Five areas enrollment leaders are prioritizing in 2025

A read on your peers’ most pressing concerns

Each year, EAB’s Enroll360 team conducts a survey of enrollment leaders to help define our research focus for the coming months. This year we explored ten potential areas of inquiry, from brand management to generative AI. Below is some commentary on the five highest-ranking topics—those chosen by a third or more of respondents. Included are observations about how they resonated with schools of varying types (large and small, public and private, more and less selective).

1. Admitted-student engagement

Topping our poll, chosen by 41% of respondents, was “Mastering the ‘Last Mile’ of Student Recruitment: Innovative Ideas for Sustaining Engagement from Admit to Matriculation.”

The keen interest in this topic did not come as a big surprise, yield being a perennial concern for admissions teams everywhere. That said, I do get the sense from the enrollment leaders that I interact with every day that the challenge is getting harder, and this may have contributed to the popularity of the topic. Trends I often hear mentioned in this context include developmental and mental health challenges facing high schoolers, increasingly widespread doubts regarding the value of higher education, and the fact that students are applying to more schools with each passing year.

Interest in this topic was remarkably consistent across school segments, being popular with public and private institutions of all sizes. That said, the response did vary by school selectivity, with less-selective institutions showing the greatest interest.

2. Brand management

The second most popular topic, chosen by 40% of respondents, was “Brand Management for Enrollment Leaders: Is Your Framing of Your School’s Value Proposition Resonating with the Market?”.

The popularity of this topic reflects the challenge that colleges and universities face in winning over an increasingly skeptical public. It may also be attributable to the growing trend of students favoring schools with well-established brands over more obscure institutions.

Interest in this topic was similarly high across both public and private schools, at all levels of selectivity, and it was especially popular among small and large schools (i.e., institutions at either end of the size spectrum).

3. Pricing strategy

Occupying third place, based on its selection by 36% of respondents, was “Pricing Transparency that Works: Impactful Real-World Models for Moving Beyond Illusory Sticker-Pricing.”

Our respondents’ interest in the topic reflects the double-bind in which higher education’s high-price, high-discount model places the nation’s schools: while steep sticker prices can cause students to prematurely nix schools that could actually be a great choice for them, many admissions teams feel that the psychological power of high merit-aid awards is something their recruitment efforts can’t do without. Even though past efforts at resolving this conundrum, such as tuition price resets, have produced mixed results, admissions teams are evidently still hopeful of finding new and more effective solutions.

While the level of interest in this topic was high for most types of schools, it was much less popular among institutions in the “least selective” category, presumably because discounting plays a smaller role in their recruitment strategy.

4. Parent engagement

In the number four slot, selected by 35% of respondents, was “Parent Engagement for a New Era: What Students’ Changing Mindset Means for Engaging Your #1 Recruitment Ally.”

One standout feature of today’s youth is their much greater reliance on their parents—a trend that EAB survey research has documented specifically in the context of college search. My guess is that many enrollment leaders who chose the topic had that fact in mind. I imagine others selected it based on the assumption that, in an increasingly competitive higher education market, effectively engaging students’ key influencers, including parents, is more critical than ever.

Interest in this topic was similarly high across more- and less-selective schools, and it was especially popular with small and large schools (versus their medium-sized counterparts). In the case of small institutions, this may reflect their greater reliance on (and ability to perform) intensive person-to-person outreach. Large schools’ affinity for the topic more likely stems from something like the opposite—their growing recognition of the need to better engage parents and the challenges they face in scaling that effort.

Also of note was the differing popularity of the topic between non-VP staff, 43% of whom selected it, and VPs, only 23% of whom chose it; staffers closer to the front lines (i.e., non-VPs) evidently feel more keenly the importance and/or difficulty of engaging parents relative to their more senior counterparts.

5. Admissions AI

The fifth most popular topic, with 34% interest, was “Actually-Existing Admissions AI; Real-World Examples of Advanced Enrollment Use Cases for Generative AI.”

Ever since ChatGPT hit the scene, we’ve been inundated with predictions of imminent, transformative change in every aspect of our lives—much of which has remained beyond a perpetually receding horizon. We’ve also seen vendors, including sellers of enrollment-related products and services, touting AI capabilities in ways that can make it hard to determine what, specifically, is on offer and whether it actually exists. It should come as no surprise that enrollment leaders are looking for some straight talk on AI.

The level of interest in this topic increases with institution size, from a low of 27% at small institutions to a high of 41% at large ones. This may reflect large institutions’ greater interest in the role that AI-based automation could play in scaling processes that would otherwise be difficult to apply across large prospect and applicant pools, such has hyper-personalization of recruitment-marketing outreach.

Interest in the topic also varied by title, with VPs selecting it at a much higher rate (43%) than their non-VP counterparts.

What’s next

Thanks to those of you who participated in the survey, which helps ensure that we stay focused on your most pressing concerns. Keep an eye out for related content from our team in the coming months, and please share with us any thoughts you may have about our research agenda, including any topics from the full list of ten we vetted in the poll.