Will the Brand Name Public Higher Ed Institutions Capture Online Adult Students? – Part 2

In Part 1 of this multi-part article, I asked the question, “once a student lands on the home page of an institution, what happens next?” When the website is well-designed, the answer may be that within two or three clicks, the prospective student will gather all the information that they need about the degree program, courses offered, tuition and fees, financial aid, how to apply, and when they can start. They can also gain the answers to questions they may have by engaging with a representative of the institution through a chat feature, by calling, or by completing an online form that will generate a response within 24 hours or less.

I made that sound simple. Making the student shopping and selection process go smoothly takes an army of individuals working behind the scenes. To illustrate the complexity and sophistication of the processes, I asked Bob Gay for a few answers. Bob is a former colleague of mine at APUS and someone with years of experience at several universities building and operating the administrative processes that enable the student’s shopping, application, and enrollment processes to work as smoothly as possible.

WEB: Thanks for agreeing to help me write this article. You’ve held leadership roles at traditional universities as well as at universities with significant online student enrollments. What can you tell us about the student experience when they visit an institution’s website? How many of them find everything that they’re looking for, apply, are admitted, sign up for classes, and start taking them the next term when a class is open? What would you say the average time is for that process and are there critical steps that an institution needs to take to ensure that the student doesn’t get frustrated and leave?

Bob:  Thanks Wally, it’s great to collaborate with you again.  The student experience can vary greatly depending on the school.  The big 10 online schools mentioned in Part 1 are very sophisticated at recruiting new students and guiding them through the decision journey.  They tend to engage with students quickly and then hold their hand through the process of application, admission, and paying for school.  Many of these students also bring transcripts from other schools that require evaluation for credit for prior learning.  The big 10 make it easy for students to get the program information they are seeking, and they communicate regularly and frequently with prospective students to keep them engaged.

The flagship schools listed in Part 1 have gotten better in recent years and have made their websites easier to navigate and find information.  However, these institutions are not generally focused on non-traditional or even online only students, they tend to be focused on first-time, full-time freshmen whose shopping and application process occurs over the longer cycle “traditional cycle.

The awareness to enrollment time period for non-traditional students really depends on where the student is in their decision journey.  Once the student makes a decision to attend or return to college, engagement can happen very quickly, but the time to decision for some students can take a long time.  I have examined monthly lead volume and conversion data, and most non-traditional students enroll within two to three months of requesting information.  However, some take up to 18 or even 24 months to convert.  That analysis measured conversion from when the student provided their information and became a lead or prospect and does not account for the time they spend anonymously shopping and gathering information on the web.

The decision to enroll or return to school can be frightening for people.  They worry about the expense and whether they have the time. Perhaps they failed at college in the past and now lack the confidence to take the step to apply and enroll.  As soon as the institution engages with the student, they can create a customized experience and work with the student helping them to see that a college degree is attainable to them.

WEB: Thanks, Bob. That’s a lot of information to digest, but also very important for schools that want to expand their online enrollments. You have answered my questions about “managing the funnel of student inquiries” but I would love your expert perspective on what the institution needs to do academically to meet the students’ needs.

One of the first things that I tell leaders at traditional institutions is that the traditional agrarian academic calendar with a trimester or quarterly calendar is outdated when it comes to meeting the needs of working adult students. I recommend that they consider offering monthly semester starts and frequently muse that semi-monthly starts might be more responsive to the students. I know at least two universities that offer weekly course starts. What are your thoughts about that?

Bob:  I completely agree with your thinking on providing multiple starts.  Non-traditional students are often busy adults with scheduling pressures related to family, career, or other life circumstances.  Many of these students require a more flexible program than the traditional fall, spring, summer model.  Also, instead of a 16-week course, some schools have developed 8, 6, or even 5-week courses that enable a non-traditional student to complete their studies faster.   This aggressive scheduling does present operational challenges for colleges.  They have to adapt their systems and business processes to be able to recruit students for each start and have professors available to teach the classes.  Also, even though the agrarian model is outdated many people have been conditioned to think about starting school in the fall and spring, so the August, September and January starts tend to be heavier than other times of the year.  If a school adopted a monthly start model, they could also offer semi-monthly or even weekly starts during those high demand months to accommodate students who were not able to finish their payment arrangements before the start of class or just need a little extra time to prepare to begin class.

WEB: Thanks, Bob. Again, great answers. As you know, in addition to being responsible for leading APUS from 2002 through 2020, along with some of my APUS colleagues I examined and published papers examining the persistence of online adult students. Three of the patterns of attendance that I noted were student “stop outs”, “drop outs”, and transfers. What can you tell us about building a team to prevent the stop outs from becoming dropouts or transfers? How important is that for a university with a goal to grow their online enrollments?

Bob: I am glad that you asked this question, this is something I get excited about when thinking about landing a class.  So much emphasis is placed on recruiting new students that many schools fail to acknowledge that 70-85% of their registrations come from returning students.  There is so much that can be done in this area to make a significant difference in meeting and exceeding registration and revenue goals.  Non-traditional students’ lives are often busy and it’s tempting for them to think about dropping a class and taking a semester off.  Sometimes all it takes to keep them is a conversation with their advisor who can reassure them that they can be successful and remind them of their goal of graduating by a certain date.

I have always worked with a model where the academic or student advisor is the advocate for the student, helping them navigate through bureaucracy.  Advisors who are equipped with the proper tools such as a modern communication system and a properly developed Customer Relationship Management system (CRM) that integrates phone, chat and email, can easily and quickly reach many students.  A properly integrated CRM system can enable advisors to “filter” their assigned student base identifying sub-populations that need specific or nuanced communication.  Examples of sub-populations are students close to graduation, students needing a particularly difficult course, (e.g., statistics), students that are in the first or second course of their program, etc.  Advisors can filter on many different populations and have professionally-written communication to address the needs of those students.  I have worked in institutions where we had 30 or 40 different communication plans for both prospective/new and continuing students.

Another important aspect of the CRM system is that it maintains a record of all communication with a student and it enables management to monitor the quality, accuracy and consistency of the information being given to students.  It is a valuable training tool for management.

The advisor is the advocate for the student, but it is also important that the enrollment management team build an organization with cross-functional cooperation and communication enabling the advisor to quickly and easily access specialized team members to address difficult student issues in areas like transfer credit evaluation or financial aid.

As you mentioned above, it is easy to talk about these systems and processes, but it involves considerable work and collaboration between IT, academics, and the administrative sides of a school, to document system requirements and build a system that meets the needs of the institution and its students, and provides an acceptable ROI measured by gains in conversion, enrollment, and retention.  CRM is important to all student-facing teams and is also an important tool for marketing and lead conversion.

WEB: Thanks, Bob. Recently, I had dinner with a friend whose children attended traditional institutions just like yours and mine. I told him that the process that adult students go through to review their online options are vastly different than the process that our daughters went through during their last year or two in high school. I assume you agree, but also know that you are an expert at identifying trends as well as “pain points” in the college enrollment process. What can you tell us specifically about the expectations of a prospective online working adult student that you haven’t already told us?

Bob:  Yes, it is different for adults.  Our children went through the process of taking the SAT/ACT and submitting their records to specific institutions, applying, and then visiting the campus before depositing and matriculating.  They were interested in choosing an institution that would meet their academic needs but they also wanted to choose a school where they felt comfortable and could fit in with the community.

Many adult students start the process of choosing a school having already attended another college.  The needs of that student are very different than the 18-year-old, first-time, full-time freshman.  As I mentioned above there is often an element of fear because they may have had a difficult or unsuccessful experience in the past and they need hand-holding and reassurance that a college degree is attainable to them.  Prospective students are also interested in quickly understanding three things, (1) how much of their prior learning experience will apply to their new degree program, (2) when they will complete the program and graduate, and (3) how much financial aid is available to them.  Some of the schools on the top 10 online list are very sophisticated at providing this information on the initial admissions call.  They are able to complete a preliminary (unofficial) evaluation of the student’s transcripts and provide a map of courses needed to complete their program and the expected tuition cost.  These schools are very successful at quickly engaging and retaining prospective students.

WEB: Thanks, Bob. I have two final questions for you. For an institution that already offers online courses and degree programs that complement their traditional face-to-face programs, how much effort does it take to change or redesign enrollment and advising practices to match those of the 10 largest schools I mentioned in Part 1 of this article? Lastly, how much coordination and interaction will this require from academic leadership?

Bob:  These are great questions.  I believe the most difficult challenge is often cultural change and change management.  “Traditional” schools often desire to have the operational speed and efficiency of the large online schools but lack the proper systems, business processes and or talent to lead the initiative.  Further, there might be resistance from the faculty to becoming “too business-like” or looking like a for-profit school; all of that is usually rooted in a fear of change.  I have worked or consulted for schools that committed to this transformation and upgraded their systems, improved business processes and evolved their leadership and culture.  Support from the President and Provost is absolutely critical to the success of this type of initiative.  It is also very important that the team leading the change maintain transparency and communicate regularly to the academic and administrative communities about the plan for change and progress toward implementing the plan.

WEB: Thanks, Bob. Your answers have given me a lot to think about. Given your experiences, I think a book might be in order. However, I’ll settle for your answers to a series of questions the next time I choose to write about this topic.

Subjects of Interest

EdTech

Higher Education

Independent Schools

K-12

Student Persistence

Workforce