When I first started this blog (originally, back in 2006), my focus was primarily on various aspects of higher education. In the intervening years, and particularly with my current work, I have shifted my attention to a variety of educational issues – some post-secondary, but many that are more related to primary and secondary education.
As a result, the focus of my blog will also be changing. I considered abandoning the old blog and blog name, but that would mean abandoning several years’ worth of posts as well. And, since I will still be commenting on higher education, it seems more prudent to continue with the current blog title. Hope that’s not too confusing for my readers!
In the Form 8-K filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, The Apollo Group announced that it eliminated approximately 700 admissions positions at the University of Phoenix for the quarter ending November 30, 2010. In doing so, the company reported that it will save about $8 million per quarter, or $32 million per year. A quick check of my trusty calculator shows that that means a savings of about $45,712 per position.
This actually seems rather low to me. Assuming about a 33% rollup of benefits, that would mean that the average position was paying about $34,400. When you consider the heavy sales emphasis that was alleged to be part of these positions, that really isn’t a huge amount of money. Of course, nowhere is there a mention of what would likely be saved in bonus payments to these individuals, assuming they had been eligible for such payments.
On the other hand, an earlier filing, dated November 23, 2010 outlined a change in the compensation structure for several senior-level executives. According to that document, 15% of the performance goals for these officers
will be tied to the level of student academic success and will be measured in terms of the percentage of students who first enroll in a University of Phoenix (“UOPX”) course at any time during the first two quarters of the 2011 fiscal year and subsequently earn at least one unit of academic credit.
Other factors, each with a weight of 15%, that will be used in determining performance include the results of a student satisfaction survey, measures of faculty engagement, and the improvement shown by individual campuses in addressing student concerns and complaints or issues raised by external agencies. The final performance measure, weighted at 40%, will be the company’s operating income for the first three quarters of 2011.
Just returned from the AACRAO SEM conference in Nashville, where it seemed that the sessions focused on customer service – and unabashedly using the phrase “customer service” – had SRO crowds. Apparently, the days of “Look to your left, look to your right, at least one of those students won’t be here next year” are over. And not a moment too soon.
Institutions, both virtual and brick-and-mortar, are full of students for whom “Amazon” is as often a description of a service level as it is the name of an online retailer. With everything from books to furniture to shoes and accessories available in a convenient, user-friendly environment, is it any wonder that students expect more than a “Come to the office during our business hours” approach to taking care of business?
And yet…providing exceptional – or even just acceptable and consistent – levels of customer service to students and parents, staff and faculty, is something that still eludes many institutions. It’s not that campus administrators want to do a shoddy job or create a frustrating experience for students who are trying to pay bills or register for classes. But for many staff members, the campus organizational structure perpetuates a culture where silos of information and fragmented services are the norm. Add to that rising expectations for enrollment, greater workloads resulting from stagnant budget and staff lines, an increasingly diverse student body, and expanding modes of communication, and it’s no wonder that some offices on campus have stopped answering their phones or responding to email. It’s hard to focus on voicemail or incoming calls when the line of students trying to get into your office extends out the door, down the hall, and around the building.
“One-stop” centers are still seen as a great way to bring together a variety of offices and services in one place to minimize the need for students to run all over campus. However, students still end up going from office to office, albeit in a smaller space. And if you can’t physically get to campus, you may not see the benefit of such a center. I worked for an institution that had an extremely good one-stop center, combining Student Accounts, Financial Aid, Campus Security (for parking permits and ID pictures), and the Registrar. Everyone was cross-trained, to a degree, and most could answer about 80% of the questions that came their way. Unfortunately, the center was only staffed from 8-5 Monday through Friday, and on the occasional Saturday morning. And if the issue that required you to come to campus wasn’t related to one of the offices in the One-Stop Center, you still had to hike from building to building to resolve the problem before you could return to One-Stop (before 5 pm, remember!).
Don’t get me wrong, I applaud the idea that we need to bring more services together in order to make various enrollment processes easier for students to navigate. But many of the solutions that have been developed thus far still put most or all of the responsibility on the students – who are the folks in this equation with the least amount of experience and the least knowledge of how to go to college. If every potential problem or transaction a student needs to resolve has only one possible answer, that’s great. Then they only need to contact one office and everything will be peachy. Unfortunately, that’s rarely the case, and students quickly feel overwhelmed and frustrated.
Whether it’s anticipating students’ needs, finding new ways to communicate with them, increasing the use of technology, re-examining business processes, or finding new ways to organize staff resources, we can do a better job of helping students (and other campus constituencies) to navigate our campuses. We’ve recognized the need to improve services to students, now we have to focus on ways to actually deliver great customer service.
I’ve blogged previously about what’s keeping admissions and recruitment directors and financial aid directors up at night. Since these areas are part of the overall enrollment management umbrella, you can probably assume that anything on either of those lists is also contributing to agita and sleeplessness for Chief Enrollment Officers as well. However, enrollment folks face some special – and additional – pressures that may not always impact admissions or financial aid administrators. And, for many EM chiefs, it may be important that these things not filter down to other staff, as they obviously have plenty to worry about all night as it is.
However, if you’re at the top of the ladder for enrollment at your institution, or wondering why your boss (the VPEM) looks like they could use a week’s vacation right about now, read on and see what’s making folks turn on the bedside light on at 3 am rather than rolling over and catching some more zzzzzz’s…
- Pressure to find ways to get more students to complete their education (from general public, legislators, current students and parents, alumni) – national average of 60% achieving a degree in 6 years is not high enough, yet for some schools, 60% may seem like the impossible dream
- Making sure the educational experience that’s delivered matches the expectations created during the recruitment/enrollment cycle
- Facilities & classroom management – are there enough physical spaces in classes/labs for all the students who want to attend or are enrolled?
- Potential decreases in students (high school, adult, graduate) in your region or service area, coupled with budget cuts and possible tuition increases
- Trying to figure out if online or distance education makes sense for your institution – and whether you can find faculty willing and able to teach, administrators who can run the program, and the marketing dollars needed to get students’ attention
- Dealing with the costs for providing increasing services to address students’ needs (counseling, tutoring, medical, technological, social, etc.)
- Pricing pressure – costs for all aspects of higher education continue to rise, but increasing the tuition and fees may price your institution out of its core market or lead to ridicule for being out-of-touch with the economic circumstances of students and families
- Need-blind? Need-aware? Need a Valium?
- Balancing the need to drive more decisions according to data and projections, meet revenue and expenditure goals, and still not lose sight of the ‘human’ or personal aspects of the job – when all is said and done, it’s supposed to be about the students, right?
- Keeping up with the Joneses, part I- or the institution across town that just built a $40 million fitness facility, luxury apartment residence halls, and guaranteed parking for four years
- Keeping up with the Joneses, part II – every institution but yours seems to have added the latest, hottest, sexiest and most-talked about academic majors…or at least the ones that relate most closely to the newest, hottest, sexiest and most talked-about TV shows
- Dealing with an increasing need to demonstrate the efficiency and soundness of the educational process for legislators, accreditation bodies, funders (in for-profit sector), parents, the media, etc.
- Figuring out how to engage with a wide range of students via a multitude of communication platforms – especially for on-line institutions
- Three words: Board of Trustees
- Constantly need to evaluate technology advances to find ways to improve services and reduce costs
- “Gainful employment” – whether you’re with a for-profit school or not, students and families (and others) increasingly want to know the outcomes of the students who attend – how many graduated? How many found jobs or went to professional/graduate school? How much debt do students accumulate and are they able to pay it off?
- Reduced staff – positions aren’t replaced, the staff you have are forced to take furlough days
- Helicopter/Stealth Bomber/Special Forces-trained parents
- Being second-guessed – by everyone
Go ahead, pour another latte. It’s going to be a long night.
Along with the projected budget cuts and likely tuition increases (which could reach 5 times the rate of inflation) referenced in yesterday’s Chronicle, there is the very real possibility that community colleges will not be able to absorb the potential growth in high school and adult students seeking low-cost college options. For some schools, there simply is no more room — prompting innovative scheduling such as midnight classes, etc. Others may experiment or increase their push into online programs.
But assuming that community colleges (and 4-year publics) can’t act quickly enough, or can’t do enough to accommodate more students, where will these learners go? And if the increase in community college tuition removes some of the incentive for enrolling at two-year schools, is it likely that for-profit institutions will be able to capture a larger share even with increased concerns about program quality and return on tuition invested?
How will the proposed regulations on for-profit institutions impact the public’s perception and willingness to seek out degree and training opportunities? I think if for-profits play their cards right, and focus on addressing some of the issues identified in Congressional hearings and the soon-to-be-proposed regulations regarding payment of recruiters, the definition of credit hours, and the outcomes of educational programs, this will go a long way toward making more potential students comfortable with choosing proprietary programs to achieve their educational goals.
Go ahead, admit it. It’s that time of year when you lie in bed at 3 a.m. and make lists of all the things you have to do tomorrow, this week, this term. As a follow-up to my post last week about the things that keep admissions and recruitment folks up at night, I’m including a list for financial aid professionals. Does it ring true? Are there new trends or worries that should be included? Discuss.
- Pressure to meet enrollment and budget objectives – enroll specified number of students and achieve net tuition revenue goals
- Meeting financial aid budget – not over-awarding or under-awarding funds
- Meeting discount rate goals
- Using aid to ensure access, especially for students from under-represented groups
- Using aid to strategically attract and enroll targeted students or populations
- Affordability concerns
- Student indebtedness
- Providing the same or higher levels of service with the same level of budget as last year (or the year before) and probably no increase in staffing
- Need to demonstrate efficiency in operations
- Data – need to get it easily, use it to make/justify decisions
- Technology – not knowing what’s out there, how it could help, are you missing the “next big thing”? Is the cost of technology (dollars invested as well as time for implementation, staff training and adoption) justified by the return?
- Ensuring that staff are adequately trained, knowledgeable, represent the institution well, provide excellent service
- Figuring out how to engage students and get them to respond to requests (send in tax forms, submit FAFSA by deadlines, etc.)
- Wondering what the next round of Federal regulations will bring
- Figuring out how to get students packaged when there always seems to be a line out the door or 100 phone calls a day
- Dealing with a 40-50% increase (or more) in financial aid applications, etc.
- Handling an increasing percentage of families who want to negotiate every line of their financial aid award
I had some time to think about this recently and I started coming up with a list of the top issues or concerns that probably keep admissions and recruitment managers from falling to sleep at night, based on my own experiences. I’d love to hear from folks who are in the trenches right now, so please feel free to comment and add the issues you’re finding most troublesome these days…or the ones you anticipate being an issue in the not-too-distant future.
- Demographics and economy – how are these affecting the traditional target pools for the institution? Is there time and money to find new target populations?
- Reputation/perspective on the institution – how is the institution viewed, has this changed? Is it impacting willingness of students to consider applying or stay enrolled? Where are students and public getting information from?
- Competition – from traditional competitors and from new competitors. Is this school being left behind? Are other schools eating away at traditional base?
- Pressure to meet enrollment and budget objectives – enroll specified number of students, achieve net tuition revenue goals
- Pressure to enroll higher-profile students (need less remediation, able to handle college-level work, etc.)
- Uncertainty – not knowing how inquiries will convert to applications, how many applications will convert to enrolled. Will yield be higher, lower than last year? Are students applying to 15 schools or 6 schools? How to make sure that admitted students will matriculate?
- Pressure to ensure access – enroll students of color, enroll students within the service area or state (for public 2-year and 4-year), provide path to college for under-prepared students
- Balancing faculty, senior staff, BOT and other constituents’ objectives re: admitted class
- Competitiveness of educational programs offered – are they current? Meet market needs/desires? Do they provide adequate protection against programs offered by competitors?
- Providing the same or higher levels of service with the same level of budget as last year (or the year before) and probably no increase in staffing
- Need to demonstrate the value of the education provided – constantly justifying the expense of college and the time required for a degree to the general public, prospective students, and even current students.
Not in the admissions or recruitment field? Fear not – I’m developing the same types of lists for retention/enrollment and for financial aid staff. To be continued…
During a lunch conversation with several high-level student services and IT folks last week, I was struck by the comments of one person in particular. She had come from a working-class background, went to college and professional school, and practiced as an attorney for over a decade before going into the technology field. After several years in IT, she ended up at her current institution as a CIO.
While we all marveled at the path that had brought her to HE administration, what struck me most was her enthusiasm in talking about her career choice. While she was undoubtedly good as a lawyer, she clearly felt much more passionate about being involved in education. When I asked what lay behind this passion, she responded by saying that she had grown up during the civil rights era, and she felt strongly that each person should, to the best of their ability, make sure they were doing something ‘to leave the door open for those who will come later.’
I had attended the NACAC conference in St. Louis at the beginning of the month, and while almost everyone there is involved in some way with the admissions process and dedicated to helping students with the transition from secondary to post-secondary education (or from undergraduate to graduate education), I don’t think I heard any speaker at the conference who was as passionate and committed to the cause of increasing students’ options as this woman. I wonder if, in all the talk and angst about strategically managing enrollments, using data for decisions, managing to budgets, and the rest of the fun that has overtaken the enrollment field, we’ve forgotten why most of us got involved in this field in the first place?
Photo by divemasterking2000 via Flickr
A million years ago, when I was a college admissions dean or director and someone at a business networking event would ask me what I did, I would respond by saying, “I’m the chief sales and marketing officer for an intangible product that operates in a very competitive market, requires a four-year commitment of funds, and you may have to wait up to 20 years to evaluate whether it was worth the investment.” To which, almost always, the other person would say, “Oh, you sell software?”
But the fact is, the last part of my tongue-in-cheek description is proving to be more accurate every day. The media, students, parents, and even governments seem to asking whether – given the cost of obtaining a postsecondary education, by which almost anyone asking the question seems to mean at least a bachelor’s degree – a student is better off investing time and tuition money in earning a degree or using that time and money to pursue other options?
Increasingly, the challenge of defining the ROI of a college degree may depend one’s socioeconomic class. For students from very poor families, the return on a college education is likely to be quite high, in part because they may qualify for high levels of aid to help pay for college. They are thus able to obtain an education that they might otherwise not have been able to afford. And for the truly wealthy, for whom up to $60,000 or more a year in tuition, room, board and fees may be no problem whatsoever…well, it may not matter how much they earn from work over their lifetime or how many important social connections they made while enrolled.
The vast middle class, though, may have a very different calculation on the value of a college degree. Even assuming attendance at a less-expensive 4-year public institution, a student will spend, in 2010 dollars, approximately $56,000 in tuition, room, board and fees over four years. Meanwhile, The Project on Student Debt reports that the average debt level for bachelor’s degree graduates of public 4-year institutions in 2008 was just over $20,000, and 62% of students reported having student loan debts. For many students, that would represent a significant portion of their annual salary – if they were lucky enough to find a job after graduation. And given the current economic environment, finding a job – whether in one’s ‘field’ or not – can be a really iffy proposition.
Just over one-quarter of students attend private institutions, and another 9.6% attend for-profit institutions. For each of these groups, the cost – and the debt incurred to pay for attendance – rises significantly. Approximately 72% of graduates from private colleges and universities reported having debt; the average debt level was $27,650. For-profit students weren’t so lucky; 96% reported student loan debt, with an average loan debt of $33,050.
While many institutions strive to show the post-graduation career and professional accomplishments of their students, this can be a difficult goal to deliver. In my own experience, which was primarily at private, four-year institutions, we found it almost impossible to quantify how many or what percentage of our graduates had gone on to various professional or graduate schools or obtained paid employment in the field in which they had earned a degree. We relied on anecdotal evidence to try to illustrate how a particular student had grown – emotionally, cognitively, or in any other way – during the course of his or her enrollment at the institution. We became really good story-tellers, and it helped that we did know our students pretty well; but if a parent or prospective student wanted this information to assess whether my institution represented a “good buy,” we were often unable to provide anything that presented a complete picture of our graduates’ success.
My hat is off to institutions that can reliably report this information. I’m sure the proposed regulations on “gainful employment” – which are theoretically only aimed at for-profit schools – would provide extremely interesting data if all institutional types were required to meet the same reporting requirements. And without this information, how do we justify any debt level if the result of four (or 5, or 6) years of study is that the student may be no better off, at least financially, than he or she was before enrolling?
The President at one of the colleges where I worked loved to use this phrase. He would stand up in front of Open House audiences and try to get them whipped up about applying to or attending the college by introducing them to “XXX College…your alma mater for life.” It was kind of corny, but for some parents and maybe even some students it served to create an emotional attachment to the school – at least for as long as they were on campus that day.
The phrase came back to me yesterday when I received birthday cards from two different colleges. One, Ohio Wesleyan, truly fits the definition of alma mater. I attended OWU sophomore through senior years and earned my BA there. While I haven’t been a regular or a large donor to the school, I have contributed more often than not over the years and I’ve attended several reunion and other alumni-oriented events.
The other college is one where I worked for four years; during my tenure there I also completed a Master’s degree. However, I attended classes part-time because I was working in admissions and traveling a lot. My primary attachment to the school is not as a student, but as a former employee. I don’t have fond memories of late-night pizza parties, or cramming for finals in the library, or any of the other activities that one normally associates with one’s “formative years.” It was truly a transactional experience for me – the college offered me free tuition to attend part-time, and when I wasn’t working or otherwise unavailable, I took classes. I should also note that I’ve never given a dime to the school. It’s not that I harbor any ill feelings; I just don’t feel any connection to the institution.
Why, then, does School B keep sending me birthday cards, holiday cards, alumni magazines, and other unwanted and unnecessary communication? One would think that, with the advent of CRM technology and the ability to determine which customers (or students, or alumni) are most valuable or most likely to be connected to the institution, School B would figure out that I’ve never responded to an alumni event invitation, never contributed money to the Annual Fund, and, as far as they know, have never set foot on the campus after leaving the college’s employment. I’m a drain on their resources, and I’m probably not the only one. There may be hundreds or even thousands of former students like me who have shown no indication of any interest in the school or in donating funds since we left.
I’ve no doubt that School B has a CRM in place to help track its current and former students, and I’m sure that there are well-trained staff who are running that CRM daily and processing letters, birthday cards, alumni magazine mailings and sending cute animated emails and using other tactics to keep all of us “engaged.” But honestly, if we’ve shown no interest in 10 or 20 or more years, why are they bothering? The point of a CRM system should not be to pump out tons of information and communication to people who don’t want it – the point of a good CRM system (and a good CRM strategy) is to use the information obtained to focus and target outreach efforts on those for whom it makes a difference.
Oh, and Ohio State? You still have 9 days to get my birthday card to me. I’m just sayin’.
