Category: Article Archives

The Importance of Being Driven – By Data: Part Three

Dr. Susan Coia Gailey Founder Data-based Institutional Research, Assessment & Reporting Systems Continued from The Importance of Being Driven – By Data: Part Two Based on years of data history, you develop data-based tactics to market to students with Best Fit characteristics, i.e., student profiles that are associated with graduation. You might leverage financial aid to enroll them and retain them. You assess your student services as well as?curricula, programs, courses, faculty and instruction. Methods of assessment might include a student satisfaction survey and course evaluations of learning outcomes and instructional delivery from your curricula, program and course review initiatives. […]

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The Importance of Being Driven – By Data: Part Two

Dr. Susan Coia Gailey Founder Data-based Institutional Research, Assessment & Reporting Systems Continued from The Importance of Being Driven – By Data: Part One Sometimes, however, even simple reporting is not so simple. As you may know, savvy schools return The Common Data Set (CDS), which populates The College Board?s popular web site. It?s a one-shot survey to publishers that reduces our reporting burden, it?s free publicity and it promotes consistency in external reporting. How would it look if your school is called on the carpet over inconsistent figures for a bond issuance? You lose credibility. In the very least, […]

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The Importance of Being Driven – By Data: Part One

Dr. Susan Coia Gailey Founder Data-based Institutional Research, Assessment & Reporting Systems Have you sensed rumblings about mandatory reporting by colleges and universities of the percentage of recent graduates who are working in their major field of study and their starting salaries? The metric duo defines the business term, return on investment (ROI), and applies it to college education. Instead of having stockholders, per se, we have stakeholders. Was it not so long ago that we were accountable for student loan default and graduation rates? Next were merit-based versus need-based grants, learning outcomes and cost of education. What’s more, we’re […]

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Get Ready for the Online Invasion

Dr. Scott D. Miller President Bethany College Marylouise Fennell, RSM Principal Hyatt-Fennell What if they gave a traditional classroom lecture and nobody came? Although that?s not about to happen any time soon, the growing popularity of free virtual courses transcending barriers of time and geography, coupled with online offerings from for-profit institutions, poses a plethora of challenges for college presidents. As the next wave of students weaned on the Internet engulfs our campuses, enrollment managers and CEOs need to prepare now with strategies and answers before they begin to receive, in large numbers, requests such as these from 18-year-olds: ?I?ve […]

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Performing the Post-Mortem on Your Entering Class

Dr. Scott Miller President Bethany College Dr. Marylouise Fennell Partner Hyatt-Fennell Summer is over, a new class is comfortably tucked in and you can relax and celebrate your recent recruitment efforts while marveling at the numbers and the profile of the incoming class. Does this scenario sound familiar? So it is reported on many campuses throughout the country. Now is not, however, the time for complacency. Rather, it is the time to evaluate this achievement and plan constructively for next year?s class. An enrollment-cycle post-mortem to analyze what worked and what did not can be essential to ensuring future success. […]

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Mars Hill College Sets New Enrollment Record

John W. Dysart President The Dysart Group, Inc. A small, Christian college located near the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina is bucking all of the enrollment trends. Despite the declines in state financial aid, changing demographics, severe economic challenges and rising costs, this little College has been growing. Dr. Dan Lunsford, the president of Mars Hill College, and his leadership team have placed the institution on the road to enrollment growth, program expansion and significant enhancements to the physical plant. The College partnered with The Dysart Group, Inc., a higher education consulting firm headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina two […]

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A Presidential Perspective on the Challenges and Opportunities for Small Colleges

Dr. Jennifer Braaten President Ferrum College At Ferrum College in Ferrum, Virginia we are most grateful for all the students who continue to be interested in attending. It has been an incredible period of growth for the institution over the years since I assumed the presidency. The College starts with an attractive? core. We have the honor and privilege of having a powerful mission of affordability and accessibility. We are all educators interested in doing all we can to inspire and motivate young people. We have a faculty, staff and administration who appreciate what it means to offer an applied […]

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Admission Yield: An Institutional Priority

John W. Dysart President The Dysart Group, Inc. This is the time of year when pressure is on the leadership team in the recruitment division to finalize the new student numbers for the coming term and to use every means possible to increase yield. One of the simplest ways to increase new student enrollments is to increase the conversion rate from accepted applicant to enrolled student. More students can be enrolled even if application pools are stagnant by encouraging a higher percentage of accepted applicants to enroll. Other offices at the institution can have a positive influence on yield. Colleges […]

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