campus staff development Archives - Ruffalo Noel Levitz Blog: Higher Education Enrollment, Student Retention, and Student Success

Meeting today’s college enrollment goals by engaging all departments in enrollment efforts

April 11, 2017 by Leslie Crosley Leave a Comment

Co-written by Jim Scannell

This post is based on an article in the current issue of University Business

Enrollment leadership today requires a coordinated campus team to address and respond to evolving and emerging internal challenges as well as shifting external markets and forces. Pressures that affect enrollments, and especially yield rates, are a function of several of today’s realities: significant demographic shifts, the proliferation of applications per student, increased price sensitivity, and changing methods of delivery.

Understanding the threats and challenges

American Freshmen: Fifty Year Trends 1996-2015 shows the steady increase in the number of applications submitted by individuals. Since 2012 the percentage of students who submit six or more applications has increased to 36.3 percent, up from 27.5 percent just three years earlier. In 2015, 7.6 percent of students reported submitting eleven or more applications.
Between 2010 and 2014, overall undergraduate enrollment declined by about 800,000 students (NCES, 2016). In addition, the number of Caucasian students is expected to decline at more than double the expected rate of decline of African American students, and the rise in the Asian student population outpaces the anticipated increase in Hispanic graduates by more than 2 to 1.
The demographic pattern also marks stark differences among families’ ability to pay for college. The College Board reports that although the average White/Non-Hispanic income was $76,658 in 2014, African American and Hispanic families earned about 42 percent less, at $43,151 and $45,114 respectively.
Price sensitivity will continue to be a factor. The College Board’s most recent Trends in Higher Education Report reveals that undergraduate borrowing has declined by 18 percent since 2010 (inflation-adjusted dollars). Some experts suggest that borrowing for post-secondary education may well have reached its upper limit.
Educational platforms have changed, and brick and mortar institutions are “no longer the only game in town.” From accelerated programs to MOOCs, and from non-credit classes to YouTube videos, students can choose their learning environment, cost, and delivery mode.

Collaborative leadership: A critical piece of the puzzle

So how does the enrollment officer help to ensure that the institution has the right mix of academic programs; delivery methods; student life experiences; price position; and recruiting and awarding strategies that will attract the sufficient number of talented students needed to meet fiscal and enrollment goals, while sustaining and advancing the college’s mission? Cross-campus engagement featuring an “institution first” culture, which encourages colleagues to think beyond their own departments and programs, is a critical piece of the puzzle.

John McCloskey, vice president for enrollment management at Alvernia University (AU), recalls how leadership on campus paved the way for meeting enrollment challenges, “In 2015, trustees established an ad-hoc committee of the board (including faculty members) to study and develop recommendations regarding undergraduate enrollment initiatives to drive enrollment growth of new and returning students. The committee researched market trends and employment projection data and ultimately developed a list of new majors, suggestions for renewal of select academic majors, as well as several athletic programs for the administration to complete feasibility studies for future programming. Engaging the trustees and faculty in the conversation regarding the external enrollment challenges was productive and opened the door for subsequent faculty and staff discussions.”

See the full article at the University Business site, including 6 key characteristics of the successful enrollment leader

Strategic Enrollment Planning Executive Forum, April 26-27, 2017

How can your campus leaders work more closely together to achieve college enrollment goals and institutional objectives? And how can you adapt the culture of the institution to include cross-campus engagement? Invite your senior leadership team to RNL’s Executive Forum in Chicago to kick off a collaborative, strategic enrollment plan that assesses high-impact strategies that cross divisional lines. Together, we’ll discuss how to navigate your campus through the academic, demographic, and economic challenges ahead using cross-divisional strategies. Learn more.

Strengthening partnerships between college admissions and marketing offices for enrollment success

February 10, 2017 by Leslie Crosley Leave a Comment

This post is based on an article in the current issue of University Business

Cohesive college admissions and marketing teams are now more vital than ever, when missed targets for enrollment and tuition revenue are the new normal for campuses. This year’s Chronicle of Higher Education’s survey of small colleges and mid-sized universities reported that almost 3 in 10 public institutions and more than 4 in 10 private institutions missed both their enrollment and their net tuition revenue goals this year. Well-coordinated college admissions and marketing offices ensure that institutional branding messages speak to recruitment needs, while admission recruiting communications encourage brand awareness and market penetration that resonate with students, faculty, staff, and alumni. A shared reporting structure is one way to break down campus silos, creating synergies among professional staff that may not exist otherwise. So too, less formal alliances developed among staff members can be key to ensuring messaging and marketing materials that speak to campus culture while working to meet enrollment goals.

Marketing a campus’s value proposition is also critical. According to the Ruffalo Noel Levitz 2016 E-Recruiting Practices Report for Four-Year and Two Year Institutions, 63 percent of high school seniors and 61 percent of high school juniors expect to see job placement outcomes on college websites. Prospective students want compelling webpages that speak authentically to student success, outcomes, and the particular attributes that make a campus unique. Furthermore, traditional platforms are becoming less relevant. RNL’s 2015 High School Students’ and Parents’ Perception of and Preferences for Communication with Colleges reported that 61 percent of student respondents had searched for colleges by viewing online videos and almost half used social media.

‘Closing the deal’ when it comes to college enrollment is everyone’s job

In order to meet expectations that demand both a relationship marketing strategy and a well branded presence, campus leaders must:

Foster collaboration between the college admissions and marketing arms of the campus.
Challenge the two departments to work together to develop strategic and long range enrollment marketing plans – translated into actionable steps.
Provide an expectation for data-driven reports and communicate progress to faculty and staff, boards, and other influential campus constituents.
Encourage partnerships among the development office, career services, financial aid officers, faculty, athletics, institutional research, residence life, and even auxiliary services to facilitate the publication of authentic material.
Make sure the team stays current on prospective student preferences.
Ensure differentiated marketing outreach to address individual concerns, tailored to reach specific students.
Involve every department that communicates with prospective students and their families in order to ensure that brand consistency, stylistic preferences, delivery methods, and timing is synchronized.
Engage professionals from the marketing arm of the institution to assist in training admissions recruiters and others in the campus community.
Create a culture where any member of the campus can seamlessly articulate the costs and benefits of education at the institution.
Give the enrollment marketing team a voice at the leadership table. Their expertise on trends, market volatility, and demographic shifts can provide much-needed context for enrollment and net tuition revenue projections.

LeAnn Hughes, vice president for enrollment and marketing at Illinois Wesleyan University, describes the value of this approach, “Much of my work at the cabinet level is to ensure our team is mindful of the impact of decisions as they pertain to enrollment outcomes. When discussions occur that have impact on budgets, tuition, discount rates, or headcount, I am able to communicate the possible implications in real time…. I have the ability to ensure marketing budget allocations of the institution are centralized and are invested in ways that will have the greatest possible impact toward driving revenue generating goals, rather than being unnecessarily diluted in initiatives that will do little to drive toward positive outcomes.”

In short, a coordinated structure where college admissions and marketing teams act collaboratively, and are then encouraged to provide a data-driven and informative voice to leadership, will provide the best opportunity for success.

For more on this topic, visit the February edition of University Business.

Enrollment Management Leadership Summit coming to Atlanta, March 16-17, 2017

Today’s challenging environment is pushing marketing and enrollment management to new frontiers. Attend our upcoming Summit to take a deep dive into the latest trends, research, and innovations for nurturing student engagement. It’s not too late to register.

Unable to attend the Summit? Contact us at 800.876.1117 or send an email to discuss enrollment opportunities, confidentially, with an expert from Ruffalo Noel Levitz.

Five steps to advance your career in enrollment management

May 1, 2012 by Gary Fretwell 4 Comments

As I visit campuses all over the country, one of the questions I often hear is: Do you have suggestions on how I can advance my career? Having worked in higher education for more than 35 years, I have seen first hand a wide variety of ways that higher education professionals can advance their careers. I think these five recommendations are the most helpful.

1) Make your work more than a job

Those who advance their careers often view their work as more than a job. They have a passion to improve the lives of the students they serve. Whether they work in recruitment or retention, or with traditional-age students or nontraditional adult learners, they believe that their work contributes to their students’ lives. So my first suggestion is to be passionate about the work you do and the contributions you make. Passion drives us to do more, learn more, and impact the lives of those around us more.

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Time management tips for student workers

April 9, 2012 by Jo Hillman 2 Comments

In honor of National Student Employment Week, April 9-13, 2012, Jo Hillman of Noel-Levitz shares practical tips to help student workers manage their time more effectively.

How can you maximize the productivity and satisfaction of your student workers?

Have you taken time to examine how many of your students are working while taking classes? Research confirms that the majority of incoming students anticipate working. According to the latest Noel-Levitz data, 77 percent of first-year entering undergraduates planned to work. Watch for our forthcoming 2012 National Freshman Attitudes Report for a breakdown of the data.

A successful on-campus job assignment can be an effective way to engage students in campus life and increase students’ sense of identity with the institution. Further, having a job while going to school forces students to be more aware of the value of their time and induces them to strive for greater efficiency.

But between classes, homework, extracurricular activities, friends, family, and work, how do students fit it all in? Like most of us, they could use a few more hours in every day. And, most students admit that they would benefit from help with time management skills in the form of employment training workshops or coaching in student success skills.

Time management is an important life skill that begins with time monitoring—deciding how to spend (and invest) time. Below are some questions from our Connections NOW online training program to help student workers get focused. We present these in honor of National Student Employment Week, April 9-13.

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How surveying campus personnel helps you better serve your students

April 5, 2012 by Julie Bryant Leave a Comment

Many campuses have regular assessment plans that focus on student satisfaction. Certainly capturing and documenting student satisfaction is a key variable for accreditation activities, strategic planning, and retention efforts. However, by adding an assessment of the perceptions of your campus personnel, you can gain valuable insights into the priorities of your faculty, administration, and staff regarding the student experience.

As I work with campuses on their assessments, we have found capturing the perceptions of campus personnel can provide context for student perspectives and can prepare campuses for positioning the data received from students as findings are presented on campus. These administrator, faculty, and staff perceptions may be directly and indirectly communicated to students through day-to-day interactions. This data can help you to know if campus personnel will be surprised by the student data or if the area has already been identified as a challenge.

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The quality of your life is the quality of your communications

January 10, 2012 by Jo Hillman 1 Comment

The best things in life are free. The simplest things often have the biggest impact on life. These are common expressions, but they also speak to how we can create a more positive, more satisfying environment for college students.

The table below from the 2011 Noel-Levitz National Student Satisfaction and Priorities 15-Year Trend Report, four-year private segment, highlights items measuring campus climate. It is interesting that a variety of measures focus on communication and interactions on campus. These simple things have a profound impact on student satisfaction and retention.

Importance ranking and satisfaction level shifts in campus climate items, taken from the National Student Satisfaction and Priorities 15-Year Trend Reports.

This table illustrates changes in student satisfaction and importance on items related to campus climate from 1995-2010. (click to enlarge)

Note: While, this table is from the four-year private report, other institution types reported similar results; information for four-year public campuses, two-year public institutions, and career and private schools are available online.

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Compensating admissions and financial aid personnel after changes to “Safe Harbor” laws

May 25, 2011 by Cliff Neel 17 Comments

Changes to educational "safe harbor" laws mean colleges will have to be cautious in how they compensate admissions and financial aid staff for performance.

How can you compensate your admissions and financial aid staff for their performance while complying with new federal regulations?

Note: This post was co-written with my Noel-Levitz colleague Craig Engel.

On July 1 of this year, for institutions participating in the Title IV federal student aid program, a new law will go into effect eliminating any compensation to college personnel specifically based on the enrollment or continued enrollment of a student. This law arises primarily from compensation and promotion practices of at a number of for-profit universities, but also stems from practices at some not-for-profit institutions as well. As a result, the new regulations have implications for admissions and financial aid offices throughout higher education.

A little background: In 1992, changes to the Higher Education Act forbid colleges and universities from offering any bonuses, commissions, or incentive payments to employees based on enrollment or financial aid goals. In 2002, this ban was revised and 12 “safe harbors” were created, allowing some compensation for enrollment or financial aid performance of an institution. During the last couple of years, as violations were confirmed at 31 college institutions, the federal government moved to eliminate these safe harbor exceptions.

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Five ways professional development strengthens colleges and universities

April 4, 2011 by Kevin Crockett 1 Comment

Kevin Crockett is president and CEO of Noel-Levitz. He has consulted with more than 150 campuses on all aspects of enrollment and student success, and he has also served as dean of admissions and enrollment management at Cornell College in Iowa.

Kevin Crockett is president and CEO of Noel-Levitz and a former enrollment manager at Cornell College (Iowa).

Campus professionals have a lot on their minds. With reduced budgets, increased enrollments, changing demographics, rising college costs, and increased financial need, you are primarily focused on the students you serve and the resources you need to serve them. Those concerns can cause you to overlook one of the most important resources at your disposal: yourself and the campus colleagues who work beside you.

When the budgetary reins get tightened, professional development for campus staff is often one of the first expenses on the chopping block. Campuses certainly have to make many painful cuts in times like these, but professional development cuts can often have long-term repercussions that far outweigh the minor, temporary budget relief that they bring. In fact, it’s during times like these, when you’re forced to do much more with much less, that training, knowledge, and teamwork become paramount to working efficiently and meeting your goals for enrollment and student success.

There are many big benefits to professional development, but here are five particularly strong ones:

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