The roller coaster-like ride that has sent much of higher education on breathtaking twists and turns in recent years may be far from over. Still, clearly identifiable tools are emerging with new survival strategies for helping troubled institutions across the country.
With an overall goal of boosting retention and completion rates, myriad efforts are afoot. Some institutions are revising demographic recruiting strategies. Some are rebranding themselves and their pitches to catch the attention of wider audiences.
Institutions are paying more attention to and raising funds for helping existing students pay the costs of staying in school.
Improving enrollment
Some institutions are learning how to be more customer friendly by making sure courses advertised in a catalogue are offered the year the student wants them. They are devising programs to expedite graduation and improve and expand articulation agreements between public and private and two- and four-year institutions.
“The best way to improve enrollment health is to retain and graduate the students you have,” says Tom Green, associate executive director for consulting and SEM at the American Association of College Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO), offering an opinion increasingly related by institutions across the country.
“Every type of school you look at has some kind of focus on that,” says Green.
