Bob Johnson's Blog on Higher Education Marketing

A few weeks ago I was writing a client report on the results of the secret shopping project that started last June and ended in February. Two omissions from the email and print communications flow stood out: parents and prices.

The term helicopter parents was most likely coined years ago by a frustrated admissions person who didn't like the fact that parents were so closely involved in the college selection process. 

Smart marketers know that you should not ignore parents just because you don't like their behavior. Close your eyes, put your head under a pillow or in a hole in the sand, crawl into a closet and shut the door... parents will still be there when you come back to the real world.

And so it did surprise me that no communication for parents (email or print) came along from June until well into the fall. What's with that? 

Stand out from everyone else. Start by sending a letter congratulating them on their daughter's or son's interest in your school. And stay in touch with them at least monthly after that. Waiting three months or more to send a brochure or an email is waiting too long.

What should you talk to parents about? 

You don't have to search far to find someone in higher education bemoaning the fact that parents and students pay too much attention to "sticker price" and just don't understand how financial aid results in a much lower "net cost." Whatever shall we do?

Well, one thing to do is make a contact early after receiving an inquiry and invite people (especially parents) to complete your Net Cost Calculator. Especially if you are marketing-savvy enough to use one that has 12 to 15 items to complete rather than one that amounts to a mini-FAFSA exercise. And make sure they know who to call with questions when the results of the Net Cost Calculator come back.

Do you have a merit scholarship program? Don't frustrate people by telling them when the calculator page opens that merit scholarship awards are not included. Especially don't do that if a serious competitor is not making that mistake.

Getting people past sticker price to net cost early in the inquiry conversion process just might result in more summer and fall visits and more applications. Without taking direct steps like this, can we still blame people who don't grasp the virtue of the financial aid system?

No matter how well a potential international student (or their parents) may know the language of the possible host country, wading through that language on a typical higher education website is not always easy. That's why it makes great good sense to provide initial information in the language of the countries from which you hope to enroll students. Not many universities take the time to do that. 

Aarhus University sets an unusually strong example in two ways.

First, information is presented in these 9 languages:

How to make this stronger? The link to this page is immediately visible only to students interested in Master's degree programs. Add the same link to pages introducing bachelor and Ph.D. programs.

Grinnell College is one of the rare residential liberal arts colleges with an endowment of more than one billion dollars (nearly $1.4 billion in 2012). And it also has, the president has recently admitted, an unsustainable financial model. 

What's up with that?

The answer illustrates how much things have changed since 2008 for even the best endowed colleges and universities. It also casts light on the perilous existence of many liberal arts colleges with much lower endowments struggling to maintain enrollment levels and academic profiles without sinking under a rising tuition discount rate.

The tuition discount rate at Grinnell is over 60 percent. The formal definition from the National Association of College and University Business Officers: "Institutional grant dollars as a percentage of gross tuition and fee revenues." 

To recap: Grinnell takes in less than 40 cents of new revenue per dollar from a freshmen class. It has to give the freshmen class a discount of more than 60 cents on every tuition dollar to maintain the enrollment level and academic profile it seeks. 

That's the model the president described as "unsustainable." And if that model is not sustainable for Grinnell, imagine the perilous situation of many other colleges for whom much if not all of the discounting is not supported by any real money. Nearly all have endowment much less than half of what's enjoyed by Grinnell.

Grinnell deserves credit for an unusually public discussion of the problem that started last fall with campus talks about whether or not it would continue "need blind" admissions. The real question: how are we going to realize more income from our students so we can discount less and preserve our endowment? 

The answer adopted by the Board of Trustees and announced on February 23 retains the "need blind" admissions policy for the next two years, increases loan levels students will be asked to take, and recruits more "wealthy" students who can pay a higher percent of the tuition and fees. The goal is to move the discount rate to about 53 percent. 

Jon Boeckenstedt at DePaul University just wrote a marvelous blog post on how this would lower economic diversity at Grinnell. The college will offer what it no doubt hopes are modest merit scholarships to enroll additional students who can pay much more of the tuition than most present students are paying. Just how high that amount will have to be to enroll wealthy students with high academic profiles is a true test of brand strength.

Inside Higher Education outlined the plan quite well. You can also read the formal announcement of "Grinnell's Financial Future and Enrollment Management Strategies."

Brand position in higher education is based on many things, but prominent among them is admissions selectivity and the academic profile of new freshmen. Many schools have always had to invest much more of their own money to  achieve and maintain selectivity and high profiles than others in their professed competitive arena. That created an illusion of brand position comparable to the facades built along a Russian river to impress noble visitors.

In the new reality of our post-2008 world where most family income levels have been stagnant or fallen and most endowment levels are not growing, more colleges have learned just how strong the desirability of a degree from their institution is compared to an ability to pay or a willingness to incur debt. Traditional brand strength has fallen. Since 2008 discount rates have risen at most not-for-profit colleges in the private sector.

With a discount level of over 60 percent, Grinnell is playing a challenging game. It is fortunate that the new plan requires a discount rate reduction to only 50 percent. Enrollment professionals know what often happens when efforts are made to seriously reduce tuition discount levels while maintaining enrollment and academic profile. 

We will see in two years if Grinnell is one of the rare schools that can do all three.

One of our 6 secret shopping schools made a special impression these past few months... the "private college in update NY" that sent 44 emails from June 21 to the most recent received on February 16. That was many more than the 16 sent from the second most active school reported last week.

The 31 "Fast-Forward Application" emails that started on September 11 are what put the "private college in upstate NY" far ahead of everyone else. What to make of that? 

There is nothing wrong with telling a potential student that she is of special interest and that there is a way to fast-track an admission decision. Makes great marketing sense to make someone feel special. The perks offered were consistent from one email to the next, including a fast one-week decision and no essay. Nearly all noted that the director of admissions (the person sending the email) was extraordinarily interested in reviewing an application from a "clever" person like me.

It also makes marketing sense not to overplay your hand. In this case, what was especially intriguing was the constantly advancing deadline to receive an application. 

Was the hand overplayed? Judge for yourself. One way to let you do that is to show you the date and frequency, and the subject line for each email, with an occasional extra comment.

 

If you've been following this secret shopper campaign, you know that I've been collecting email responses from 6 colleges and universities in New York and New England since late last June. If you're new to these reports, you can start with the first entry, "Enrollment Inquiries... do colleges and universities really want them?"

Now that January application deadlines have passed, only the "private college in update NY" has continued contact with a last push to get my "Fast-Forward" application. We'll get back to that end game next week after we see if the final deadline of February 15 is more final than the earlier ones.

And so it is time to begin sorting out what's been received. That will happen in a new series of blog posts over the next few weeks. Today, here is a first note on the great variation in email sent from our 6 schools.

Overall, our high school student received 89 email. How were those distributed among the colleges and universities?