their entire academic journey at their school and ensure they are doing everything they can, in the most cost-effective way, to support them.

That's my top 10. Did I miss any? I'd love your comments in the bottom!