Evaluate Your Enrollment Vendors Annually

John W. Dysart
President
The Dysart Group

It can be beneficial to make use of vendor partnerships to assist with all aspects of enrollment management.  More critical, is to evaluate the success of those relationships annually.

Calculate the cost of companies helping with your search process by determining the cost per lead generated.  More importantly, calculate the cost of each new student enrollment based on the expense of the partnership.  Discontinue partnerships that do not generate inquiry increases but also reconsider partnerships that generate more inquiries that do not result in an increase in new student enrollments.  For example, I worked with a university last year whose vendor had increased inquiries three-fold over three years, but enrollment continued to decline.  Generating interest from students unlikely to enroll can be expensive, wasteful and ultimately meaningless.

If you utilize a company assisting with financial aid leveraging, or the creation of merit scholarships and award policies, reconsider the investment if financial aid costs increase and enrollment does not grow.

Be wary of firms offering AI options that do not grow the application counts and do not translate into larger new student enrollments.

Finally, perform some detailed evaluation of investments in publications and direct mail campaigns that do not result in enrollment growth.

Investments with vendor partners can be wise and effective, but so often colleges and universities do not take the time annually to specifically evaluate the relationships based upon desired outcomes.