By J.R. Docking & C.C. Curton
There are some 3,400 colleges and universities in the United States. Leaders of these institutions are confronting the demographic cliff, "free tuition," the student debt crisis, the impact of a global pandemic, and the move to online modalities. These delightfully challenging days are made even more formidable for smaller private independent colleges which are tuition-driven.
What is a leader to do? Jeffrey R. Docking, President of Adrian College, says "the biggest risk is to do nothing at all!" Colleges must grow their enrollment or face the likely slow slide of institutional death.
Docking took the helm of Adrian College in 2005 with a bold revenue-building model that ultimately saved their institution. Docking shares that model in Crisis in Higher Education: A Plan to Save Small Liberal Arts Colleges in America or else. I found this work logical and practical. The results Adrian has achieved speak for themselves: First, enrollment increases by the hundreds and, second, increased budget revenue by the millions.
I am a presidential newbie, assuming the leadership of Lancaster Bible College, in February 2020. Dr. Docking's work has helped me better understand the academic business model. How? By clarifying admissions strategies that do not work and by carefully explaining and illustrating his Admissions Growth model, a model that has proven incredibly effective for Adrian College.
Here are eight enrollment strategies that don't work according to Docking:
1. Rebranding: Students rarely pick a college based on its brand.
2. Adding Satellite Campuses: They cannot deliver the same experience as the mother ship.
3. Investment in Online Education: He calls online "disengaged education," but the trends and research are proving him wrong with respect to modality. And the online revenue model works.
4. Adding Professional Programs and "Trade School" Certification Programs: They are not bad, they are just not what prospective students are looking for in a college education.
5. Building New Academic Facilities: Seventeen year-olds do not choose where to spend their next four years based on academic buildings.
6. Increase library holdings: Prospective students hold the gateway to research in the palms of their hands.
7. Publicizing Faculty Research: Enrollment research identifies this as a very small contributing factor to enrollment.
8. Manufacturing Fun outside the Classroom: Fun off-campus experiences do not draw students.
And what does work? Creating an admissions growth strategy that prioritizes the following six steps:
1. Do your homework and set goals. This pertains to every facet of your institution. Where do we excel? What sports would our region support? What must we stop doing and why?
2. Build and upgrade required facilities.
3. Fund teams and activities fully and set recruiting goals.
4. Focus on return on investment by holding recruiters accountable.
5. Redirect new income to academic facilities and programs.
6. Continue to build and utilize momentum for further growth.
More than a whack on the side of the head . . .
Crisis in Higher Education: A Plan to Save Small Liberal Arts Colleges in America was an education for this educator. Here are a few of my takeaways:
1. Accountability: "Each program must be led by someone who is accountable for recruitment and retention" (25). Institutions must stress accountability at the admissions recruitment level as well. When you don't have accountability you don't have responsibility, and when you don't have responsibility recruitment fails. "Accountability is what distinguishes the Admissions Growth plan from every other enrollment fix being bandied around in books and magazines and on websites addressing the current crisis in higher education" (51).
2. Transparency: Confront every brutal fact (budget, enrollment, trends, etc) and be as transparent as possible.
3. Budget Cuts: "You cannot cut your way to prosperity" (40).
4. Sports: Utilize sports as a key admission mechanism (with full-time coaches and high accountability to recruit or forfeit one's job). This is "the key to the Admissions Growth plan" (55). Tables 3 - 8 (57-63) are very helpful.
5. Facilities and Infrastructure: New buildings won't necessarily bring students, but decrepit ones will turn them off.
6. Focus: Keep your eye on faculty and education. Docking is quick to emphasize that facilities, infrastructure and sports feed admissions which feeds academics. Faculty will need to catch the vision and endure the start-up that leads to academic improvement and increase in remuneration. The Admissions Growth model is ultimately about a better education.
7. Communication: "American inventor Charles Kettering said: 'a problem well-stated is a problem half-solved.' The problem this book addresses is low enrollment. Tuition from enrollment accounts for 90% of most small institutional budgets. "So the formula is really very simple: If you need more money, then grow the largest part of your budget" (107). In our communication, stress the return on investment is improved education, increased faculty, better pay.
Summary and recommendation: The primary goal of the Admissions Growth model is "to leverage investments in facilities and programs to bring more students to your campus. Small private colleges can only run on tuition, and tuition comes from students, plain and simple" (79). But those students and facilities do more than "simply" increase tuition dollars. They lead to curb appeal, improved community relations, student retention, and engaged alumni.
Why would an educational leader not read Crisis in Higher Education: A Plan to Save Small Liberal Arts Colleges in America unless he or she is content to take that long slide toward institutional demise.
Kudos to Carman Curtan for her writing expertise. She worked with Dr. Docking to deliver this polished gem..