Orange is the new black and nontraditional students are the new traditional students. According to the National Student Clearinghouse, the some-college-no-credential population recently increased by 2.9% to nearly 37 million students. More students attempted higher education, stopped or dropped out and have not re-engaged in their educational pursuits. Why? The question colleges and universities—and entire economies—are asking is: Can they be brought back in droves?
The short answer is yes. The long answer is only if colleges and universities learn how to attract them, cater to them and keep them. The modern learner, a term higher education marketing company Education Dynamics coined, is a student that has changed buying behaviors. These students expect rapid service and need innovative program development. They are juggling work, families, school, bills, debt and other areas of life. The demand for a learning environment designed to serve these students through affordability and accessibility is ever-present, but institutional operations often don’t realize it. So, how can educators do better? With a better strategy!
Embrace Accessibility
The word “accessibility” has been buzzing around education for decades, but each institution defines it differently. As the higher education industry begins to experience the enrollment cliff that will plague us for a decade or more among the 18- to 22-year-old traditional demographic, many institutions have discussed, ideated and even committed to serving the adult working learner. They’ve dedicated resources, hired experts and in some cases even made acquisitions of other colleges to boost enrollment of today’s new traditional student.
However, many institutions are not operationally or academically designed to serve adult learners. Their programs and term schedules are created to serve the traditional student in two 16-week semesters during an academic year. Start in the fall, come back in the spring, maybe take a few courses over the summer and so on. Some institutions will take their 16-week semester, for example, and offer two eight-week courses in the 16-week term to allow for a second fall or second spring start. This system worked just fine for 18- to 22-year-olds looking for a traditional, residential, coming-of-age undergraduate experience—students who needed lessons in laundry, who wanted college to grow them socially as much as academically and who wanted to go home during the summers instead of continuing progress toward their degree and their career—but it makes no sense to a 35-year-old working professional looking to earn a degree while juggling the rest of their busy life.
Imagine an adult student who wants to attend an institution with a traditional semester/term system and shows up in October, ready to begin their studies immediately because their employer tuition benefit lapses after the calendar year ends. They have tuition-reimbursement monies (about $5,000 or maybe a great deal more) on the table, and they don’t want to lose it. Because of its design, where October is too late to start classes during the traditional academic year, this institution could not serve this student. The student must go elsewhere or, worse yet, give up the dream. For what it’s worth, we don’t think the prospective student should bend to this kind of old-school operation; the modern learner, with evolved buying preferences, shouldn’t choose a school that hasn’t adopted or adapted to more innovative term schedules. If your college can’t figure out nonstandard terms, chances are they will come up short of meeting other modern learner expectations.
As such, institutions should spend some time looking at nonstandard term options. Alternative term structures allow for an increased number of start dates to serve the learner who is ready to begin. The Department of Education allows for different financial aid packaging models, but they are harder to manage than the model the institution designed itself around. An adult student will simply choose an institution designed to serve them, which is why many traditional institutions fail to serve the adult student appropriately or effectively. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Define Value
What is the value of a college degree? Is value purely financial, or are there other considerations that should be included in the definition? Colleges and universities are increasingly losing students to a “No, thank you—I don’t think I need to go to college at all” mentality. And much of that new trend stems from how detractors—media, politicians, employers, celebrities, families and social media influencers—devalue higher education to the public. Today’s students and their buying influencers—parents, spouses, guidance counselors, colleagues, friends—are very savvy about debt awareness and the overall financial impact of choosing a college degree or other postsecondary program.
As educators, we can play a crucial role in helping students understand and experience the value of their education beyond just financial considerations. Here are some strategies to consider:
- Redefining completion: Build degrees with embedded certificates that give students demonstrable skills they can use if they stop out, allowing them to still walk away with something tangible even if they don’t stay four or five years.
- Relating your value: Review the institutional website for value statements that communicate value directly to a consumer looking for it. Do you define the value of the education beyond the credential itself or the school’s reputation/name/brand?
- Rethinking the price tag: Take a hard look at differential pricing. Not all degrees are created equally.
By actively demonstrating the multifaceted value of education before and after students enroll, we can help students see beyond the financial investment and recognize the broader personal and professional benefits of their academic journey.
A New Era in Higher Education: Modern Learner Considerations
One of the most nonsensical practices in higher education is the institution that only makes services available to students 8 am to 5 pm. By nature, the modern learner will be doing schoolwork during off-hours, when they have fewer family and work responsibilities. Students, particularly those becoming very choice-savvy, will ask about student support hours as part of the selection process. Be ready to answer in a way that shows you have considered these learners.
Break existing systems. That’s right, break them. Take a modern learner persona and run their situation through all catalog policies and procedures to see the breakdowns. Institutions must reconsider GPA and admissions policies, leave-of-absence policies, satisfactory academic progress and prior learning assessment/credit for prior learning practices. Modern learners will not fit into existing catalog policies, even if the institution keeps them on the agrarian calendar. Over time, they will transfer out and go to an institution that understands their needs.
Test your technology, then test it again. To appropriately serve the modern learner, you must configure your student information system (SIS) to offer alternative academic calendars, which creates considerations like program versions and catalog policy alignment. This includes Title IV configuration (for U.S.-based institutions) possibilities like standard academic year, borrower-based academic year and subscription-based packaging.
Finally, consider that marketing to the modern learner is structurally different than serving the traditional student. The race to recruit online students is intense, and institutions that hope to see enrollment gains by simply offering existing on-the-ground courses in an online format will be disappointed. As higher ed demographics continue to shift, educators must adapt their approaches to meet the needs of today’s diverse student population.
Status quo is a choice. To serve a modern learner, the institution must modernize.
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