Deb Maue's guest appearances

Deb Maue

Changing Higher Ed

Keith Brown

Sam Horn

Rob Hartman

Michael Horowitz

Mike Goldstein

Grant Aldrich

Martin Leifeld

Bridget Burns

Ralph Enlow

Gordon Gee

Jay Patel

Scott Roberts

Tim Hill

Mike Petrilli

Ricardo Azziz

OwlTail

Drumm McNaughton

Episode Summary The Change Leader CEO and President Drumm McNaughton and Aurora University Vice President for Marketing and Communications Deb Maue share their insights during the second annual wrap-up of happenings in higher education. This show notes offers a follow-up on the pair’s predictions for 2019 as well as insights on what to prepare for in 2020. Mergers, Consolidates and Closures 2018 Prediction for 2019: There would be an acceleration of mergers, consolidations and closures in higher education. What happened: This proved to be true. In November 2019, Education Dive reported that from 2014-2018, there were 1,234 colleges and universities that closed, including 129 non-profits, 11 publics and 1,094 for-profits. It shows that higher education is in a mature or declining market and will continue to experience headwinds in the future. The most surprising example of this was University of Alaska, where the governor initially wanted to cut $80 million from the budget, but dropped the amount to $40 million. This level of cuts is unheard of and it had to do with campaign promises. The university system was looking at consolidating three campuses into one, but geographically, this made no sense. System leaders also are looking at programmatic and faculty cuts. This will have far-reaching consequences, and may put the institution’s accreditation into jeopardy. However, several mergers made strategic sense. For example, National University System acquired Northcentral University, which is fully online with masters and doctoral programs. This merger allows the system to provide more programs for its students. Another example is Arkansas System, which absorbed Henderson State, a private non-profit. This opportunity to share services helps Henderson financially; in addition, its brand equity will increase by being part of the system. In both cases, these institutions moved quickly instead of waiting. They viewed the opportunity to merge as a strategic decision instead of being forced into making the move as a last resort. Neg Reg 2019 2018 Prediction for 2019:  The Neg Reg 2019 process would begin a transformation of higher education and its business model. What happened: This process proved to be groundbreaking in many ways. For instance, the Neg Reg negotiators came to consensus on every topic, which is unheard of. The Department of Education did put forward a number of ambitious goals and participants pushed back on a number of them before coming to consensus. The negotiators put the items under consideration into three buckets – accreditation agencies, innovation (including distance education and CBE), and teach grants and religious schools. The Department published the rules on accreditation agencies on November 1 in the Federal Register so these rules will go into effect July 1.  Some of the critical things include  Accreditors are no longer delineated as regional or national and they now can compete against each other. Accreditors also can now reach out beyond the state or region they initially were restricted to and work with institutions in other parts of the nation. Student transfers should become much easier because of these changes.  However, the innovation bucket was not finalized. People are anticipating that new guidance will come out for discussion shortly because the Department of Education just ended its Competency-based Education (CBE) experiment. However, because this guidance wasn’t published by November 1, these changes won’t go into effect on July 1, 2020. If President Trump is not re-elected, these changes will be up for reconsideration. A major issue for this bucket is how to measure learning. Right now, accreditors and institutions primarily measure learning by credit hours. However, this isn’t truly a good measure of learning.  Competency-based education looks at the knowledge and skills that a student acquires (or has coming into a program). Moving toward this way of measuring learning would be a major shift for higher education, especially for distance education. There also is talk coming out of Washington, D.C. about how to engage the business community more to identify the proficiencies that students need. This could also be put in the innovation bucket, The future of the third bucket -- TEACH grants and guidance for religious colleges and universities – is still unclear. Online Education 2018 Prediction for 2019: Online education will continue to grow in the next 2-3 years, spurred by consolidations and strategic alliances with online providers. What happened: This happened over the last year with the increase of online students; however, the rate of increase slowed. Western Governors and Southern New Hampshire University both topped 100,000 students and Grand Canyon University topped 90,000. However, there also have been major drops, including Phoenix (which was at 490,000 students at the beginning of the decade but now has about 90,000, a significantly lower enrollment). The most interesting thing is online program management (OPM). Bridgepoint Education continues to expand into this market as is Grand Canyon. Then there is Online Degree, which is turning the OPM marketing on its head. This company, which is growing, is attracting college dropouts to earn their GE requirements for free. Additionally, the movement from for-profit to non-profit is in a disarray. Grand Canyon illustrates this, having received approval for non-profit status by the IRS. However, the institution will still be treated as a for-profit by the Department of Education for the purposes of receiving federal funding. Universities that got into online education thought they would draw students nationally. However, online is now becoming hyper-local outside of the big players. The student base for online is the same as the prospective student base who would attend classes in person. This makes the marketing to these students easier. The number of post-traditional students is decreasing. Whether this will continue will be based on the economy. If it sours, people will go back to school to distinguish themselves. On a positive note, Moody changed its outlook from negative to neutral because they’ve seen some growth in some sectors. However, the demographic changes are beginning to be felt and will culminate in The Cliff in 2025.  Additionally, 1 in 3 higher ed CFOs believe that the sector is in trouble, and they are the ones that know what is going on the best. Tenure and promotion 2018 Prediction for 2019: Changing faculty tenure and promotion policies as a result of universities needing to cull programs that are not financially viable. What happened: This is still emerging. We believe that faculty are not getting tenured as quickly, especially at private institutions. Additionally, tenure doesn’t mean lifetime employment anywhere given that low-performing programs will be cut, putting faculty at risk for losing jobs.  One way this may play out is through alliances that may allow faculty to be shared between institutions. Market Research 2018 Prediction for 2019: Market research will increasingly have a place in higher education as they focus on identifying where students are coming from. What happened: We agreed that this hasn’t come true. Deb noted that there are some institutions that are doing a solid job in doing market research using statistical methods and other research methods to position the institution. However, there are still “haves” (which are big institutions) and “have-nots” based on funding being available to do this type of research. Cost Containment 2018 Prediction for 2019: Cost containment will accelerate, especially in private schools. This will find its way to the C suite where there will be a reduction of presidential salaries, especially in private universities. What happened: There wasn’t a reduction in salaries, but cost containment is becoming more evident. One-third of CFOs are concerned about their finances. Student debt exceeds $1.5 trillion, the highest ever. Low income students must work 15+ hours a week to afford their education. The discounting rate is commonly at 60 percent. Higher education enrollments are under 18 million, the first time since the Great Recession. However, institutions can’t cut their way to grow; instead, it’s important – and CFOs are increasingly trying to find ways -- to put money into areas that will give a good return on the investment. These include market research and proactive boards to steer the institution. Additionally, faculty and staff are starting to understand that higher education is a business and there is a relationship between revenues and expenses. Presidents are being more transparent about budgets as a way to education the institutional stakeholders. 2018 Prediction for 2019: We will start to see more interesting ways for education to be funded. Part of this will come from the NegReg process. More cities, state and companies will invest in their employees’ future. What happened: While there hasn’t been much movement on this, we note that the movement in the OPM markets, as well as the changing accreditation process. There has been growth but not as far as funding of education. This is part of the reason why there have been so many mergers and closures – institutions still are too reliant on tuition for their budgets. Higher education is beginning to partner with businesses to provide stackable and micro credentials for employees. However faculty buy-in is needed because they will be responsible for providing the content. 2019 Surprises We also note a number of things that happened in 2019 that surprised us. These included:  Varsity Blues. This represents the worst in higher education and U.S. society when people with money can buy dishonesty at universities. Admissions lawsuits. The federal judge upheld Harvard’s use of affirmative action in its admission decisions, but it’s going to be appealed. There’s a similar lawsuit against UNC from the same group. Title IX. Three undergraduate women from Yale filed a class action lawsuit against Yale and its fraternities alleging that the fraternities control the campus social scene in a biased manner against women and fostering a culture of sexual harassment runs rampant. Lawsuits about false marketing. Career Education Corporation settled a five-year lawsuit brought by 49 state attorney generals over its marketing. A similar lawsuit happened to Phoenix, which is now considered to have a toxic brand. These lawsuits taint the for-profit education sector. Title IX. New guidance, which is at OPM, is coming out that changes the criteria from preponderance of evidence instead of clear and convincing evidence, the same as what is required in civil suits. This process had over 100,000 comments on this and will have major landmines.  Predictions for 2020  Changes are coming in how fundraising is done at major institutions. Donor relations are changing in that people are returning donations and unnaming buildings. Institutions are going to be far more wary of accepting donations without doing significant background checks. There will be an acceleration of closures and mergers. There were big ones in 2019, such as Purdue with Kaplan and Strayer with Capella. There will be more closures in private non-profits. There is an overabundance in the market and a correction. Rising costs and discount rates of 60 percent or more will be common. Institutions will increase their partnerships with businesses to develop curriculum and credentials tailored to the businesses. Free tuition will not be the norm. Otherwise, taxes will need to be increased. More lawsuits about free speech, admissions policies and sexual assault will be filed. The Title IX rollout will be a mess. NCAA will need to look at restructuring, such as paying Division I athletes. This has other ramifications. For instance, this decision would give student-athletes the status of employees, which then gives them disability. That has additional cost ramifications for institutions. NegReg 2019 will turn into NegReg 2020 and things won’t be rolled out in a timely basis. If there is a new president, there could be significant rollbacks in the guidelines. There will not be any resolution in credit hours vs. competency-based education in relation to learning. The Department of Education will punt this issue to the accreditors. With the changes to the NACAC regulations, there will be decreased ability to predict the size of incoming fall class. May 1 will be less of a critical date in knowing what the fall enrollment will be and the recruiting cycle will change.    Links to Articles, Apps, or websites mentioned during the interview: Guests Social Media Links:  Guest Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deborahmaue/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-change-leader/about/  The Change Leader’s Social Media Links:  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drdrumm/ Twitter: @thechangeldr Email: podcast@changinghighered.com 

Episode Summary The Change Leader CEO and President Drumm McNaughton and Aurora University Vice President for Marketing and Communications Deb Maue share their insights during the second annual wrap-up of happenings in higher education. This show notes offers a follow-up on the pair’s predictions for 2019 as well as insights on what to prepare for in 2020. Mergers, Consolidates and Closures 2018 Prediction for 2019: There would be an acceleration of mergers, consolidations and closures in higher education. What happened: This proved to be true. In November 2019, Education Dive reported that from 2014-2018, there were 1,234 colleges and universities that closed, including 129 non-profits, 11 publics and 1,094 for-profits. It shows that higher education is in a mature or declining market and will continue to experience headwinds in the future. The most surprising example of this was University of Alaska, where the governor initially wanted to cut $80 million from the budget, but dropped the amount to $40 million. This level of cuts is unheard of and it had to do with campaign promises. The university system was looking at consolidating three campuses into one, but geographically, this made no sense. System leaders also are looking at programmatic and faculty cuts. This will have far-reaching consequences, and may put the institution’s accreditation into jeopardy. However, several mergers made strategic sense. For example, National University System acquired Northcentral University, which is fully online with masters and doctoral programs. This merger allows the system to provide more programs for its students. Another example is Arkansas System, which absorbed Henderson State, a private non-profit. This opportunity to share services helps Henderson financially; in addition, its brand equity will increase by being part of the system. In both cases, these institutions moved quickly instead of waiting. They viewed the opportunity to merge as a strategic decision instead of being forced into making the move as a last resort. Neg Reg 2019 2018 Prediction for 2019:  The Neg Reg 2019 process would begin a transformation of higher education and its business model. What happened: This process proved to be groundbreaking in many ways. For instance, the Neg Reg negotiators came to consensus on every topic, which is unheard of. The Department of Education did put forward a number of ambitious goals and participants pushed back on a number of them before coming to consensus. The negotiators put the items under consideration into three buckets – accreditation agencies, innovation (including distance education and CBE), and teach grants and religious schools. The Department published the rules on accreditation agencies on November 1 in the Federal Register so these rules will go into effect July 1.  Some of the critical things include <ul> <li>Accreditors are no longer delineated as regional or national and they now can compete against each other.</li> <li>Accreditors also can now reach out beyond the state or region they initially were restricted to and work with institutions in other parts of the nation. Student transfers should become much easier because of these changes.</li> </ul> However, the innovation bucket was not finalized. People are anticipating that new guidance will come out for discussion shortly because the Department of Education just ended its Competency-based Education (CBE) experiment. However, because this guidance wasn’t published by November 1, these changes won’t go into effect on July 1, 2020. If President Trump is not re-elected, these changes will be up for reconsideration. A major issue for this bucket is how to measure learning. Right now, accreditors and institutions primarily measure learning by credit hours. However, this isn’t truly a good measure of learning.  Competency-based education looks at the knowledge and skills that a student acquires (or has coming into a program). Moving toward this way of measuring learning would be a major shift for higher education, especially for distance education. There also is talk coming out of Washington, D.C. about how to engage the business community more to identify the proficiencies that students need. This could also be put in the innovation bucket, The future of the third bucket -- TEACH grants and guidance for religious colleges and universities – is still unclear. Online Education 2018 Prediction for 2019: Online education will continue to grow in the next 2-3 years, spurred by consolidations and strategic alliances with online providers. What happened: This happened over the last year with the increase of online students; however, the rate of increase slowed. Western Governors and Southern New Hampshire University both topped 100,000 students and Grand Canyon University topped 90,000. However, there also have been major drops, including Phoenix (which was at 490,000 students at the beginning of the decade but now has about 90,000, a significantly lower enrollment). The most interesting thing is online program management (OPM). Bridgepoint Education continues to expand into this market as is Grand Canyon. Then there is Online Degree, which is turning the OPM marketing on its head. This company, which is growing, is attracting college dropouts to earn their GE requirements for free. Additionally, the movement from for-profit to non-profit is in a disarray. Grand Canyon illustrates this, having received approval for non-profit status by the IRS. However, the institution will still be treated as a for-profit by the Department of Education for the purposes of receiving federal funding. Universities that got into online education thought they would draw students nationally. However, online is now becoming hyper-local outside of the big players. The student base for online is the same as the prospective student base who would attend classes in person. This makes the marketing to these students easier. The number of post-traditional students is decreasing. Whether this will continue will be based on the economy. If it sours, people will go back to school to distinguish themselves. On a positive note, Moody changed its outlook from negative to neutral because they’ve seen some growth in some sectors. However, the demographic changes are beginning to be felt and will culminate in The Cliff in 2025.  Additionally, 1 in 3 higher ed CFOs believe that the sector is in trouble, and they are the ones that know what is going on the best. Tenure and promotion 2018 Prediction for 2019: Changing faculty tenure and promotion policies as a result of universities needing to cull programs that are not financially viable. What happened: This is still emerging. We believe that faculty are not getting tenured as quickly, especially at private institutions. Additionally, tenure doesn’t mean lifetime employment anywhere given that low-performing programs will be cut, putting faculty at risk for losing jobs.  One way this may play out is through alliances that may allow faculty to be shared between institutions. Market Research 2018 Prediction for 2019: Market research will increasingly have a place in higher education as they focus on identifying where students are coming from. What happened: We agreed that this hasn’t come true. Deb noted that there are some institutions that are doing a solid job in doing market research using statistical methods and other research methods to position the institution. However, there are still “haves” (which are big institutions) and “have-nots” based on funding being available to do this type of research. Cost Containment 2018 Prediction for 2019: Cost containment will accelerate, especially in private schools. This will find its way to the C suite where there will be a reduction of presidential salaries, especially in private universities. What happened: There wasn’t a reduction in salaries, but cost containment is becoming more evident. One-third of CFOs are concerned about their finances. Student debt exceeds $1.5 trillion, the highest ever. Low income students must work 15+ hours a week to afford their education. The discounting rate is commonly at 60 percent. Higher education enrollments are under 18 million, the first time since the Great Recession. However, institutions can’t cut their way to grow; instead, it’s important – and CFOs are increasingly trying to find ways -- to put money into areas that will give a good return on the investment. These include market research and proactive boards to steer the institution. Additionally, faculty and staff are starting to understand that higher education is a business and there is a relationship between revenues and expenses. Presidents are being more transparent about budgets as a way to education the institutional stakeholders. 2018 Prediction for 2019: We will start to see more interesting ways for education to be funded. Part of this will come from the NegReg process. More cities, state and companies will invest in their employees’ future. What happened: While there hasn’t been much movement on this, we note that the movement in the OPM markets, as well as the changing accreditation process. There has been growth but not as far as funding of education. This is part of the reason why there have been so many mergers and closures – institutions still are too reliant on tuition for their budgets. Higher education is beginning to partner with businesses to provide stackable and micro credentials for employees. However faculty buy-in is needed because they will be responsible for providing the content. 2019 Surprises We also note a number of things that happened in 2019 that surprised us. These included: <ul> <li>Varsity Blues. This represents the worst in higher education and U.S. society when people with money can buy dishonesty at universities.</li> <li>Admissions lawsuits. The federal judge upheld Harvard’s use of affirmative action in its admission decisions, but it’s going to be appealed. There’s a similar lawsuit against UNC from the same group.</li> <li>Title IX. Three undergraduate women from Yale filed a class action lawsuit against Yale and its fraternities alleging that the fraternities control the campus social scene in a biased manner against women and fostering a culture of sexual harassment runs rampant.</li> <li>Lawsuits about false marketing. Career Education Corporation settled a five-year lawsuit brought by 49 state attorney generals over its marketing. A similar lawsuit happened to Phoenix, which is now considered to have a toxic brand. These lawsuits taint the for-profit education sector.</li> <li>Title IX. New guidance, which is at OPM, is coming out that changes the criteria from preponderance of evidence instead of clear and convincing evidence, the same as what is required in civil suits. This process had over 100,000 comments on this and will have major landmines.</li> </ul> Predictions for 2020 <ul> <li>Changes are coming in how fundraising is done at major institutions. Donor relations are changing in that people are returning donations and unnaming buildings. Institutions are going to be far more wary of accepting donations without doing significant background checks.</li> <li>There will be an acceleration of closures and mergers. There were big ones in 2019, such as Purdue with Kaplan and Strayer with Capella. There will be more closures in private non-profits. There is an overabundance in the market and a correction.</li> <li>Rising costs and discount rates of 60 percent or more will be common.</li> <li>Institutions will increase their partnerships with businesses to develop curriculum and credentials tailored to the businesses.</li> <li>Free tuition will not be the norm. Otherwise, taxes will need to be increased.</li> <li>More lawsuits about free speech, admissions policies and sexual assault will be filed.</li> <li>The Title IX rollout will be a mess.</li> <li>NCAA will need to look at restructuring, such as paying Division I athletes. This has other ramifications. For instance, this decision would give student-athletes the status of employees, which then gives them disability. That has additional cost ramifications for institutions.</li> <li>NegReg 2019 will turn into NegReg 2020 and things won’t be rolled out in a timely basis. If there is a new president, there could be significant rollbacks in the guidelines.</li> <li>There will not be any resolution in credit hours vs. competency-based education in relation to learning. The Department of Education will punt this issue to the accreditors.</li> <li>With the changes to the NACAC regulations, there will be decreased ability to predict the size of incoming fall class. May 1 will be less of a critical date in knowing what the fall enrollment will be and the recruiting cycle will change.</li> </ul> Links to Articles, Apps, or websites mentioned during the interview: Guests Social Media Links: <ul> <li>Guest Linkedin: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/deborahmaue/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.linkedin.com/in/deborahmaue/</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-change-leader/about/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-change-leader/about/</a></li> </ul> The Change Leader’s Social Media Links: <ul> <li>LinkedIn: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/drdrumm/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.linkedin.com/in/drdrumm/</a></li> <li>Twitter: @thechangeldr</li> <li>Email: <a href="mailto:podcast@changinghighered.com">podcast@changinghighered.com</a></li> </ul>

Reflections on 2019 and Predictions for 2020 with Drumm McNaughton and Deb Maue | Changing Higher Ed 030

Higher ed institutions are grappling with declining enrollment. The old ways of recruiting students that institutions used during the “go-go” years 15 years ago no longer work – there is far more competition for a shrinking pool of “traditional” students, student demographics have changed, and numerous other reasons. This has resulted in deep discounting of tuition, institutions investing in “climbing walls and lazy rivers” on campus, and other ways to attract prospective students. Yet, on average, only 11 percent of students accepted actually enroll at the college.  In essence, (prospective) students control the enrollment process in most situations. As the saying goes, “putting old wine in a new bottle doesn’t work,“ nor does enrolling students the “traditional” way of buying lists, etc. Higher ed must change their enrollment strategies – put new wine in new bottles – starting with understanding how to market in this new normal.  What’s Changed, and Why Marketing Is So Important Now Over the past 10-15 years, three major changes occurred that changed higher education, and specifically higher ed enrollment. The first of these was student demographics – there are fewer students graduating from high school than there were even 10 years ago. Add to this a  myriad of factors, including increasing income inequality, etc., and the result is fewer “traditional” students available as prospects. The “go-go” years of the 2000s when nearly every higher ed institution in the country was seeing increasing enrollment and was patting itself on the back for a great job it was doing at marketing and recruiting was a false flag – institutions were merely riding a demographic wave. Those days are over, and we are seeing declining numbers of students graduating from high school. The second major change was the Great Recession, which is still affecting enrollments. When the economy tanked in 2008, many parents saw their kid’s college savings disappear overnight for two reasons: their stock portfolio was wiped out and/or the home equity that they had planned to borrow against to pay for their children’s education was no longer there. This, coupled with the cuts at the state and federal levels for education, raised the cost to students of an education; we’re seeing this effects in the form of increased student loan debt. In some ways, this is a double whammy – fewer traditional-age students, and then there are fewer among them who can pay full price or even a significant percentage of the price. This has led to significant tuition discounting as a way to attract more students. This discounting is analogous to what happens in a product lifecycle when a product moves from market maturity to decline; what is used to get people to buy is reducing prices.    Lastly, there is increased dissatisfaction and distrust with higher ed institutions and/or higher ed as an industry. People, and especially parents and students, increasingly are questioning the value of a college degree, whereas, in the past, it was a given that a college degree was going to pay off. The Changing Marketing Game The higher ed “marketing game” has changed significantly in the past 15 years. Yes, there are definitely fewer high school students considered to be the traditional students (18-24) going to college, both from a numbers and a percentage of the total students, but what has increased are the numbers of what are called “post-traditional” students, those students who are 24-70 years old, who do not study full-time during the day and are not in residence. This number has increased significantly and is now 73-74 percent of all college students. There are multiple reasons for this, but they boil down to three basic reasons:  They need a degree to be able to get a job; They want a degree to get up higher up the ladder where they are working, or They want more money in their current job.  Which brings us to the current challenge that institutions are facing. There are significant marketing challenges that institutions must overcome given that the majority of today’s students are post-traditional. For example, when attracting traditional, 17-year-old students, you know how and where to reach them: they are in high school, they will be signing up for the PSAT and SAT, and you can buy their names and send them communication materials directly. However, with post-traditionals, students can be anywhere and it's a marketing challenge to figure out how to reach them. This has given rise to a new industry online for recruiting students, but most institutions are using these so they aren’t as effective as they used to be. Fortunately, the cost of advertising, specifically digital advertising, is decreasing, and it can be used to target much more narrowly. What Is Positioning and Branding, and Why Is It Critical for Higher Ed Positioning and branding are two of those things that if you ask 100 people for their definition, you get 100 different answers. We define positioning as the space that your institution or your brand takes up in the minds of the external audience. It is what you represent to people who are thinking about going to college, their parents, or any of the other audiences that you deal with. Positioning answers the question:  what is the one thing that unique, different and better about us in the eyes of our customer vs. the competition in the higher ed marketplace that has them either hiring our graduates or wanting to attend our institution.  Branding is the strategy behind trying to reinforce and/or change that positioning in people's minds. It is the act of creating an intentional strategy behind what we stand for, i.e., the words and phrases that we want people to use when they talk about us and think about us. What makes that statement critical is the emphasis on the “the one thing people remember.” Marketers would love to have people remember 10 or 15 things about a brand because we as marketers know all the great things about the brand. However, institutions are very lucky if you get people to remember one thing, and so you must be very deliberate and tough on yourself and the and the people who are working on the brand strategy to say, “folks, we’ve got one thing and we need to figure out what that one thing is.” Take for example Nike and their “Just Do It” campaigns. That is the one thing that you remember about Nike. Oklahoma and football. Texas A&amp;M and the Corps of Cadets. What is the one thing that your “customers” remember about your institution? And how do you know what that is? All Established Universities Have A Brand One of the critical things that university presidents must remember is that they already have a brand because any institution that's been around for a while has a reputation in people’s minds. Your university stands for something already – you are not starting from scratch. Being already established is actually more difficult than starting from scratch because if you want to change the way that people perceive your brand, you have to first undo what they currently think and then create new positioning in their minds. That's one thing. Second, your brand is and must be foundational to the strategic planning process every institution should go through in every five, six, eight, 10 years, but far too many institutions view those things as completely separate, i.e., the planning process on one side of the house, and developing the marketing and branding strategies on the other. That is a mistake. Your brand is the promise that you're making to the world, and your strategic plan has to be focused on those things that we need to do to improve our institution. They are inextricably related and wholly dependent on one another. The way people view brand should be this: “What are we doing and what are we not doing to deliver on the brand promise that we are making to people.” I think if every institution going forward had an execution plan for their strategic plan with part of that being how are you going to market your institution, it would be part of part and parcel of your planning process. How to Change Your Brand Established institutions already have a brand, and that can be difficult to change. Your first step is to conduct market research external to your institution. Brand perception is not about what your faculty think, or what your university president thinks. Brand perception is what people external to the university think you stand for – your prospective students, their parents, people who hire your graduates and support your institution. Most people have the perception that market research can be very expensive and take a long time and it can, but it doesn’t have to. There are both complex and simple ways research can be done. For example, many institutions who already have a good understanding of their brand successfully do online focus groups with parents and students and guidance counselors and even their alumni which is cost effective and can gather good information.  For those institutions who are less sure of their brand, we recommend more in-depth surveys and interviews / focus groups. Either approach can work – it depends on how much do you already understand about your institution brand right, how much are you are you trying to change it, and what you need to learn. Many institutions rely on what appears to be a simple way to do this market research, i.e., asking student applicants three basic questions: (1) how did you hear about us, (2) what did you hear about us, and (3) what attracted you to us. Unfortunately, this doesn’t necessarily work, because people have a hard time answering those questions. Most brands have been around for a long time, so when people are asked about how they first heard about the institution or what they heard about it, they don't give you an answer that you can take to the rely on. For example, if you were asked when did you first hear about Starbucks, you would give me an answer that may or may not be correct, but the problem is I don't have any statistical reliability when or how you actually heard about it. Marketing experts are students of people, i.e., their behavior and how they respond to particular questions. For example, with Americans, you can ask them a question and it is their nature that they want to be helpful so they give you an answer, but it is not necessarily a reliable answer. Hence, you must ask probing questions. Instead, we recommend having one-on-one conversations with people in which the researcher asks more probing questions that dive more deeply into their answers so as to get a solid understanding of what people believe and why they believe it. Red Flags that Suggest Your Branding is Tired It’s important that you that you understand what the people what people think about the brand and whether it needs to be sharpened, and one of the flags that higher ed marketing people can use is enrollment. For example, if enrollment is declining, that could be a sign that a brand could be tired or that your value proposition is off, i.e., people don’t understand why they should spend the money to attend your institution, they don't know what they're going to get from it in terms of the education they are receiving or the career outcomes they'll get. Besides declining enrollment, another flag is lack of alignment. Institutions must have their strategies, structures, and processes all working together, and branding is one of your strategies. As part of the structures, institutions must ensure they have the right kind of people in enrollment, that they are well trained, and can take care of the students. All of those things have to be in alignment. Branding is not the only thing that would cause enrollment decline, but it is certainly something to consider. President should ask themselves what are we doing around brand strategy? When is the last time we did market research? When was the last time we sharpened our brand’s language? What is our value proposition? Unfortunately, most academics don’t understand these basic questions, which is why many institutions are turning to the business community to find their leadership.  Ensuring consistent and well-targeted brand language is critical to driving enrollment, especially when we take into account the number of generations who are currently going back to school. With the predominance of the post-traditional student, language becomes more critical. Not only do you need to figure out how to market to them, you need to understand where to market to them and what attracts them to your institution. Thus, your marketing equation is much more complex than it is with traditional students (18-24 years old). For example, post-traditional students have busy lives. They have jobs and families; they are looking not only at what is the value of your education at your offering in terms of what's going do for them but also the convenience factor – where your institution is located and can they get there easily on evenings or do their degree via online education. There are three key things that presidents must be aware of when it comes to marketing and branding.  Do market research on a regular basis. Institutions must understand what the external market thinks about them. This is probably the most critical. Integrate branding in the strategic planning process. Ensure that your marketing materials are consistent across the institution to ensure the institution speaks in one voice. Is the look and language consistent or inconsistent? Is the tone we are sending consistent? Starbucks is a great example of this, but there are great examples of excellent branding in higher ed that include Harvard, Carnegie Mellon, MIT, and UC Berkeley.  You cannot be all things to all people – you must know what your one thing is. You’re competing for mindshare, and there are so many different messages out there, what is the one thing you want to be known for. Branding doesn't have to be hard. It doesn't have to be laborious. It doesn't have to be difficult – it can be very simple and straightforward. There are a lot of really good models out there for how to do and how to do branding, just start and you'll be amazed at how much you learn if you start with good market research, you'll be amazed at how much you learn and where it can take you. Bullet Points:  Higher ed institutions are grappling with declining enrollment. The old ways of recruiting students that institutions used the “go-go” years 15 years ago no longer work. Over the past 10-15 years, three major changes occurred that changed higher education, and specifically higher ed enrollment.   Student demographics have changed. The Great Recession impacted college affordability in multiple ways. There is increased dissatisfaction in higher ed, analogous to people saying “where’s the beef.”   Residential programs are not attracting the same number of students as before. Competition is growing, putting the “hammer” in the hands of the prospect. You have to market where the prospective students are. With 70+ percent of all students today post-traditional, new marketing strategies are critical for higher ed institutions. Positioning answers the question:   what is the one thing that unique, different and better about us in the eyes of our customer vs. the competition in the higher ed marketplace that has them either hiring our graduates or wanting to attend our institution.   Branding is the strategy behind trying to reinforce and/or change that positioning in people's minds. All established universities have a brand. Brand perception is external to the institution, not internal. Do market research on a regular basis. Institutions must understand what the external market thinks about them. This is probably the most critical thing institutions can do to ensure their brand is fresh. Brand research doesn’t have to be expensive. Integrate branding in the strategic planning process. Ensure that your marketing materials are consistent across the institution to ensure the institution speaks in one voice.  Links to Articles, Apps, or websites mentioned during the interview: https://thechangeleader.com Guests Social Media Links: Guest Twitter: @thechangeldr  Guest Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deborahmaue/  https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-change-leader/about/ Your Social Media Links: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drdrumm/ Twitter: @thechangeldr  Email: podcast@changinghighered.com

Higher ed institutions are grappling with declining enrollment. The old ways of recruiting students that institutions used during the “go-go” years 15 years ago no longer work – there is far more competition for a shrinking pool of “traditional” students, student demographics have changed, and numerous other reasons. This has resulted in deep discounting of tuition, institutions investing in “climbing walls and lazy rivers” on campus, and other ways to attract prospective students. Yet, on average, only 11 percent of students accepted actually enroll at the college.  In essence, (prospective) students control the enrollment process in most situations. As the saying goes, “putting old wine in a new bottle doesn’t work,“ nor does enrolling students the “traditional” way of buying lists, etc. Higher ed must change their enrollment strategies – put new wine in new bottles – starting with understanding how to market in this new normal.  What’s Changed, and Why Marketing Is So Important Now Over the past 10-15 years, three major changes occurred that changed higher education, and specifically higher ed enrollment. The first of these was student demographics – there are fewer students graduating from high school than there were even 10 years ago. Add to this a  myriad of factors, including increasing income inequality, etc., and the result is fewer “traditional” students available as prospects. The “go-go” years of the 2000s when nearly every higher ed institution in the country was seeing increasing enrollment and was patting itself on the back for a great job it was doing at marketing and recruiting was a false flag – institutions were merely riding a demographic wave. Those days are over, and we are seeing declining numbers of students graduating from high school. The second major change was the Great Recession, which is still affecting enrollments. When the economy tanked in 2008, many parents saw their kid’s college savings disappear overnight for two reasons: their stock portfolio was wiped out and/or the home equity that they had planned to borrow against to pay for their children’s education was no longer there. This, coupled with the cuts at the state and federal levels for education, raised the cost to students of an education; we’re seeing this effects in the form of increased student loan debt. In some ways, this is a double whammy – fewer traditional-age students, and then there are fewer among them who can pay full price or even a significant percentage of the price. This has led to significant tuition discounting as a way to attract more students. This discounting is analogous to what happens in a product lifecycle when a product moves from market maturity to decline; what is used to get people to buy is reducing prices.    Lastly, there is increased dissatisfaction and distrust with higher ed institutions and/or higher ed as an industry. People, and especially parents and students, increasingly are questioning the value of a college degree, whereas, in the past, it was a given that a college degree was going to pay off. The Changing Marketing Game The higher ed “marketing game” has changed significantly in the past 15 years. Yes, there are definitely fewer high school students considered to be the traditional students (18-24) going to college, both from a numbers and a percentage of the total students, but what has increased are the numbers of what are called “post-traditional” students, those students who are 24-70 years old, who do not study full-time during the day and are not in residence. This number has increased significantly and is now 73-74 percent of all college students. There are multiple reasons for this, but they boil down to three basic reasons: <ul> <li>They need a degree to be able to get a job;</li> <li>They want a degree to get up higher up the ladder where they are working, or</li> <li>They want more money in their current job.</li> </ul> Which brings us to the current challenge that institutions are facing. There are significant marketing challenges that institutions must overcome given that the majority of today’s students are post-traditional. For example, when attracting traditional, 17-year-old students, you know how and where to reach them: they are in high school, they will be signing up for the PSAT and SAT, and you can buy their names and send them communication materials directly. However, with post-traditionals, students can be anywhere and it's a marketing challenge to figure out how to reach them. This has given rise to a new industry online for recruiting students, but most institutions are using these so they aren’t as effective as they used to be. Fortunately, the cost of advertising, specifically digital advertising, is decreasing, and it can be used to target much more narrowly. What Is Positioning and Branding, and Why Is It Critical for Higher Ed Positioning and branding are two of those things that if you ask 100 people for their definition, you get 100 different answers. We define positioning as the space that your institution or your brand takes up in the minds of the external audience. It is what you represent to people who are thinking about going to college, their parents, or any of the other audiences that you deal with. Positioning answers the question: <ul> <li>what is the one thing that unique, different and better about us</li> <li>in the eyes of our customer</li> <li>vs. the competition in the higher ed marketplace that</li> <li>has them either hiring our graduates or wanting to attend our institution.</li> </ul> Branding is the strategy behind trying to reinforce and/or change that positioning in people's minds. It is the act of creating an intentional strategy behind what we stand for, i.e., the words and phrases that we want people to use when they talk about us and think about us. What makes that statement critical is the emphasis on the “the one thing people remember.” Marketers would love to have people remember 10 or 15 things about a brand because we as marketers know all the great things about the brand. However, institutions are very lucky if you get people to remember one thing, and so you must be very deliberate and tough on yourself and the and the people who are working on the brand strategy to say, “folks, we’ve got one thing and we need to figure out what that one thing is.” Take for example Nike and their “Just Do It” campaigns. That is the one thing that you remember about Nike. Oklahoma and football. Texas A&amp;M and the Corps of Cadets. What is the one thing that your “customers” remember about your institution? And how do you know what that is? All Established Universities Have A Brand One of the critical things that university presidents must remember is that they already have a brand because any institution that's been around for a while has a reputation in people’s minds. Your university stands for something already – you are not starting from scratch. Being already established is actually more difficult than starting from scratch because if you want to change the way that people perceive your brand, you have to first undo what they currently think and then create new positioning in their minds. That's one thing. Second, your brand is and must be foundational to the strategic planning process every institution should go through in every five, six, eight, 10 years, but far too many institutions view those things as completely separate, i.e., the planning process on one side of the house, and developing the marketing and branding strategies on the other. That is a mistake. Your brand is the promise that you're making to the world, and your strategic plan has to be focused on those things that we need to do to improve our institution. They are inextricably related and wholly dependent on one another. The way people view brand should be this: “What are we doing and what are we not doing to deliver on the brand promise that we are making to people.” I think if every institution going forward had an execution plan for their strategic plan with part of that being how are you going to market your institution, it would be part of part and parcel of your planning process. How to Change Your Brand Established institutions already have a brand, and that can be difficult to change. Your first step is to conduct market research external to your institution. Brand perception is not about what your faculty think, or what your university president thinks. Brand perception is what people external to the university think you stand for – your prospective students, their parents, people who hire your graduates and support your institution. Most people have the perception that market research can be very expensive and take a long time and it can, but it doesn’t have to. There are both complex and simple ways research can be done. For example, many institutions who already have a good understanding of their brand successfully do online focus groups with parents and students and guidance counselors and even their alumni which is cost effective and can gather good information.  For those institutions who are less sure of their brand, we recommend more in-depth surveys and interviews / focus groups. Either approach can work – it depends on how much do you already understand about your institution brand right, how much are you are you trying to change it, and what you need to learn. Many institutions rely on what appears to be a simple way to do this market research, i.e., asking student applicants three basic questions: (1) how did you hear about us, (2) what did you hear about us, and (3) what attracted you to us. Unfortunately, this doesn’t necessarily work, because people have a hard time answering those questions. Most brands have been around for a long time, so when people are asked about how they first heard about the institution or what they heard about it, they don't give you an answer that you can take to the rely on. For example, if you were asked when did you first hear about Starbucks, you would give me an answer that may or may not be correct, but the problem is I don't have any statistical reliability when or how you actually heard about it. Marketing experts are students of people, i.e., their behavior and how they respond to particular questions. For example, with Americans, you can ask them a question and it is their nature that they want to be helpful so they give you an answer, but it is not necessarily a reliable answer. Hence, you must ask probing questions. Instead, we recommend having one-on-one conversations with people in which the researcher asks more probing questions that dive more deeply into their answers so as to get a solid understanding of what people believe and why they believe it. Red Flags that Suggest Your Branding is Tired It’s important that you that you understand what the people what people think about the brand and whether it needs to be sharpened, and one of the flags that higher ed marketing people can use is enrollment. For example, if enrollment is declining, that could be a sign that a brand could be tired or that your value proposition is off, i.e., people don’t understand why they should spend the money to attend your institution, they don't know what they're going to get from it in terms of the education they are receiving or the career outcomes they'll get. Besides declining enrollment, another flag is lack of alignment. Institutions must have their strategies, structures, and processes all working together, and branding is one of your strategies. As part of the structures, institutions must ensure they have the right kind of people in enrollment, that they are well trained, and can take care of the students. All of those things have to be in alignment. Branding is not the only thing that would cause enrollment decline, but it is certainly something to consider. President should ask themselves what are we doing around brand strategy? When is the last time we did market research? When was the last time we sharpened our brand’s language? What is our value proposition? Unfortunately, most academics don’t understand these basic questions, which is why many institutions are turning to the business community to find their leadership.  Ensuring consistent and well-targeted brand language is critical to driving enrollment, especially when we take into account the number of generations who are currently going back to school. With the predominance of the post-traditional student, language becomes more critical. Not only do you need to figure out how to market to them, you need to understand where to market to them and what attracts them to your institution. Thus, your marketing equation is much more complex than it is with traditional students (18-24 years old). For example, post-traditional students have busy lives. They have jobs and families; they are looking not only at what is the value of your education at your offering in terms of what's going do for them but also the convenience factor – where your institution is located and can they get there easily on evenings or do their degree via online education. There are three key things that presidents must be aware of when it comes to marketing and branding. <ul> <li>Do market research on a regular basis. Institutions must understand what the external market thinks about them. This is probably the most critical.</li> <li>Integrate branding in the strategic planning process.</li> <li>Ensure that your marketing materials are consistent across the institution to ensure the institution speaks in one voice. Is the look and language consistent or inconsistent? Is the tone we are sending consistent? Starbucks is a great example of this, but there are great examples of excellent branding in higher ed that include Harvard, Carnegie Mellon, MIT, and UC Berkeley.</li> </ul> You cannot be all things to all people – you must know what your one thing is. You’re competing for mindshare, and there are so many different messages out there, what is the one thing you want to be known for. Branding doesn't have to be hard. It doesn't have to be laborious. It doesn't have to be difficult – it can be very simple and straightforward. There are a lot of really good models out there for how to do and how to do branding, just start and you'll be amazed at how much you learn if you start with good market research, you'll be amazed at how much you learn and where it can take you. Bullet Points: <ul> <li>Higher ed institutions are grappling with declining enrollment. The old ways of recruiting students that institutions used the “go-go” years 15 years ago no longer work.</li> <li>Over the past 10-15 years, three major changes occurred that changed higher education, and specifically higher ed enrollment.</li> <li> <ul> <li>Student demographics have changed.</li> <li>The Great Recession impacted college affordability in multiple ways.</li> <li>There is increased dissatisfaction in higher ed, analogous to people saying “where’s the beef.”</li> </ul> </li> <li>Residential programs are not attracting the same number of students as before.</li> <li>Competition is growing, putting the “hammer” in the hands of the prospect.</li> <li>You have to market where the prospective students are. With 70+ percent of all students today post-traditional, new marketing strategies are critical for higher ed institutions.</li> <li>Positioning answers the question:</li> <li> <ul> <li>what is the one thing that unique, different and better about us</li> <li>in the eyes of our customer</li> <li>vs. the competition in the higher ed marketplace that</li> <li>has them either hiring our graduates or wanting to attend our institution.</li> </ul> </li> <li>Branding is the strategy behind trying to reinforce and/or change that positioning in people's minds.</li> <li>All established universities have a brand.</li> <li>Brand perception is external to the institution, not internal.</li> <li>Do market research on a regular basis. Institutions must understand what the external market thinks about them. This is probably the most critical thing institutions can do to ensure their brand is fresh.</li> <li>Brand research doesn’t have to be expensive.</li> <li>Integrate branding in the strategic planning process.</li> <li>Ensure that your marketing materials are consistent across the institution to ensure the institution speaks in one voice.</li> </ul> Links to Articles, Apps, or websites mentioned during the interview: <a href="https://thechangeleader.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://thechangeleader.com</a> Guests Social Media Links: Guest Twitter: @thechangeldr  Guest Linkedin: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/deborahmaue/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.linkedin.com/in/deborahmaue/</a> <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-change-leader/about/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-change-leader/about/</a> Your Social Media Links: LinkedIn: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/drdrumm/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.linkedin.com/in/drdrumm/</a> Twitter: @thechangeldr  Email: <a href="mailto:podcast@changinghighered.com">podcast@changinghighered.com</a>

Marketing Essentials for Colleges and Universities with Deb Maue | Changing Higher Ed 010