Colleges and universities are continually facing enrollment and revenue challenges—especially in the past few years. As a result of this new digital era, moving courses from lecture halls to laptops has always generated friction, but the breakneck shift away from face-to-face learning turned that friction into an outright fire hazard.
Most schools leaned heavily on their Continuing Education (CE) divisions to adapt. Typically responsible for generating revenue with every offering that doesn't offer credit or lead to a degree, CE units historically offer diverse programs across diverse modalities to diverse audiences. As the non-traditional learner population has grown in recent years, these units have helped their institutions re-position for higher education’s new normal.
Unfortunately, the misalignment of infrastructure means that these divisions are positioned for lost enrollments and lower revenue at a time when they should be experiencing significant growth.
Barriers to Enrollment and Revenue Growth for Continuing Education
Higher education institutions have the opportunity to serve a large number of individuals
looking to shift careers or simply upskill and reskill. Along with facing an enrollment
cliff, many schools have struggled or failed to meet revenue and enrollment targets by a
wide margin.
So why are some institutions succeeding in driving large numbers of enrollments from the non-degree, non-traditional markets, while others are failing?
Inefficient Systems Lead to Insufficient Revenue
For many Continuing Education divisions, barriers to revenue growth and enrollment
frequently stem from outdated systems and processes—ones that turn prospective students
away at the door and create more problems than they solve for staff.
Fred Anger, Executive Director of Financial Planning and Strategy for the G. Raymond Chang School of Continuing Education (“The Chang School”) at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU), said the school’s registration process historically stood in the way of prospects converting into enrollees.
“Our school was asking for far too much information,” Anger said, referring to poor tracking and overwhelming registration processes as a turn-off for potential prospects. “We were losing a lot of students.”
These barriers arise when colleges and universities don’t leverage systems that are tailor-made for non-degree divisions. Using homegrown systems means adopting technologies and processes designed for traditional audiences—not the modern learner. Students behave like a customer with the expectation of seamlessness and ease in administration.
Robust Systems Yield Rapid Growth
Most back-end systems are built to serve main campus systems, and leave Continuing
Education spinning in the wind as it tries to pick up the slack.
By adopting solutions specifically designed to serve their non-traditional audiences, institutions can better serve learners and themselves. This results in better-funded divisions, better-attended programs and an increase in staff efficiency.
For this reason, many CE divisions choose to build their back-end around software developed specifically for Continuing Education. The lifecycle of the modern student extends well beyond the “fresh out of high school” stereotype, and institutions whose systems reflect this are seeing increased enrollments and increased revenue at a time when others are scrambling or shutting their doors.
Having the ability to rapidly stand up a program that’s immediately operational is important for responsiveness.
Three Keys to Increasing Revenue and Growing Enrollments
Transform the Student Experience
Nearly everyone online experience prioritizes the customer first. Applications and
sites they frequently visit place the customer’s ability to navigate and interact with the company at the top of the pyramid.
They make things easy, because when they're not, customers leave.
At the Chang School, enrolling in a program was anything but easy. Anger said students would be put off by the amount of effort required to register for an offering. Before they implemented Lifelong Learning, the problem continued to grow.
“We didn't even have a content management system,” Anger said. “We had a very homegrown system behind our website, and a homegrown shopping cart. Both were very clunky.”
Once they made the switch to Lifelong Learning, they began to see positive results.
“Using Destiny One in the 2020 spring-summer term, we experienced a total enrollment growth of 10%,” said Anger.
Increase registrations by delivering the eCommerce experience your learners expect.
Successful eCommerce companies like Amazon have staked their reputation on their simplicity as much as the products they offer—and their revenue and reputation reflect this. Learners today are practiced consumers, and need to be engaged as customers by colleges and universities.
Lifelong Learning leverages the best practices of eCommerce industry leaders to design a digital experience that attracts, converts and retains modern students.
The Glasscock School of Continuing Studies is enjoying enrollment growth as well. Saira Cooper, Director of Digital Learning, IT and Operations, said visitors to the school’s website appreciate a “one-stop shop” experience that keeps them from wandering off.
Lifelong Learning provides a ‘one-stop shop’ where you find the course you like, add it to the cart and go. It streamlined our process a lot more than what we used to have.
Cooper said these streamlined web functions allow the Glasscock School to reach learners that traditional and bolt-on systems aren’t designed to serve.
Eliminate Staff Pain Points
Business is at its best when staff time is spent on innovative and growth-oriented
work—not on repeatable, automatable processes. But this is rarely the case in higher
education. Hours are spent on repeatable tasks—especially when systems are poorly
integrated—to which students, staff and the bottom line all suffer.
Cooper said Glasscock School staff found themselves juggling multiple systems and applications, many of which were redundant.
“We were running three different registration systems prior to Modern Campus,” Cooper said. “Lifelong Learning was the only system that actually served the purpose of all of the programs that we run.”
Lifelong Learning also simplified corporate and group enrollments for the Glasscock School. Though they maintain robust relationships with local school districts, offering professional development for teachers, it was difficult for staff to serve this audience prior to their Lifelong Learning implementation.
Eliminate manual processes with automations that make administration fast and easy.
Managing non-degree and non-traditional registrations through Lifelong Learning simplifies the experience for students, corporate partners and divisional staff, leading to more enrollments and higher revenues.
“We’re excited because Lifelong Learning lets us give a district contact or company contact access to the system, and allows them to maintain their organization’s registrations within the Modern Campus product,” Cooper explained, saying it freed administrators to hone the important-as-ever student experience instead. “They focus on meeting the customer's needs, and less on the process of them getting through registration.”
Cooper noticed a steep decline in wasted time at Glasscock after implementing a system that streamlined daily operations.
At the Chang School, Anger said that tedious manual processes like enrollment have become automatic, and largely work themselves out while staff spend their time on more pressing matters.
“With Lifelong Learning, enrollment is certainly a lot more automated than it was before,” he said.
He also found that staff were relieved to have ownership of their web and marketing efforts at the start of the pandemic.
“The Lifelong Learning product gives us the opportunity to be a lot more scalable,” Anger said. “It supports our enrollment engine by making it quick and easy to implement changes in our website, and our marketing group is very satisfied.”
Capitalizing on the simplicity of the system and the usability of its CMS, staff at both TMU’s Chang School and Rice’s Glasscock School could focus on fostering student experiences that drive enrollment, and initiatives that boost revenue when it’s needed most.
Stay Competitive in a Changing Market
The modern student has a multitude of options at their fingertips, whether it’s another
school, a bootcamp, or a free online course. Given the increasing learner interest
in non-degree options, these alternatives are becoming more popular every day. One
of the major differentiators these rising stars offer students is convenience.
To compete, higher education institutions need to find ways to capitalize on the growing demand for non-degree education.
To compete, higher education institutions need to find ways to capitalize on the growing demand for non-degree education. But it takes more than extending a main campus ERP to continuing education, or adding on a bolt-on solution to a traditional system. Staying agile and responsive to the needs of a fast-changing market—and to the needs of a customer with high expectations—requires a system designed from the ground up to serve this need while improving connectivity with the main campus.
Exceed the customer experience offered by your competitors.
eCornell leaned heavily on the Lifelong Learning system to develop and execute on marketing initiatives that put them in the same league with bootcamps and other upper-tier online resources that threaten to siphon enrollments from colleges and universities.
“In this increasingly competitive landscape, the flexibility of Modern Campus allows us to differentiate ourselves,” Hall said.
Hall said the software’s endless customization allows for an “on-brand” experience that engages students.
“Modern Campus helps differentiate us with our fully integrated marketing solution: Having digital ads that lead to landing pages, leading to a highly efficient shopping cart experience that aligns with the brand.”
Meet Online and International Market Expectations at Scale
The rapidly shifting market makes it more important than ever for institutions to
be ahead of the curve with program relevance. There is growing demand for new skills,
and with Lifelong Learning, eCornell could quickly stand up new programs with a back-end
that supports fast program/course creation and launches.
“One of the things that Modern Campus helps us with at eCornell and Cornell University is the rapid setup of programs,” Hall said. “Having the ability to rapidly stand up a program that’s immediately operational is important for responsiveness.”
He said the functionality and deep integrations built into Lifelong Learning removes administrative silos and allows the eCornell team to be in sync with each other and with the main campus.
“Lifelong Learning enables our finance team to focus on what they need to focus on, our operations team to focus on what they need to focus on, and our enrollment team, our curriculum team and other groups see similar benefits.”
Meet Student Expectations and Meet Revenue Targets
Continuing Education can frequently be an “afterthought” for main campus leaders.
But these units are positioned perfectly to help their institutions capitalize on
the opportunity presented by the non-traditional, non-degree education market. With
the appropriate tools in their tech stack, these divisions can drive growth for the
entire institution.
“It's been a huge leap forward for us, and we've seen a tremendous growth in our enrollment since we implemented Lifelong Learning last summer,” Anger said, recalling a sharp increase in enrollments over a short period of time.
In this increasingly competitive landscape, Lifelong Learning’s flexibility allows us to differentiate ourselves.
To adjust to a global crisis and see an increase in enrollments and revenue proves that colleges and universities can flourish in challenging times. It all starts with a system that acknowledges the unique needs of the division and the student it seeks.
“We're currently developing some big expansion plans, both across Canada and then internationally,” Anger said. “We couldn't have even thought of this kind of expansion before adopting the Modern Campus product. Lifelong Learning is enabling us to think big.”
Resources
[1] Dellas, H. and Sakellaris, P., “On the Cyclicatity of Schooling: Theory and Evidence,” Oxford Economic Papers, V. 55 N. 1, Jan 2003. Accessed at https://www.jstor.org/stable/3488876
[2] Ci, W., Frenette, M., Morissette, R., “Do Layoffs Increase Transitions to Postsecondary Education Among Adults?” Statistics Canada, July 19, 2016. Accessed at https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11f0019m/11f0019m2016380-eng.htm
[3] Strada Education, Weekly Dashboard, “Interested But Not Enrolled: Understanding and Serving Aspiring Adult Learners,” September 16, 2020. Accessed at https://www.stradaeducation.org/publicviewpoint/#dashboard
[4] Sallustio, J. “Preparing for The Great Enrollment Crash,” The EvoLLLution. March 24, 2020. Accessed at https://evolllution.com/attracting-students/enrollment_strategies/preparing-for-the-great-enrollment-crash/
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