The “traditional” student is quickly becoming a relic of a bygone era. The future of enrollment is concentrated in new, non-traditional markets: adult learners seeking rapid re-skilling, dual-enrolled high school students, and the millions of Americans with “some college, no credential” who represent a significant scalable opportunity for growth. Universities know they must pivot decisively…
I recently contributed a chapter in the recently released book, AI Applications in Online Higher Education Administration: Strategies for Maximizing Returns and Improving Outcomes edited by Kathleen Ives, Marie Cini, and Ray Schroeder. This blog highlights key take-aways from my chapter. Higher education recruitment is undergoing one of the most significant transformations in decades. Traditional…
Technologists, economists, and visionaries are warning us that in the next three to 18 months, we are going to experience rapid and pervasive disruption of our professional lives, workplace models, and distribution of income. Professional positions requiring college degrees will be lost, remade into highly-productive, cost-efficient, hybrid human-AI models where human contributions and compensation will…
I asked Gemini 3 Thinking, ChatGPT 5.4 Thinking, and Sonnet 4.6 Extended to tell me what jobs in higher education are most vulnerable to replacement by Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the next five years. I also asked for recommendations for current and prospective employees in the field. First, let me share with you links to…
A Glance at the Realm of Higher Education
By SmartBrief Editors This post is produced in partnership with UPCEA. Former associate provost for outreach and engagement at the University of Southern Indiana and current vice provost for continuing education at North Carolina State University, Mark Bernhard offers insight into success within the profession of continuing higher education. Question: Tell us about your…
The Commons: Boost your job prospects by “re-creating” vs recreating
Do you ever feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day? If you’re like millions of working adults (meaning, anyone reading this), of course you do. And, while most of us are referring to a lack of time between 9 and 5, the reality is that the most successful people are willing to sacrifice…
2019 UPCEA Marketing and Enrollment Award Recipients Announced
WASHINGTON, D.C., November 1, 2019 — UPCEA, the leader in professional, continuing, and online education, has announced the recipients of the 2019 Excellence in Enrollment Management Award and the 2019 Marketing Awards. The UPCEA Excellence in Enrollment Management Award recognizes an outstanding professional, continuing, and/or online organization (unit or individual) that models best practices and…
Thousands worldwide have participated in GW’s free online courses, officials say (The GW Hatchet)
Five years after GW launched its first free massive open online course, faculty continue to tout its advantages for students. Officials currently offer four MOOCs, which allow anyone to enroll at any time for a self-paced class in engineering or nursing after cutting two classes in summer 2018. Officials said the courses help their schools reach out to thousands of people…
The tagline for Convergence, Credential Innovation in Higher Education, raises two important questions: First, what kind of credentials are we talking about? Is the scope of credentials unlimited, blue sky, or confined to incremental changes on the margins of the status quo? And second, who is leading that innovation, and what do they need to…
We are pleased to share the foreword by UPCEA CEO Bob Hansen from the newly released Chief Online Learning Officers’ Guidebook: A Framework for Strategy and Practice in Higher Education. The guidebook, now available from Routledge in paperback, hardback, and eBook formats, provides a comprehensive framework for today’s online learning leaders. Learn more and purchase…
Online enrollment leaders don’t need another mandate to “use AI.” They need relief. Most teams are already stretched thin by demands to manage inquiry volume, follow-up expectations, data hygiene, and prospect responsiveness. They lack the capacity to take on yet another complex initiative, especially one that feels abstract or disruptive. AI mandates promise transformation when…
Discover how to explain AI SEO ROI to university leadership when attribution is imperfect, with insights and strategy from Search Influence. Across higher education, marketing teams are being asked to explain AI search visibility before institutions agree on how to measure it. Leadership discussions are moving quickly, while reporting frameworks remain centered on keyword rankings,…