For years, the enrollment cliff has been an ominous warning to higher education: Prepare for a sharp drop in student populations. This drop has been largely attributed to declining birth rates across America, which started around 2008 and the advent of the “Great Recession.” Now, 18 years later, higher education is set to begin seeing the fallout and a reduced number of traditional-aged college students. While the grim outlook of the enrollment cliff poses a very real threat to institutions, it also presents new opportunities for colleges and universities that are agile, flexible, and innovative.
In the past, enrollment populations were relatively predictable, allowing institutions to prioritize recruitment programs that focused on short-term wins. Today is an entirely different ball game. Learners are digitally savvy and they see the highly competitive labor market, encouraging them to be more vigilant about how and where they enter the workforce; they want demonstrable returns on their education investments so they can succeed professionally in a lucrative, desirable field.
So how can institutions address the enrollment cliff head on? They can choose agility.
What Does It Mean to Be An Agile Institution?
The legacy higher education model no longer works. Institutions need to be faster, more adaptable, and deliver the outcomes that today’s learners expect.
A few years ago, the industry saw a shift. Modality preferences changed alongside a new generation of students. Online, hybrid, and part-time education programs gained traction as costs (of everything) rose, pressuring learners to balance their professional, personal, and educational lives simultaneously. Meanwhile, there has been a rise in the demand for microcredentials and certificates that offer more specific, shorter-term, outcome-driven results.
The result required institutions to pivot, which put many colleges and universities using legacy technology on the back foot. The increased enrollment pressure and expectations for more modern, flexible, and personalized experiences exposed weaknesses in infrastructure caused by rigid, inflexible systems.
Using Technology and Data to Drive Agility
Modern institutions need modern technology. Institutional leaders, decision-makers, and staff need to make informed decisions quickly to keep pace with the changing demands of students. Legacy, ad-hoc systems that prioritized individual component functionality over ecosystem cohesiveness support too many silos, impacting the accuracy of information and the speed in which decisions can be made. Manual, one-off reporting strategies can lead to misinformation caused by user error or outdated intel. Colleges and universities need unified platforms that enable staff and leaders across campus to access a single source of truth in real time.
When data is more accessible, institutions can adjust their entire strategy. By looking at student data, for example, institutions can identify which students are most likely to succeed on their campus. Armed with intel on who their best-fit students are and the engagement channels they prefer, enrollment teams can develop uniquely personalized recruitment campaigns that target those types of individuals through their preferred method.
Modern infrastructure enables strategic speed, especially regarding enrollment. But technology is not the only type of agility that institutions need; they must also look internally.
Cultures Must Be Agile, Too
Like data, departments and staff across campus should not be contained or operated in silos. Leadership needs to see that cross-campus collaboration and shared insights can lead to lasting, long-term performance and perception improvements, both of which can have an impact on enrollment outcomes.
This way of operating—opening doors that were once closed off—might require working out some new change management muscles. The entire campus, including leadership, needs to align on outcomes and make adjustments to stay on course to those goals. This may mean sunsetting legacy systems, implementing new training programs, and building committees focused on adopting new processes.
When an institution makes improvements to become more agile, it will be better equipped to address the approaching enrollment cliff. How can institutions become more agile?
- Modernize legacy infrastructure and systems.
- Enable shared access to real-time data.
- Eliminate operational siloes to improve cross-campus collaboration.
- Adopt a willingness to change.
The enrollment cliff will be a major demographic event for higher education, but it is also a stress test to evaluate institutional agility. By embracing adaptability, institutions will be more likely to weather the change and come out the other side all the stronger for it.
