Industry Insights

Valuable insights from UPCEA's trusted corporate partners.

The Top 7 Ways to Recruit Professional and Continuing Education Students for Higher Education

April 6, 2021

Your future continuing education students already exist — researching and searching for your programs right now. So how can you effectively tap into the continuing education market and recruit new students for your programs?  Who are your future students? According to research from Thinking Cap Agency, professional certification students are an average of 31 years…

Tune in: MindMax launches podcast on higher education

April 2, 2021

What has changed for you in the last year?   For the team at MindMax, almost everything has. Since March 2020, our company has shifted to an entirely remote workforce, helped our university partners pivot their marketing and enrollment strategies to meet the evolving needs of their current and future students, and overall, we’ve spent…

Are Big Data and Data Science a Threat to Higher Education?

March 15, 2019

It was encouraging to read an UPCEA blog post from August 2018 in which Mindmax CEO Lee Maxey critiqued our data and knowledge environment.  Mr. Maxey’s description of how we’re drowning in data was on point; the sheer mass of analytics, metrics and all things measuring is indeed a problem.  With Big Data, comes Data…

The Benefit of Higher Education Being Late to Technology-Based Learning

September 14, 2018

In his recent book Thank You for Being Late, Thomas Friedman analyzes why the world seems to be accelerating away from us at a remarkable pace. His explanation: Humans are adaptable, but no generation has experienced technology, globalization and climate change at the rate we are seeing. As an example, Friedman suggests that if advances…

What about all this data?

August 17, 2018

For millennia, knowledge has always been equated to power. Information was once a scarce commodity and those who held the information or knowledge were generally already in power or had the ability to gain it. Since we have now left the industrial age and entered into ‘The Informational Age’ – or whatever we end of…

Other Blogs and News:

Tighter Budgets, Bigger Opportunity: How Intrapreneurship Positions Online and Professional Continuing Education Units to Lead

Higher education is facing significant financial pressure. Revenue is growing more slowly than costs across the sector. State funding is contracting. The demographic cliff has arrived. The institutions feeling this most acutely are being asked to do something that sounds simple but is not: spend less and generate more at the same time. For a…

The Future of Professional Learning Starts with Us

In 1915, UPCEA’s founders built this association on a simple idea: carrying knowledge to the people. That founding purpose never had an expiration date, and it does not have one now. It is why, more than a century later, the question in front of us was never whether professional learning needs to change. It is…

UPCEA Launches Digital Learning Academy to Advance Professional Learning for Higher Education Leaders

New professional learning ecosystem offers flexible pathways for career growth, practical skill development, and leadership advancement WASHINGTON, D.C. — August 4, 2026 — UPCEA, the online and professional education association, today announced the launch of the UPCEA Digital Learning Academy, a comprehensive professional learning ecosystem designed to help higher education professionals build knowledge, develop practical…

Leading Digital Learning Enterprises | Part 1: From Advocacy to Integration: Building a Digital Learning Enterprise

The recently released UPCEA Hallmarks of Excellence in Digital Learning Enterprises reflect the continued evolution of digital learning from an emerging modality to a mission-critical component of institutional strategy. This series explores each Hallmark, why it matters for today’s institutions, and how institutional leaders can begin using the accompanying benchmarks to assess progress and guide…

UPCEA Announces Hallmarks of Excellence in Digital Learning Enterprises

Framework defines the future of institutional digital strategy WASHINGTON, D.C., ISSUED JULY 29, 2026…UPCEA, the online and professional education association, today announced the release of The Hallmarks of Excellence in Digital Learning Enterprises, a landmark framework positioning higher education at a pivotal moment of transformation. As digital learning has become central to institutional strategy and…

UPCEA and MIT Professional Education Convene Senior Online Learning Leaders to Advance Data-Driven Strategy in Higher Education

Exclusive pre-conference institute highlights the growing role of data fluency in online education leadership Washington, D.C., and Cambridge, Mass., July 28, 2026 — As higher education institutions face mounting pressure to demonstrate outcomes, improve student experience, and compete in an increasingly data-driven environment, a new kind of leadership is emerging: one grounded in analytics, benchmarking,…