By Vickie Cook
Many institutions are facing significant financial hurdles and enrollment managers are called upon now more than ever to solve the multiple challenges related to enrollment issues including low numbers, diversification of learners to include the growing number and importance of adult learners, international enrollments, and tension between undergraduate and graduate program enrollments. Changing our current practices is vital to the future organizational health and rebounding toward fulfilling our mission in the higher education landscape.
As many as 57% of public 4-year institutions have reported budgetary challenges. Enrollment challenges create financial barriers for institutional effectiveness. Up to 77% of private, not-for-profit institutions have concerns about significant budget deficits (Boggs, Boroditsky, Krishnan, and Sarakatsannis, 2021). Public institutions report the same budget deficits occurring at both large and small institutions (Nietzel and Ambrose, 2024). As so many research studies have concluded, we are at a tipping point between a demographic cliff and the economic factors that impact decisions to continue pursuing an undergraduate degree (Grawe, 2023).
While the needs are great among all institutions, there are opportunities to think about enrollment management with distinctive approaches to assist your institution with moving forward. We will look at four specific management steps that may assist your team in considering alternatives to your current practices and thus leading your institution toward rebounding growth.
- Build a strategy. While this may not seem like a new idea, building out or changing the strategic approach to enrollment management is the first step to developing and encouraging new ideas and thoughts. Most institutions have a Strategic Enrollment Management Plan (SEMP), however, if that plan is not reviewed annually and evaluated for continued positive growth, it is not a true SEMP. To be effective, the SEMP must be current, relevant, and measurable. Currency of the plan should be within the most recent 6-month period with specific approaches to the next 6 months clearly identified. The SEMP cannot be a long-term static document. It must be a living document that morphs as changes hit the institution, the marketplace, and the industry.
- Create Process/Practice Maps. A business process/practice map can assist your teams in determining where there is need for change. Just because the map reflects the way your business processes have always been done, does not mean that it should continue to be done in that manner. But, before changes are made, a true plan should be discussed and agreed upon regarding the current practices. Continued dialogue would focus on why the practice is utilized, what problem does the process/practice solve, and what technology integration or upgrade could support the part of the process/practice that might be automated. Automation of regular processes will allow your human resources to focus their attention on student interaction and high-level thinking and performance. All lower-level processes should be reviewed for automation. A process map should be created for all vital functions of the enrollment management unit, both large and small. By creating the appropriate process maps for each vital function, true change can begin to be implemented.
- Implement Business Practice/Process Automation. After the process maps are created, discussion regarding appropriate changes and an identified timeline and responsibilities can be determined. Part of that implementation will be the creation of an evaluation document. Three questions should drive the business practice/process automation work:
- How might automation play a part in implementing the identified needed changes?
- What evaluation tool will be used and what data will be collected?
- What will success look like?
Through careful use of these steps, enrollment managers can test guided changes, assess each component of the process/practice mapping, and evaluate the overall change that has occurred. By structuring enrollment management processes through interaction between human engagement and technology for automation, enrollment managers can lead their units through the crises we see in today’s challenging environments in higher education.
If you are interested in engaging with other member institutions around enrollment management, please join the conversation on CORe, consider joining the UPCEA Marketing, Enrollment, and Student Succes (MESS) Network and/or attending the UPCEA MEMS – Marketing, Enrollment Management, Student Success conference in Philadelphia, PA, December 3-5, 2024.
Vickie Cook is the Vice Chancellor for Enrollment and Retention Management and a Research Professor of Education at the University of Illinois Springfield, as well as a Strategic Advisor for UPCEA Research and Consulting. To learn more about UPCEA Research and Consulting, please contact [email protected].
Demand for liberal arts education has declined in recent years as students increasingly eye college programs that directly prepare them for jobs. But according to many tech and college experts, as businesses launch advanced AI tools or integrate such technology into their operations, liberal arts majors will become more coveted.
That’s because employers will need people to think through the ethical stakes and unintended consequences of new technologies. Companies may also need people to help improve the written commands given to chatbots or resolve challenging customer service disputes that AI can’t handle.
College leaders therefore need to take action as AI changes the workforce, scholars say.
While robotics in the 1990s replaced many blue-collar jobs, AI will replace jobs that require college degrees, or even graduate degrees like attorney positions, predicted Ray Schroeder, a senior fellow at UPCEA. Schroeder estimates big changes will occur over the next three to four years.
“This is really a significant factor in employment and of course, those of us in higher education are monitoring it closely because we want to be able to give our students the skills that will enable them to thrive in this emerging workplace environment,” Schroeder said.
Unity Environmental University has celebrated explosive enrollment growth since it transitioned to a predominantly online institution beginning in 2016. And at a time when many small colleges are struggling with stagnant enrollment and financial challenges, Unity’s strategic pivot to digital learning continues to pay off.
[…]
Online higher education experts applaud the choices Unity administrators have made to transition to online learning, noting that their ability to raise salaries without bumping up tuition reflects a future of financial sustainability.
Ray Schroeder, a senior fellow at UPCEA, the online and professional education association, said that the key to success in higher education today is providing students an affordable, “anytime, anywhere” degree that is closely tied to an industry that will survive the fourth industrial revolution.
“[Unity] has really hit the key points,” said Schroeder, also a blog contributor to Inside Higher Ed. “It’s so affordable … but also, they provide a curriculum that is tightly connected to the environmental industry and that appears to be one that will continue to thrive, even through the advent of artificial intelligence.”
There are important steps to be taken in higher education as we prepare for the deep society-wide changes that will take place in the next five to ten years.
In general, these columns have focused on the incremental actions that should be taken to benefit higher education institutions and their constituencies as they adapt to the rapidly-changing technological advancements led by Generative AI (GenAI). This, I believe, is the best approach, to respond to the developments as they occur or when it becomes very clear that the changes are about to be released.
Yet, we must not ignore the long-term projected consequences that we can expect over the next five to ten years. I was prompted to once again consider those upon reading a profound article by Avital Balwit, Chief of Staff to the CEO at Anthropic. Titled “My Last Five Years of Work” and published last month in the Paladium Letter, this article raises concerns about many of the effects of AI taking over jobs on those who are displaced from their employment and society at large. It prompted me to consider, once again, the longer-term context of the advent of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR).
Recognizing that the era of autonomous agents is upon us, and that we will see over the next three to twelve months the release of agents (rather than chatbots) that will be driven by outcomes rather than more complex prompts. These will roll out rapidly with a wide range of capabilities. They will be a continuing part of the revolution.
Almost certainly this fall 2025 semester, or shortly thereafter, we will see the expanding use of GenAI as instructors. We already rely on apps to help us construct course syllabi, learning outcomes, grading rubrics and much more. AI conducts discussion boards, serves as tutors such as Khanmigo and orchestrates adaptive learning. The advent of synthetic instructors, perhaps supervised at first by human “master instructors,” will create a notable milestone along the way of AI progress in higher education. This is not likely to come without some pushback from some faculty, students, unions and others. Yet, I believe the capabilities, economies and efficiencies of advanced AI are likely to prevail.
Writing in PC Magazine, Emily Dreibelbis quotes Ray Kurzweil whose book “The Singularity Is Nearer” is available now:
The Singularity is the ‘next step in human evolution,’ when humans merge with AI to ‘free ourselves [from] biological limitations,’ Kurzweil says. This will happen primarily through brain-computer interfaces like the one Elon Musk is building with Neuralink, he says. Continued increases in computing power and price drops on chips and processors make this future all but inevitable. ‘Some people find this frightening,’ Kurzweil tells PCMag. ‘But I think it’s going to be beautiful and will expand our consciousness in ways we can barely imagine, like a person who is deaf hearing the most exquisite symphony for the first time.’ Skeptics should look to the theory of exponential growth, Kurzweil argues. Advancements are not linear; rather, society makes great leaps in progress that far exceed the ones that came before. Case in point: ChatGPT’s explosive debut. ’While it is amazing to see the incredible progress with large language models over the past year and a half, I am not surprised,’ Kurzweil tells PCMag.
As Avital Balwit notes in her recent Palladium Letter article, we are moving toward a society with rapidly diminished hiring of humans to perform many common white-collar tasks. The cost savings to corporations (and universities) in eliminating high-paying jobs alone will lead to less-expensive products, courses, certificates and degrees.
One might ask how many jobs will be eliminated or replaced by AI technologies? At this point in the rollout of 4IR, the answer is not entirely clear. Certainly, there already have been millions of jobs in the past year and a half that have been augmented, replaced or otherwise affected by AI. Conjectures as to the extent of job losses range well into the hundreds of millions of positions. Science, the peer reviewed journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), recently carried the article GPTs are GPTs: Labor market impact potential of LLMs: Research is needed to estimate how jobs may be affected that proposed a framework to do just that:
We propose a framework for evaluating the potential impacts of large-language models (LLMs) and associated technologies on work by considering their relevance to the tasks workers perform in their jobs. By applying this framework (with both humans and using an LLM), we estimate that roughly 1.8% of jobs could have over half their tasks affected by LLMs with simple interfaces and general training. When accounting for current and likely future software developments that complement LLM capabilities, this share jumps to just over 46% of jobs. The collective attributes of LLMs such as generative pretrained transformers (GPTs) strongly suggest that they possess key characteristics of other “GPTs,” general-purpose technologies (1, 2). Our research highlights the need for robust societal evaluations and policy measures to address potential effects of LLMs and complementary technologies on labor markets.
If the authors’ predictions are on target, the loss (or broad restructure) of nearly half of all jobs in the labor market may require some kind of universal basic income as suggested in Avital Balwit’s Paladium Letter article. Earlier this year, CNN took up the topic, noting:
Global policymakers and business leaders are now increasingly warning that the rise of artificial intelligence will likely have profound impacts on the labor market and could put millions of people out of work in the years ahead (while also creating new and different jobs in the process). The International Monetary Fund warned earlier this year that some 40% of jobs around the world could be affected by the rise of AI, and that this trend will likely deepen the already cavernous gulf between the haves and have-nots. As more Americans’ jobs are increasingly at risk due to the threat of AI, Tubbs and other proponents of guaranteed income say this could be one solution to help provide a safety net and cushion the expected blow AI will have on the labor market.
Stanford University’s Basic Income Lab examines this topic in great detail on a continuing basis. It defines the practice: “basic income is a regular cash payment to all members of a community, without a work requirement or other conditions.” How would such a program be funded? Some suggest the money would come from a tax on entities that use AI to replace humans because they will realize profits due to the economies of AI.
While all of this remains in the realm of conjecture and uncertainty, it is a topic that we all may confront at some point in the near future. As Avital Balwit suggests, there are self-image, mental health, and related issues as well as the economic issues to consider as we navigate the road to the singularity.
In addition, we must consider the mission and scope of higher education if nearly half of the jobs are not filled by educated humans, rather they are filled by trained AI. The premise of our system of colleges and universities is founded on teaching and learning for humans. If the workforce of the educated and skilled drops by nearly half, there would seem to be implications for our institutions. At the same time as we respond to the incremental changes in knowledge and skills of employees, we should carefully track and consider the changing societal needs for what and how we deliver through higher education.
This article was originally published in Inside Higher Ed’s Transforming Teaching & Learning blog.
UPCEA proudly welcomes Tanya Smith as the association’s new Controller. Tanya is a Certified Public Accountant with an extensive background in higher education. Prior to joining UPCEA’s Finance and Accounting team, she dedicated 25 years to the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), where she most recently served as the Director of Accounting and Financial Reporting.
During her tenure at UAH, Tanya was responsible for overseeing the financial reporting functions for both UAH and the UAH Foundation, providing critical technical direction, and ensuring compliance with regulatory standards. Tanya holds a Bachelor of Science in Accounting and an MBA from Alabama A&M University. She also earned a Master of Science in Cybersecurity from The University of Alabama in Huntsville.
As Controller, Tanya will oversee and manage all aspects of UPCEA’s accounting functions, including ensuring financial accuracy, compliance with relevant regulations, and providing timely financial reports for internal and external stakeholders. She will also play a key role in supporting the Finance Committee by providing financial information and analysis to make informed decisions.
“I’m thrilled to officially welcome Tanya to the UPCEA team as our new Controller!” said Opal Hawkins, UPCEA’s Chief Financial Officer. “Tanya brings a wealth of experience to the table, combining her strong understanding of the higher education landscape with her proven accounting and financial expertise. This unique combination will be instrumental in supporting our continued growth and success.”
Amy Heitzman noticed a new trend when UPCEA, an online and professional education association, put out calls last year to institutions looking to bulk up microcredential programs.
“Five of the 40 [applicants] said, ‘We’re going to hire someone to head this up,’” said Heitzman, UPCEA’s deputy CEO and chief learning officer. “And it was like, ‘Oh?’ But it was not surprising, because it’s essential.”
Microcredentials—also known as digital badges, credentials, certificate, or alternative credentials—grew in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now they are attracting renewed interest as institutions look to widen their nets for nontraditional students as an enrollment cliff looms.
Higher education marketing teams face a critical challenge: adapting to how learners now discover and explore educational programs.
From the first touchpoint to application completion, marketers must ensure a seamless experience for prospective students and maintain their presence throughout the enrollment funnel.
This makes recruitment SEO more important now than ever before.
With fewer high school graduates, higher education needs to redefine its perception of the “ideal student.” Despite numerous challenges, according to Inside Higher Ed, 77% of college presidents express confidence in their institution’s financial stability over the next decade. However, this optimism overlooks rising costs, potential consolidation, faculty retention issues, diversity concerns, and inflation.
Additionally, many university presidents hesitate to fully embrace online courses, a potential lifeline in the digital education era.
The sector also faces a “demographic cliff” — a decline in the number of 18-22-year-olds over the next two decades, potentially resulting in an annual shortfall of up to one million students.
Adult and non-traditional students present both opportunities and challenges to higher education institutions. They juggle financial obligations, work, family commitments, and the self-confidence needed to return to school. They may not be aware that colleges and universities can help them achieve their personal and professional goals.
It is up to professional, continuing, and online (PCO) units in higher education institutions to make their programs easily discoverable. Departments must consider learners who haven’t yet decided to return to school, offering resources on learning, careers, and job advancement.
This is where a well-considered search engine optimization (SEO) strategy comes into play.
SEO involves improving a website’s rankings in search engines for relevant queries. For higher ed websites, effective SEO can:
- Place you on the consideration list for those seeking degree, program, or certificate information.
- Help interested prospects find information about your school more quickly.
- Drive interest from prospects not yet considering education as a solution to their life challenges.
However, as our higher ed marketing research with UPCEA revealed, many colleges and universities lack the SEO skills and strategies needed to move prospects through their marketing funnel. Consequently, schools miss out on capturing qualified prospects from search.
While social media and other marketing tools contribute to recruitment, search has a broader reach. A 2019 BrightEdge study found that 68% of online experiences begin with a search engine — a number likely higher today. This underscores the crucial role of SEO in the discovery process.
Search engine ranking significantly affects users’ perception of a brand. The 2007 research study “Does It Pay to Get to the Top? Contextual Factors of Branding in Search Engine Marketing,” suggests that a lesser brand can appear more prominent based on its placement in search. Recognition of these brands increases when they appear before well-known brands in search engine results.
Clearly, if search engine ranking influences brand perception, SEO is an essential tool for higher education marketing.
From our 2023 joint SEO Research Study with UPCEA, we know that 84% of marketing departments view SEO as a core part of their strategy, yet half (51%) lack an established SEO strategy.
Imagine telling your boss about an important strategy component that you choose not to fully implement. It sounds crazy, but this is happening in higher education institutions’ marketing and recruitment offices.
This assumes that marketing teams even know how to implement an effective higher ed SEO strategy.
A well-executed higher education SEO strategy yields better results, regardless of budget and department size. SEO is critical because it provides high visibility to target audiences and helps convert and move individuals down the recruitment funnel.
It’s not enough to view SEO as a discovery tool. Prospective students often conduct subsequent searches for additional information and validation. The more frequently your institution appears in these searches, the more credible it seems.
Your absence in search results not only benefits your competitors but also undermines the goodwill you’ve built.
If potential students can’t find your institution where they search (SEO), how will this impact your long-term strategy to fill seats?
Why don’t marketers focus enough on SEO?
- PCO units lack sufficient human or financial resources for SEO.
- Many institutional leaders (deans, directors) are unaware of SEO efforts and are less likely to support resource allocation (48% don’t receive regular updates on important SEO metrics.)
- There is a lack of in-depth internal knowledge and skills about SEO.
In our SEO Research study, marketing leaders rated their unit’s SEO skills an average of 3.5 on a 1–5 scale, just slightly above average. Unfortunately, with a shrinking market, average results may not suffice.
The study, which included audits of 100 UPCEA Member sites, found that many schools’ websites are underutilized as recruitment tools. The average grade assigned was a D, highlighting significant room for improvement.
For a detailed analysis, check out the full report here.
BONUS: If you’d like to increase your chances of reaching the new adult learner, check out our free SEO Workbook for beginner-friendly strategy tips and tricks.
Will Scott is a recognized leader in digital marketing, known for coining the phrase “barnacle SEO” in 2008. Will is frequently invited to present at marketing and other industry conferences. Will founded Search Influence in 2006 with his wife, Angie Scott. Since putting his first website online in 1994, Will has led teams responsible for creating thousands of websites for business, building hundreds of thousands of pages in online directories, and delivering millions of visits from search. At Search Influence, Will directs the teams of dedicated professionals who optimize your potential! Outside of work, Will is a father to two boys, husband to Angie, his co-founder and COO in Search Influence. He is active in local non-profit and civic causes, an Ironman athlete, and a recovering heart patient.
Butler University has long been recognized for its commitment to providing high-quality education and fostering the development of well-rounded professionals. The Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) program has been a cornerstone of the university’s academic offerings for decades. Through a continuous commitment to improvement, Butler has embraced innovative approaches to ensure its offerings remain relevant and accessible to a broader audience. One significant step in this direction has been adding an online sequence of the PharmD program, expanding its reach to students nationwide who seek the exceptional education Butler provides while living outside of the region or balancing other life commitments.
Adding an online platform presented unique challenges and opportunities, particularly in rethinking how to effectively orient new students to the program. Because orientation plays a critical role in setting the stage for student success, the school partnered with Noodle, a tech-enabled strategy and services partner for higher education, to revamp the orientation experience, ensuring it was comprehensive, engaging, and tailored to the specific needs of online learners.
The Importance of Orientation
How the Program Began and What Was Learned
Making Changes and Seeing the Outcomes
Broader Applications: Going Beyond Orientation
WEBINAR: Learn More From the Source
The Importance of Orientation
Orientation marks a pivotal phase in a student’s academic journey, serving as the gateway through which they navigate the complexities of academic life, acclimate to their new environment, and forge connections crucial for personal and academic growth. A well-designed onboarding process is vital, laying the groundwork for academic success by providing students the necessary tools, resources, and support to thrive from the start.
But effective onboarding is not solvable with a one-size-fits-all approach. Instead, it requires a tailored strategy to accommodate diverse student demographics, recognizing that each individual brings unique needs and preferences to their educational experience. Interactive orientation modules cater to these varied demographics by providing personalized guidance and information relevant to each student’s academic journey. Through engaging multimedia content and interactive exercises, students gain a comprehensive understanding of their educational environment and the resources available to them.
A seamless integration of orientation with academic advisors and support staff ensures that students can access personalized assistance when they need it most. On-demand access to resources like online libraries, research databases, support services, and tutoring further facilitates students’ success by providing the necessary tools to achieve their goals.
How the Program Began and What Was Learned
Initially, the standard orientation structure for Butler’s PharmD program seemed comprehensive. Elements included an overview of the university and school, a detailed program overview, an introduction to experiential learning, a guide to course technology, an introduction to co-curricular engagement, a mix of live and virtual events including live orientation, basic student services, and success tips, and a checklist of important forms to complete. Despite this thorough structure, students still faced significant challenges.
Many struggled with the use of Canvas and other course technologies, leading to faculty being inundated with questions about these tools and managing course expectations. Time management was another major issue, with students finding it difficult to balance their schedules effectively. Engagement in discussions and live sessions was also lacking, indicating a need for better strategies to foster participation and interaction.
Addressing these issues required significant collaboration. Dr. Kevin Tuohy, Butler University College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences Assistant Director, and Noodle’s Robyn Hammontree maintained open communication by hosting meetings where faculty could bring up questions, concerns, and successes. Throughout the nearly two-year build process, they held weekly meetings to identify issues and course-correct as necessary.
Making Changes and Seeing the Outcomes
To improve the orientation experience for Butler’s PharmD students, several key changes were implemented. In the area of navigating technology, a section on preparing for live classes and utilizing Zoom to its full potential was added. This included tips for live class sessions and comprehensive guidelines for navigating Canvas. In addition, support for the courses was enhanced, with a Primer course being developed to introduce all courses, which is set to launch in Summer 2024.
In the realm of student services and success tips, additional support for time management was provided. Netiquette sections were included for live sessions, discussions, and community-building activities. A section on reframing mindsets about online courses was added, emphasizing the rigor of the program, its self-directed nature, and the support available from faculty. A Next Steps section was also included, providing information about the two-day live online orientation.
Immediate feedback was incorporated into the orientation process so students could make necessary adjustments before beginning the program. A Student Readiness Assessment was introduced to ensure that students had absorbed the information presented in the orientation. To encourage engagement, additional peer-to-peer interaction was fostered through sections like “Share Your Strategies for Success,” allowing students to engage with peers and faculty early on.
These changes led to several positive outcomes. Faculty reported fewer questions from students about Canvas and course technology. There was greater and deeper preparation and participation in live sessions, and better peer-to-peer relationships were established from the start, fostering camaraderie and community. Overall, there was a higher level of student engagement and success earlier in the program.
Broader Applications: Going Beyond Orientation
The importance of personalizing orientation content and updating it as student needs evolve really can’t be overstated. To implement similar improvements in your own orientations, it’s essential to first identify where students are struggling and determine the potential causes. This can be done through formal course evaluations, listening sessions with students and faculty, and close contact with your student support team. Providing support early, ideally during orientation, is crucial.
It’s also important to consider all available resources when choosing partners for these projects to develop the best possible process for your individual scenario. There is an unfortunate tendency for support and service team work to be siloed, but it’s absolutely essential to student success for program leadership, student support, learning designers, and faculty to be aligned and communicative in order to identify and fix issues. We recommend regular meetings among these groups, as well as a standard status report deployed to all stakeholders, to ensure swift solutions are found.
Once you’ve gathered feedback, it’s important to work with faculty and learning designers to determine why certain issues have arisen. Ask yourself where students are struggling in your online program or course, how you are currently orienting students to the online space, and whether there are ways to better prepare students for success. Partnering with people or teams that can help explore creative solutions can help avoid tunnel vision. Establishing an ongoing evaluation process for your orientation that allows for continuous improvement is key to ensuring its effectiveness.
Ensuring you have this thorough evaluation and revision process for your online courses has applications beyond orientation: it can also be applied to the revision of existing courses and programs. Too often, we don’t devote enough time or resources to ensure online courses are responsive to rapidly evolving student needs. Implementing a review and revision cycle, not just for your online orientation, but for all your courses, can make a huge difference in student success and satisfaction.
WEBINAR: Learn More From the Source
To delve deeper into these strategies and see the full transformation of Butler’s PharmD orientation, attend our upcoming webinar with Dr. Kevin Tuohy and Robyn Hammontree, the experts behind this project. Whether you’re looking to refine your own orientation programs or simply curious about the process Butler followed, this webinar will offer valuable insights and practical tips.
Register today to explore with us how to create future-focused, effective orientations that cater to the diverse needs of tomorrow’s online learners.
Robyn Hammontree is the Senior Managing Director for Learning Partnerships at Noodle, and Dr. Kevin Tuohy is an Associate Professor of Pharmacy Practice and Assistant Director of the Doctor of Pharmacy Online Pathway at Butler University.
Noodle is the leading tech-enabled strategy and services partner for higher education. A certified B corporation, Noodle (founded in 2013) has developed infrastructure and online enrollment growth for some of the best academic institutions in the world. Noodle empowers universities to transform the world through life-changing learning. It offers strategic consulting to advise partners as they navigate their futures, provides services tailored to meet their growth aspirations, and deploys technology, tools, and platforms that integrate for scale, making our partners more resilient, responsive, efficient, and interconnected. Noodle.com