From Tufts, to Johns Hopkins, to Ithaca College, check out The 50 Social Media Innovators in Higher Ed. These schools were recently recognized by collegesurfing.com for having "active Twitter feeds, fan-packed Facebook pages, creative YouTube videos, and compelling blogs" that capture the attention of their target audiences and promote their school in a compelling and technologically up-to-date way.
Congratulations!
According to College Graduates Hit Hard During Recession, unemployment data for college grads is a classic "good news, bad news" situation. Or, as I like to call it, a "good news, less than good news" situation. What do you want first? Let's start with the good news.....the unemployment rate among college graduates is notably lower (4.9%) than high school graduates who did not attend college (10.8%). Now for the "less than good news," the number of unemployed jobseekers is growing fastest among Americans with higher education; in fact, the number of unemployed college graduates surpassed 2.2 million, an increase of 136% since December 2007. Considering that many of us are actively searching for specific outcome data, as a distinguishing institutional characteristic, we need to closely monitor unemployment rates and understand how that information directly impacts our ability to communicate our successes to key external audiences.
I just read a New York Times article, Rah, Rah, Résumé, that's brilliant in its simplicity. Here's the idea: in this troubled economy, alumni offices should make a concerted effort to extend a helping hand to support to their graduates if they lose their jobs. Good idea, right? But here's the brilliant part--it' a win-win situation: graduates receive the help they need when they need it the most, and schools have a perfect opportunity to reconnect with their graduates in a genuine and trusting way that will hopefully increase their willingness to support their alma mater--down the line--when they are back on their feet. In the end everyone wins--told ya it's brilliant. Oh, I was not at all surprised to see my friends at Lehigh receiving a mention in the article for "doing it right;" I had the chance to work with them earlier this year and their alumni office is one of the best.
I can't tell you the number of schools that have contacted me recently to discuss their pricing strategy and the price elasticity of their school. In the wake of the economic downturn, we all are wondering if our schools are priced appropriately and competitively. School after school is struggling with some very tough questions: What's the maximum we can charge without negatively impacting our enrollment? How does demand for our institution change as the price changes? What is the relationship between total cost (tuition, fees, and housing) and perceptions of quality?
If you are asking the same questions of your institution, you are not alone. But, as you can image, the answers to these questions are different for each school. Although many colleges and universities look alike, they are not. And to really answer these questions in an informed and thoughtful way, you need to study your unique market position and institutional differentiators. One thing I know for sure: many of us have not looked at our pricing structure in a long time--if at all. Perhaps that's one positive outcome of our current economic climate.
Now that many of us are "blogging," "twittering," or "on Facebook," one major question remains: is social media an effective tool for promoting our institutions and engaging our audiences? It's simply too soon to know--at least for now. So what do we do in the meantime--if anything? If you're willing to take the plunge, you may want to jump into the social media pool (perhaps just with your toes at first) and test the waters and see what works--and then re-evaluate your strategies once the currents have calmed down. (Is it me or does anyone else need a Dramamine? J)
I've been recommending to my
crisis clients that they get involved in social networking well in advance of
any crisis situation so that they have an established presence and are well versed in the
technology before a crisis hits.
The networks we discuss these days, of course, have to include Twitter. Last week I presented on this topic at
the CASE I conference in Boston, and this week I walked a client through the
application's benefits as an internal and external communications tool.
I figured I should follow my own advice and yesterday finally set up
my own Twitter account. I would
LOVE to follow any of your institutions that are using Twitter to communicate
to their audiences--send me an email to tvp@SimpsonScarborough.com with
your username or link to me via Twitter (user name tvparrot).
I also wanted to pass along an
opportunity with a colleague I admire tremendously. Cindy Lawson, of the University of North Carolina at Wilmington,
is presenting an audio conference
with Higher Ed Hero on using social media during a crisis. She and I chatted for at least half an
hour this morning about how to use social media to an institution's advantage. If this topic excites you as much as it does the two of us, you are in for a treat.
If you don't yet Twitter I invite you to join me
on the other side!!
Can I borrow everyone with a Blackberry for two minutes? Thanks!
Look at your Blackberry keypad and help me understand how you would use a
traditional Blackberry keypad to dial word-filled 1-800 numbers? If you only list an acronym-filled or
word-based 1-800 number on your website (main page, admissions page, contact
page, etc.), I suggest supplementing it today
with the actual digits those words represent. Otherwise, you might miss a call or two from those audiences
you most want to hear from...
Whew! I feel better now :).
Yesterday MSNBC.com ran an article about the
booming Hispanic market in the United States (including the commonly misleading
use of the term "Hispanic"), and the new marketing and communications tactics
being used by a variety of companies and institutions to woo Nuevo
Hispania. Approaches used by the
Boy Scouts of America, Walmart, AARP, Coke, and a few others are profiled.
As a topic near and dear to my
heart as a Latina, I was intrigued to think about the implications of this rising
demographic on colleges and universities beyond
the diversity we so often discuss on campuses. Specifically, how can we approach Hispanics with online and
nontraditional offerings and how can we convince them to enroll?
Latino Perspectives' article
last August suggests online education is a match for many "Latinos because it
allows them to pursue a degree without compromising family time, as is the case
with a traditional college education."
Panacea of prospective
students? Perhaps. But, note the Pew
Hispanic/Pew Internet survey of 2007 that found that 67% of Hispanics between
the ages of 18-29 (our traditional student audience) have Internet access,
versus 86% of their white peers.
So, this brings me back to my
MSNBC article. What can we learn
from the Boy Scouts and Coke and Walmart about communicating to this rising
American demographic? And what can
we learn from our peers who have captured Hispanic online enrollments? First, we can't make assumptions across
the "Hispanic" spectrum, and second we need to do some research and then craft
messages that are supported by the data.
Otherwise, we are making decisions with anecdotes that, more often than
not, miss our mark completely.
PS-- visit here for information on the 2009 EDU Blogger Scholarship Contest :)
I read with interest the article last week in
the Boston
Globe, which talked about the Southern
New Hampshire Univeristy's new Salem campus, a satellite campus that is
being described as a "no frills campus."
As a word-person, I was intrigued by the terms being used to describe
the branch campus and its programmatic offerings. SNHU is describing value without using the often-stigmatized
phrase "commuter campus."
The language of "value" is resonating with
students. As proof, today the AP
ran a story about record enrollments for community college campuses. Here is how the AP breaks down the
economic benefits of fewer frills (my phrase) at a community college:
Nationwide, the
average annual cost of community college is $2,402, compared to $6585 in
tuition and fees at in-state public four-year schools, according to the College
Board. Averaging tuition and fees
for private four-year schools: $25,143.
Factoring in
financial aid, the College Board estimates the average net cost at community
colleges is only about $100.
What are the down sides to a "no frills" or
reduced frills educational experience?
A parent interviewed in the Boston Globe story summarize the negatives
well: "By being
with other students and listening to the way they handle projects and even
problems in life, you learn a great deal," Teri Gambardella said.
"That's what they're missing right now. They just leave at the end of the
day and go home."
This is the year's most critical season in
higher education--the time between student acceptance and student deposits. What language are you using to describe
the value of your education and how does that experience compare to your "no
frills" competitors?
SimpsonScarborough discussed with Andrew Flagel, Dean of
Admissions and Associate Vice President for Enrollment Development for George
Mason University, the pricing study SimpsonScarborough recently conducted for
his institution.
Q.
Why did you decide to study George Mason University's price elasticity?
A. Mason has
enjoyed a steady surge in popularity, with extraordinary growth in our out-of-state
markets. As with most institutions we are under increasing financial
pressure, but while we had a fair amount of insight on in-state students,
we had conflicting data on price and cost related to our out-of-state
students. Most of our overlap was
with other D.C. area schools, where tuition was FAR higher than ours. At
the same time many, if not most, of our applicants indicated that they were
also strongly considering far less expensive options closer to their homes,
generally their state's flagship institutions. As a result, more often
than not we were the middle cost of the three top choices, both for the
students we were enrolling and those we weren't. To build our budget
models we needed a better idea of how price (including discounted price)
related to enrollment patterns.
Q. Why did you choose SimpsonScarborough to conduct the study?
A. Two
reasons, cost and scope of project. Many of the companies we reviewed wanted massive
investments of funds, several in excess of anything we were likely gain in
revenue from even optimistic projections. Others wanted comprehensive long-term contracts, which was problematic
since we had no experience with those companies on which to base a multi-year
contract, and the degree to which we would be able to impact our financial aid
formulas, given our historically low level of institutional discounting, wasn't
large enough to require the kind of longitudinal experimentation they were used
to exploring. SimpsonScarborough offered a statistical approach that was
very attractive for its flexibility in use for our planning process.
Q. Who were the major
beneficiaries of the resulting data once the study was complete?
A. The
data were most helpful to our institutional planning team, but also very
well received by our governing board who was wrestling with issues of price,
discount, and access.
Q. How have you used the findings?
A. Based
on the study, SimpsonScarborough developed a simulator which allowed us to see
the effect of a range of institutional decisions on price and discounting.
While there is no way to know what might have happened otherwise, Mason chose
the optimal model, which included a larger tuition increase with commensurate
discount, and our yield patterns closely tracked the model that suggested
increased yield in that scenario. Of course, it remains to be seen how
that pattern will hold in the new economic reality, and the subject certainly
bears further study. It is safe to say, however, that the model
gave our planning committee and our board the data needed to approve the
testing of a more aggressive tuition and discount model than our institution
had taken at any time in its history.
Andrew Flagel is the Dean of Admissions and Associate Vice
President for Enrollment Development for George Mason University, where he also
teaches in the Department of Communication. He has presented hundreds of seminars on the college
admissions process to students across the country, has been a featured speaker
at the Presidential Youth Inaugural Conference as well as the Washington
Journalism Conference, has been a featured guest on C-Span's Washington
Journal, and his quotes have appeared in recent educational stories in Newsweek, US News and World Report, The
Washington Post, and even Teen Vogue.
Dean Flagel serves on the Advisory Board for the National
Young Leaders Conference and the Executive Council of the Virginia ACT Advisory
Committee as the Virginia representative to the ACT national assembly. He
also served on the Seal of Approval Committee for the National Association for
College Admissions Counseling and spent three years as their national
membership chairman. Along with
speaking on the college admissions process, Dean Flagel regularly offers
presentations on communication styles for "millenials" as well as
motivational speeches.
Be sure to check out Dean Flagel's blog and his column
on Monster Worldwide's admissions.com.
