Competing for Adult Students
The modern higher education landscape is vastly different than it was even ten years ago. Increasing numbers of adult students are returning to the academy and state funding for higher education has been steadily declining. Of course, as the landscape of the industry changes, strategies for success must change along with it.
Competing for Adult Students
Five Statistical Reasons Why You Should Compete for Adult Students
Given the growth of the adult student population base, the reduction in state funding for higher education and the national emphasis on increasing the number of credential-holders, it is imperative that higher education institution begin making greater efforts to enroll and serve adult learners.
Why Compete for Adult Students?
Continuing Education units must work hard to spearhead their respective university’s efforts in competing for and enrolling adult students.
How Can States Support Adult Higher Education?
Quality and an Open Door
John Ebersole | President, Excelsior College
Higher education institutions and governments have a shared responsibility to ensure that adult learners have access to the educational opportunities necessary for them to achieve the career and life they want to reach.
AUDIO | Compete to Complete: How States Can Improve Higher Education for Adults
Travis Reindl | Education Division Program Director, National Governors Association
States have historically set their focus on supporting traditional-age students, but as demographics evolve the time has come for them to put more investment and energy into improving higher education for adults.
Strengthening Society and the Economy with Adult Higher Education
Frank Palatnick | UN Advisor of Global Education, International Agency for Economic Development
Ensuring adults have access to necessary remedial and foundational education is the key to strengthening communities and societies.
DEBATE | What Type of Institution Is Best-Suited for Adults?
AUDIO | What Higher Education Can Learn from the For-Profit Model
Peter Smith | Senior Vice President, Kaplan Higher Education
Since most for-profit institutions were built from the ground-up, they did not have to overcome cultural and policy barriers than create challenges for adult students in many other long-established higher education institutions.
AUDIO | What Higher Education Can Learn from the Private, Not-for-Profit Model
Private, not-for-profit institutions provide students the personalized guidance they need to ensure that they have a positive, successful and rigorous educational experience that makes them want to come back for more.
Public Institutions Must Step Up Online to Serve Adults
Hunt Lambert | Associate Provost of Continuing Education OnlinePlus, Colorado State University
Since for-profit institutions have done most of the leg-work in developing high-quality online education models, it is up to public institutions to widen access to low-cost, highly-flexible higher education.
What Do Adult Students Want?
AUDIO | Meeting the Needs of Adult Learners
Eric Riedel | Chief Academic Officer, Walden University
By understanding the needs of adult students, colleges and universities can tailor their programming to meet those needs and, in turn, find that happy and satisfied students and graduates will share their experiences with their friends and colleagues.
Why I Chose Walden University
Walden University Students and Alumni
There are a range of requirements different adult students have to pick the institution they want to attend, from flexibility and personalization to rigorous educational standards.
Behind My Decision: Picking the Right Institution
Asta Becker | Student, Pfeiffer University
Ensuring that class scheduling lines up with an adult student’s work and family needs is critical in the decision to enroll at a given college or university.
Selecting My University
Tom Toolan | Senior Consultant, TJK Consulting
To choose an institution, a student must know that the programming on offer is relevant to their career aspirations and that they can receive top-quality education at the time and place that is most convenient to them.
Establishing Brand Loyalty in Continuing Education
Be a Year-Round Continuing Education Santa
John DeLalla | Director of Continuing Education, University of Arizona South
Being generous with free branded gifts will keep your institution top of mind for adult learners when they consider their continuing education options.
Good News, You Have a Brand; But Do You Know What It Is?
Rosa-Fay Milnar | Adjunct Faculty, Everest College
Ensuring your institution has an established and recognized brand is only half the battle. Once that brand is established, colleges and universities must go above and beyond to ensure their marketing plan is being carried out and received successfully.
Enticing Alumni to Enroll for Ongoing Education
AUDIO | Bringing Alumni Back for Continuing Education
Carolyn Young | Director of Continuing Studies, Western University
Despite the programs in place for alumni to take advantage of at their alma mater, higher education institutions typically do not have up-to-date contact information available to contact their alumni.
AUDIO | Behind An Alumnus’ Decision to Return
Michael Cary | Alumni, University of Michigan
A highly positive undergraduate experience is all it takes for some professionals to decide to look up their alma mater’s offerings when searching out continuing education opportunities.
Higher Education and the Twittersphere: Keeping Alumni Engaged
Julianne Helinek | Sales Assistant, Macmillan Education
Twitter provides higher education institutions with a direct method to contact and engage with their alumni.
Adults and International Branch Campuses
Some Things Don’t Change: The Global Draw of American Higher Education
Cindy Elliott | Assistant Provost for Strategic Partnerships, Fort Hays State University
While the American higher education system faces a great deal of criticism on the home front, an American degree carries a great deal of weight internationally.
International Branch Campuses: Adult Students to the Rescue
Focusing on adult students might provide international branch campuses the enrollments they need to remain viable.
Giving Adult Learners a Competitive Edge
Delivering continuing education programming to adult learners is key to the long-term success of international branch campus success.
Creating Programming for Adult Learners
Five Ways to Make an Academic Program Adult-Friendly
Deborah Bushway | Vice President of Academic Innovation, Capella University
A program designed with adult learners in mind will help older students succeed in higher education.
Designing a Successful Program for Adults
Dayle Thorpe | Director of Academic and Professional Programs, University of Delaware
The adult higher education market has become a hyper-competitive one, and higher education institutions must design their programs to differentiate themselves from their competitors.
Designing Programs for Adult-Friendly Colleges and Universities
Simon Quattlebaum | Teacher, New Jersey Public Schools
There is no single formula to developing a program to suit the needs of adult students; each institution will have its own approach and its own characteristics.
Designing Programs for Today’s Adult Learners
Top Five Tips for Designing Adult Programming
Fay Aubuchon | Manager of Workforce Initiatives, St. Charles Community College
Adult learners are extremely busy and higher education institutions should aim to ensure that their programming is personalized to their needs.
Access and Innovation in Higher Education for a New Generation of Adult Learners
Ali Eskandarian | Dean of the College of Professional Studies, George Washington University
Creating specialized and innovative programs for adult learners is a way to grow enrollments, if it is done correctly. However, to be successful in this endeavor, institutions must invest the necessary time and resources to maintain and scale these programs.
Attracting Higher Education’s ‘New-Traditional’ Students
Competing for Adult Learners
Wayne Smutz | Executive Director, Penn State World Campus
Wanting flexibility in programming is not the same as wanting an easy program. Adult learners require their higher education institutions to deliver learning at times and in ways that are convenient for them, so they can live their lives while continuing their higher education.
AUDIO | The Impact of Brand Name Institutions on Extension Enrollments
Diana Wu | Dean, UC Berkeley Extension
Continuing education units at big, name-brand universities may have less difficulty in attracting people through name recognition, but they must work very hard to distinguish their product for their prospective students.
AUDIO | The Similarities and Differences of Marketing to Adult and Traditional-Age Students
Thomas Gibbons | 2012-2013 President, UPCEA
Whether you’re appealing to adult students or traditional-age high school graduates, quality education is going to be a major factor in their decision to enroll. However, adult students are far more focused on the career implications of their education than 18-22 year old learners.
Defining Success in Adult Higher Education Marketing
Becoming a Data-Driven Organization: Evolving the Continuing Education Unit
Taking a metric-backed approach has helped the Stanford Center for Professional Development understand the outcomes of their marketing initiatives and their work helps define the goals and viability of future marketing activities.
AUDIO | The Value of a Data-Driven Marketing Strategy
Lesley Snyder | Director of Continuing Education, UNC Charlotte
By implementing robust mechanisms to determine which marketing activities are having the most success, higher education institutions can save money by focusing resources on high-return strategies.
Innovative Methods of Displaying Achievements
Digital Badges: A More Viable Currency for Returning Adult Students?
Kyle Peck | Professor of Education, Penn State University
Badges provide employers with a significantly more comprehensive idea of what their prospective employees can accomplish than a traditional degree and transcript.
Recognizing, Supporting, and Attracting Adult Learners with Digital Badges
Through the natural capacity to share digital badges through social media and other online tools, higher education institutions will have the opportunity to reach a wider range of students than they otherwise would and show prospective students real-world learning outcomes simultaneously.
Adult Education and ePortfolios
ePortfolios provide learners with the opportunity to blend their in-class learning with the experiential, on-the-job learning to give employers, institutions and themselves a much clearer picture of what they are capable of.
Making Higher Education Work For Adults
Facilitating Student Success through the Acceptance of Credit in Transfer
Becky Takeda-Tinker | President, Colorado State University—Global Campus
By accepting credit and work done at prior institutions and through other learning providers, higher education institutions can take a big step toward making colleges and universities work for today’s adult student.
The Bologna Accord and New Students
Alfredo Soeiro | EUCEN Representative, Universidade do Porto
The Bologna Accord provisions make it easier for students to have their qualifications and competencies recognized across Europe, making it easier for individuals to work and study in different places.
AUDIO | Developing and Implementing Competency-Based Learning
Allison Barber | Chancellor, Western Governors University—Indiana
Higher education can be a confusing challenge for many adults, especially given the traditional focus on class time for completion. The competency-based model, however, allows a simpler path to a degree by focusing more on what the student knows than how long they have been enrolled.
The Benefits of Competency-Based Education for Adults
Jodi Robison | Director of Assessment, UniversityNow
As the workforce moves in the direction of learning validation over prior credentials—which is the say the focus is more on how you can apply your learning than where and how you learned—competency-based models of higher education are becoming vital for adults who want to progress into, or to the next step of, a career.
Why Companies Want Competency-Based Education
Diane Johnson | Academic Dean, New Charter University
Given the critical importance of employee competence in today’s workforce, competency-based models are becoming increasing important for employers, as this approach to higher education ensures that employees both understand the concepts being taught and can apply them in the work world.
Marketing Higher Education to Adults
Top Five Ways to Market Higher Education to Adult Students
Craig Maslowsky | Vice President of Enrollment Management and Marketing, Excelsior College
Successfully marketing to adult students requires a college or university to go beyond simply having resources available. Those resources must be optimized to enhance the student’s experience, and designed in such a way that they felt understood.
Evolving with the Times to Compete for Adult Enrollments
While many marketing practices have remained over the years, they have become more effective by being backed by data.
Secrets of Self-Taught Videography
John O’Neill | Director of Marketing, UC Davis Extension
Video is becoming increasingly important for higher education marketing departments, but getting started and being successful can be tricky.
The First Step is to Understand Your Audience
Chris Peterson | Researcher, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Higher education institutions have a great opportunity to engage prospective, current and past students through various social media channels, but it is important to understand and correctly use those channels in order to be successful.
DEBATE | Do MOOCs Benefit the Higher Education Industry?
MOOCs Support and Improve, But Do Not Replace, Higher Education Institutions
Andrew Ng | Co-Founder, Coursera
While MOOCs do not aim to replace the in-person interactions offered by higher education institutions, they provide students the opportunity to expand their knowledge and pursue their interests without dedicating fixed periods of time to fit a college or university schedule.
MOOCs: A Mostly Harmless Hustle
Chris Peterson | Researcher, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
While Massive Open Online Courses gain increasing attention and popularity in the higher education world, has anyone stopped to ask what exactly makes this courses more “massive”, “open” or “online” than other online programming geared toward adult learners?
Competing With Edupreneurs for Adult Enrollments
Growing Online Learning Critical for Continuing Education
Kevin Currie | Executive Director, Northeastern University Online
There are a number of different approaches higher education institutions can take to increase and diversify their online offerings, each with its own benefits and drawbacks.
A Glass Half Full and Half Empty: The Pitfalls and Possibilities of MOOCs
Reed Scull | Associate Dean of Outreach, University of Wyoming
MOOCs have created massive change in the higher education space, but there are a number of hurdles left for them to jump before they can be reasonably accepted as mainstream practice for colleges and universities.
When Convenience Becomes Customary
Gerald Rhead | Director of Academic Entrepreneurship at MSUGlobal, Michigan State University
Higher education institutions will not be able to remain competitive in the current or future higher education marketplace without developing and delivering robust online offerings.
Competing with For-Profits to Attract Adult Students
Anthony Picciano | Executive Officer of Urban Education, City University of New York
Given the number of options that adult students have when selecting a college or university to enroll at for their higher education, public institutions must go above and beyond to ensure adult students understand exactly how enrolling with them is advantageous.
Understanding the Positive Impact of Online Learning Divisions
Ken Udas | Chief Academic Strategist, Everspring
Colleges and universities must understand their students’ diverse needs and expectations in order to properly serve them, and it is evident that adult learners require robust online and distance components to be available in order for their education to work for them.
Focusing on Strengths to Meet Adult Students’ Needs
The Flexibility Factor: Meeting the Professional Needs of Adult Students
Stan Weisner | Director of Behavioral Health Sciences, UC Berkeley Extension
Instructional designers and programmers face the challenging task of trying to develop academic programming that is both academically rigorous and aligned with current workforce needs. An institution’s flexibility, specifically from non-credit units, is essential to ensuring that colleges and universities can remain flexible in this regard.
Run Your Own Race: The Four-Minute Mile and Higher Education
John Churchill | Executive Director of Workforce Development, Southwest Tennessee Community College
In order to successfully compete in the adult higher education market, institutions must focus on their own strengths and ensure they perform well, rather than trying to imitate the strategies of competitors.
Attracting Specific Segments of Adult Students
Military Friendly: Choose Those Words Wisely
Robert Rosenbalm | President, Council on Military Education in the South
Labeling a college or university as “Military Friendly” is more than just a marketing plot. It should be a marker that signifies an institution as being culturally in-tune with the distinct lifestyle and needs of active and veteran military students.
Making Higher Education Work for Those Out of Work
Cindy Miller | Kansas City Campus Director, Columbia College
Numerous industries are in periods of great flux and change, causing a large number of people to be out of work and even more who are searching for new careers. This new reality in the labor market requires higher education institutions to shape their programming to meet the specific needs of students who are out of work or who are enrolled to find a new job.
DEBATE | Is the Higher Education Marketplace Overcrowded?
Exploring Today’s Hyper-Competitive Continuing Higher Education Market
Melanie Ho | Practice Manager of the Continuing and Online Education Forum, The Advisory Board
Continuing and ongoing education units can grow enrollments without focusing exclusively on marketing by focusing on their particular highest-return relationships.
Proliferation of Higher Education Institutions Positive for the Industry
Ken Coates | Canada Research Chair in Regional Innovation, University of Saskatchewan
Despite the emergence of poorer-quality institutions with the growth of the higher education industry, the competition means that most institutions are improving their quality and efficiency while the market will correct and “shake out” the lesser institutions.
Industry’s Hyper-Competitiveness Takes Focus Off Social Good Mission
Fred Holman | Vice Provost of Extended Studies, University of Nevada—Reno
In the pursuit of more students in this hypercompetitive marketplace, higher education institutions are committing their resources toward the most popular programs they offer, meaning they are cutting loose programs that may not be financially sustainable but serve an important social good mission.