Preserving enrollment and protecting revenue in higher ed takes incremental innovation

Each of the last two years, some 50,000 students have applied for a little more than 5,000 spots at the flagship University of Massachusetts campus in Amherst.

Like many colleges and universities in the U.S., while overall application numbers were up, that did not necessarily mean that the system was yielding a larger amount of enrollments across four campuses where undergraduates can study across Massachusetts.

To better distribute applicants who may be a good fit across the system, they launched a “there’s a UMass for you” pilot program two years ago to share their applications. In its first year, the program yielded nearly 40 more enrollments across the system. For the current admissions cycle, to date deposits are at 70.

Given the size and scale of the UMass system (73,000 students inclusive of graduate, law and medical schools), this is obviously not a huge number of students, LeeAnn Pasquini, Associate Vice President for Administration and Finance said during a recent “Higher Ed at a Crossroads: Navigating the Enrollment Cliff & Policy Shifts to Drive Success” webinar. But it is exemplary of the types of incremental approaches to preserving enrollment that smart financial higher education leaders are taking.

“I think we all recognize that there is no magic bullet of getting hundreds of students through just one initiative,” Pasquini said on the EY-Parthenon webinar hosted by Flywire. “So we are really looking for incremental progress and small wins to support sustaining or growing enrollment.”

Their approach is indicative of the types of data-driven, incremental steps institutions can take to preserve enrollment in a flat growth enrollment environment, that at the same time position them to protect revenue as policy changes and perceptions of higher education shift.

How are successful institutions handling the enrollment cliff?

Kruger pointed to the value of making somewhat surgical cuts to right-size departments and programs to bring instructional capacity more in line with today’s enrollment reality.

“These are things that could really result in unlocking a lot of dollars for institutions,” she said.

There are other common success denominators, said EY-Parthenon Senior Director Courtenay Selden, across institutions of all sizes and income levels that are having success, this includes:

• Clearly communicating an ROI and career focus to degree
• Increasing flexibility and modalities of learning for different profiles of learners
• Avoiding the temptation to overly focus on cutting the cost of a degree

“In the absence of that clear communication of ROI, we are seeing folks flock to lower prices. And we don't think that's the answer,” Selden said. “Just having a race to the bottom on price is not going to ultimately deliver the best outcomes for students or the industry.”

The bottom line is that these demographic changes, while nuanced and not as dire as headlines might capture, are structural and enduring. Panelists on the webinar agreed that incremental, data-driven innovation is critical for higher ed in this regard. Preserving enrollment and growing revenue will be made increasingly complex by shifting perceptions of higher ed value and policy change that will endure beyond election cycles.

“The shifts that institutions are experiencing today from changes in federal policy and funding for higher education are a different type of disruption than what we saw during the pandemic," Selden said.