Is it time for higher ed to take transfer students more seriously? Reported by The New York Times, higher ed is taking in more transfer students than ever before, with a full 62% of the University of Central Florida’s last incoming class made up by transfer students. With demographic shifts causing higher ed to look […]
Category: Enrollment Growth Briefing
College Isn’t Expensive Because of Climbing Walls
When people start to question the high costs of college, many point to on-campus amenities as the scapegoat, and make jokes about climbing walls and lazy rivers being the reason for high-cost tuition. But reported by EAB, the main driver of colleges costs is simply teaching students, making up between 1/3 and ½ of total […]
Making College More Affordable by Promoting Timely Graduation
One way to make college more affordable is simply to ensure your students graduate on time. Reported by EAB, at Penn State University, their first-generation need-based students work 22 hours a week on average. These work requirements make it difficult to maintain a full course load, participate in additional extra-curricular academic experiences, and finish on […]
How to Harness a Student’s Intrinsic Motivations
Extrinsic factors like grades can absolutely help motivate a student. But the research shows that a student’s intrinsic motivations can be much more persuasive. Reported by The Chronicle of Higher Education, David Gooblar from the University of Iowa cites the book, How Learning Works: Seven Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching for how we can better […]
The High Value of Faculty Mentors in Higher Education
Reported by EAB, a new poll by Elon University shows that graduates who had between seven and 10 positive faculty or staff relationships during their college tenure were 3x more likely to rate their college experience as “very rewarding”. Even students with just one or two of these positive relationships were twice as likely to […]
Steering Women Toward High-Pay Career Fields
While women beat out men when it comes to higher ed enrollment, women also hold a disproportionate two-thirds of the nation’s student-loan debt. Reported by The Chronicle of Higher Education, women are also more likely than men to attend a for-profit college because of the online flexibility offered, and end up making less than their […]
How Higher Ed Presidents Can Better Engage With Students
How can college and university presidents better engage with students? Reported by EAB, Texas State University president Dr. Denise Trauth, has an online calendar open for students or student groups to schedule 15-minute meetings with her to discuss any concern they might have. While some digitally savvy higher ed leaders have taken to social media […]
University of Texas at Dallas Adds Quickbooks Bootcamp to Accounting Program
Would an accounting bootcamp teach students how to use Quickbooks? Reported by EdSurge, accounting courses at the University of Texas at Dallas teach students classroom theory, and then practice applying that theory using real-life work scenarios via the popular accounting software, Quickbooks. Rather than graduating students who understand advanced theory but don’t know how to […]
Faculty Email Marketing in Higher Education
Email marketing is likely a high-value channel for your internal marketing teams. But are personal emails underutilized by faculty in the classroom setting? Reported by The Chronicle of Higher Education, especially in large classes, students can feel lost in the crowd when they’re struggling. But many learning management systems make it easy for faculty to […]
Employers Claim College Graduates Aren’t Prepared for Career Advancement
Only about 60% of hiring managers believe college graduates are prepared to succeed in entry-level positions, and only ¼ of these hiring managers believe graduates have the skill-set to advance or be promoted. Reported by The Chronicle of Higher Education, this new survey of employers by the Association of American Colleges & Universities may be […]
Dual Enrollment Programs are Saving Students a Semester of College
Do dual enrollment programs improve a student’s likelihood to graduate? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, 61% of students who enter the University of Texas System are now bringing college credit with them, through dual-enrollment credit and/or Advanced Placement credit. These students who enroll at UT with existing credit have a higher retention rate, and are […]
Students Aren’t Afraid of the Academics, But They’re Still Afraid They Won’t Finish
For students who aren’t confident they’ll complete their degree, it’s not necessarily the academics themselves they’re nervous about. Reported by EdSurge, nearly a quarter of students 18 and older currently enrolled at a 2- or 4-year institution believe it will be difficult for them to finish their degree. From a study conducted in partnership with […]
Providing a Clear Career Road Map to the Prospective Student
How do we turn slight interest into strong enrollments? Reported by Burning Glass, the “skeptical enrollee” is a potential student with mild interest in a particular program, but needs to be rationally convinced of the long-term career benefits of enrolling and persisting. The takeaway? It’s critical for us to help a prospective student understand their […]
Micro-grants as Stop-Out and Drop-Out Prevention at University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Are micro-grants a solution to student stop-outs and drop-outs? Reported by the Hechinger Report, 70% of students who leave UNC-Charlotte late in their program do so for financial reasons. In response, the university has created Gold Rush micro-grants (typically around $1,500) to help students stay enrolled. And 95% of these micro-grant recipients have either successfully […]
Why Your Students’ First Job After Graduation Means Everything
The first job your students take after graduation can impact the rest of their career, both for better or for worse. Reported by CNBC, a report by the Strada Institute for the Future of Work reports that more than 40% of college graduates take positions immediately out of school that don’t require a degree. And […]
Would Universal Transcripts Improve Graduation Rates?
Is a universal transcript the next step in making graduation more accessible for adult students? Reported by Education Dive, evaluating the transcripts from various two- and four-year institutions can be difficult, with each institution having its own academic standards. That’s what makes a universal transcript so difficult to make happen, and also what makes it […]
Graduating Students with the Hard and Soft Skills Necessary to Succeed
Are college degree programs currently providing an appropriate mix of both hard and soft skills? We often hear employers say they’re looking for graduates with the soft skills necessary to work effectively and collaboratively with others. But they often hire for the hard skills, skillsets that prove the person can effectively hit the ground running […]
Paying Faculty More to Teach Online at Colorado Mesa University
For institutions who struggle persuading their full-time instructors to start teaching online, one university found a creative solution. Reported by Inside Higher Ed, Colorado Mesa University incentivizes their instructors based on the number of students and the total number of credits hours enrolled in their online courses. Even with enrollment caps in place on these […]
Incorporating Information Literacy into Higher Ed Course Curriculum
How can we help students fight fake news by teaching them information literacy? In an article by The Chronicle of Higher Education, David Gooblar from the University of Iowa provided advice on how to incorporate information literacy into your courses. His advice includes partnering with your librarians on-campus to incorporate learnings in your classroom, teaching […]
Big Data’s Big Promise to Higher Ed Still Unrequited?
Has big data’s promise for higher ed been made good on in a big way yet, or are we still stuck in the fad stage of true data intelligence? Higher ed leaders are quick to be excited on the intelligence promises of big data, but often underestimate the reality of the data infrastructure they need […]
Princeton University’s Principedia is Response to Anonymous Course Review Sites
Students continue to utilize course review sites like RateMyProfessors.com to share their course experiences, determine a course’s difficulty, and learn a professor’s hot-or-not’ness before enrolling. Reported by The Chronicle of Higher Education, Princeton University in response has published a more transparent and comprehensive student review of courses, through a forum they’ve named Principedia. Any Princeton […]
University of Pennsylvania Brings Ivy League Degree to Coursera
Ivy League degrees are coming for the nontraditional student. Reported by Inside Higher Ed, The University of Pennsylvania is partnering with Coursera to offer a fully online master’s degree in computer and informational technology for $26,300, roughly 1/3 of the campus version’s price tag. This follows the path trailblazed by Georgia Tech and Udacity, who […]
Fayetteville State University Adjusts Physical Campus Space Due to Online Student Migration
As higher ed’s student body begins to migrate more and more online, how do our physical on-campus spaces need to adjust? Reported by The Chronicle of Higher Education, Fayetteville State University is demolishing two unoccupied dormitories. But it’s not because Fayetteville State is struggling from an enrollment perspective – it’s simply that their student body […]
Rutgers University Study Shows Link Between In-Class Device Use and Poorer Test Performance
Do laptops and mobile devices help students in the classroom, or distract them? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, a recent study from Rutgers University was published in Educational Psychology, revealing a causal link between cellphone and laptop use during class and poorer exam scores. Testing student performance against themselves, 118 students were split into two […]
Paul Quinn College Offers Jobs For Every Student
Are colleges graduating students truly prepared to make a meaningful difference in the workforce from day one? Reported by The Chronicle of Higher Education, Paul Quinn College became the first historically black college to be designated a “work college” by the U.S. Department of Education, in which every student is given a job or internship […]
Case Western Reserve University Replaces Cadaver Labs with VR Labs
The hardest degree programs to bring 100% online have been the lab-heavy programs. But could virtual reality and augmented reality help? Reported by EdSurge, Case Western Reserve University is replacing their cadaver lab with a VR lab. And early trials have shown that students who learned via VR scored the same on tests as those […]
The First Five Minutes of Your University Class
The first 5 minutes of a university class is very much like the first sentence of a novel. If you can’t grab and hold their attention with your opening, you are likely to lose them. The Chronicle of Higher Education suggests some ways to start your first 5-minutes of every class, including: Opening with a […]
Eastern Michigan University’s In-State Tuition Price Match for International Students
For years, colleges and universities welcomed full-pay international students to help balance out their traditional student tuition discount rate. But with a downtrend in international student interest due to changes in the political climate, some institutions are changing their pricing structure to attract more international students. Reported by Inside Higher Ed, Eastern Michigan University has […]
University of Georgia’s Study of Open Educational Resources
There has been a slow but steady move toward Open Educational Resources (OER textbooks and materials) in the higher ed classroom. Reported by Inside Higher Ed, a new large-scale study by the University of Georgia may help hasten this move. This longitudinal study of more than 21,000 students found that college students provided with free […]
University of Louisville Asks Adult Students for Second Chance
Most colleges still get it wrong when it comes to recruiting adult students says the University of Louisville’s Matt Bergman. Rather than offering them another chance, Bergman says “we’ve got to flip that and say, ‘Give us another chance.’” Reported by the Chronicle of Higher Education, Bergman was a panelist in a discussion of adult […]
Vanderbilt University’s Qualitative-Based Faculty Assessments
Vanderbilt University is trying to determine if the qualitative portion of faculty assessments can be better utilized to identify outlier faculty – both your highest and lowest performers. Reported by the Chronicle of Higher Education, Vanderbilt University’s findings were that in order to identify your best and worst professors for any given course, you need […]
University of Michigan’s Subscription-Based Continuing Education
Does a degree you earned 10-20 years ago continue to provide you with real-world relevance? Many institutions are attempting to solve this continuing learning puzzle for their graduates. Reported by The Washington Post, the University of Michigan is offering a subscription-based program that allows their graduates to continue to take courses there, forever. The takeaway […]