Inside the Latest Graduate Enrollment Survey

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0:00:11.7 Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to Office Hours with EAB. Today, we dig into the findings from our latest survey of graduate enrollment leaders. This is the sixth year we’ve collaborated on the survey with the good people at NAGAP, so there’s some interesting trend lines emerging as well as some new and perhaps unexpected findings this year. So give these folks a listen and enjoy.

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0:00:39.7 Val Fox: Hello and welcome to Office Hours with EAB. My name is Val Fox and I’m a senior director and principal at EAB charged with helping universities grow enrollments for their graduate and professional programs. Prior to joining EAB, I served as a higher ed CMO and like many who might be listening was on a campus where the focus on graduate enrollment intensified as undergraduate enrollment became a less predictable and stable source of revenue. Which is why it’s so timely that today we’re gonna share a preview of findings from our recent survey of nearly 600 enrollment leaders across the country in partnership with NAGAP, the Association for Graduate Enrollment Management. Joining me today to talk about the survey findings and their implications for graduate enrollment teams is my colleague Pam Royall and NAGAP expert and global higher ed consultant Donald Resnik. Could you both introduce yourselves?

0:01:34.2 Pam Royall: Yes, Val, thank you. For this audience… First as your EAB colleague, my title is Head of Research, and as a consequence of that title and role, I get a chance to work with Donald and others on survey research. So this is a project that I lead, and I’ve been in partnership with Donald and our contacts at NAGAP to produce this work over the last six years. But I also want to add that before my tenure at EAB, I served for 20 years as a university professor in graduate schools of business, largely… Almost exclusively at large public institutions. So I bring that to this work, which is always helpful as well.

0:02:21.6 Donald Resnik: Well, thanks, Pam, and thanks, Val. I’m Donald Resnik. I have been in higher education for over 40 years and have served for almost a quarter of a century in the C-suite for several universities, large, small, public, and private. I’m currently a global higher education consultant, which means I’m working on enrollment and student success issues and the changes, which are many, being experienced by institutes of higher education. As a side hustle and gig, candidly, I take incredible pride in the fact that I work pro bono, as they would say, with socioeconomically disadvantaged youths and first-gen students that are applying for undergraduate studies. My affiliation with NAGAP is long and storied, so they say. I am a member of NAGAP. I was a member of the original NEGAP, which is quite a long time ago. I had the privilege of serving on NAGAP’s governing board for over a decade, including as its president, and I’m very proud and honored to have received the organization’s inaugural Distinguished Service Award. That’s NAGAP’s highest honor. It’s a pleasure to be with you today.

0:03:28.5 Val Fox: Wow, what a brain trust we have on the show today. Thank you both so much for being here. And just a little bit about the research partnership between EAB and NAGAP. It is in its sixth year. So you’ve both had a chance to watch the landscape evolve over this time. At the highest level, what were we hoping to learn from this year’s survey series and what felt different from prior years?

0:03:50.2 Pam Royall: Well, Val, one of our priorities each year of this partnership with NAGAP has been tracking year over year those key metrics that are used by graduate enrollment professionals. So at the highest level, we’re looking for any changes that may inform our strategies and influence the success of enrollment leaders. And while we offer descriptive insights, we are always looking for opportunities to provide prescriptive advice as well. And building upon five years of prior data, there’s so much opportunity to do so. And before I turn things over to Donald, I just want to note that once again, year after year, we’re so pleased with the robust sample that we get from the participation of enrollment professionals. This year we have, as you mentioned, almost 600. They represent over 350 different institutions. On average, they have 17 years of experience in enrollment management. And the vast majority, 85%, oversee enrollment, recruitment, and admissions functions at their institutions. And additionally, a third of them also have marketing and comms in their portfolio. So one last thing I’ll say before I ask Donald to comment is that we have almost half public and private institutions represented, and that’s always been helpful to us.

0:05:35.3 Donald Resnik: Yeah, Pam, if I could just reinforce a couple of points that you’ve just made that I think our audience would find intriguing. First, early on in our relationship over five years ago, we were only reporting point-in-time data. We had no basis of comparison. Now that we are over five years in, we have been and very proud to be reporting trends, which is always more beneficial than single point-in-time data. It is pleasing and important to note that the surveys continue to evolve as well. I mean, every time we gather and aggregate data, we are soliciting and asking for as much feedback from the participants as possible. And much of the feedback from the respondents are incorporated into subsequent surveys. And in fact, you’ll find a number of the outcomes are as a direct result of additional feedback that we’ve kind of iterated and evolved over time. And one final note, I would be remiss if I didn’t reinforce your point, Pam, that yet again, the representation of the responses that we have aggregated over time are again representative of the higher education landscape, which is incredibly important for takeaway purposes.

0:06:46.8 Pam Royall: Exactly. And in terms of what felt different this year, Val, I want to note the striking consistency from year to year. And that’s in terms of the pressure and anxiety that enrollment leaders are experiencing. But in our third year of tracking the use of AI in their operations, it may not surprise anyone that now almost all enrollment leaders are using AI in one way or another. And we’ll tell you more about that in a little bit.

0:07:20.5 Val Fox: Oh, the cliffhanger. I love it. Well, let’s start with one of the biggest pressure points that the research bore, which was graduate enrollment is increasingly tied to institutional growth and revenue stability. One finding that stood out is that 27% of the respondents said their graduate enrollment goals were influenced by undergraduate enrollment shortfalls. So what does that tell us about the role that graduate programs are being asked to play right now?

0:07:49.2 Pam Royall: Well, it’s not really a new pressure, as most will recognize, but graduate programs are increasingly expected to support both institutional growth and financial stability. And to do this in a much more challenging environment. So it was several years ago that our research uncovered a practical reality of enrollment goal setting on many campuses that participated. And that is that enrollment leaders are often solely focused on headcount. That is the number of students enrolled in different programs each term. But meeting headcount goals alone does not guarantee financial sustainability. And while more than half of our participants, 56%, reported meeting their headcount goals, only 37% reported meeting net tuition revenue goals. And even, I’m gonna say alarmingly, we found there is an awareness gap. 39% indicated they didn’t even know. They were unsure whether they met their NTR goals. And that’s one of the things that we take away as being really instructive in how offices can change the way they think about the tasks they’ve been given. And Donald, I credit you for ensuring that we added NTR to our questions regarding enrollment goals, highlighting that this is a very important success metric beyond mere headcount.

0:09:35.1 Donald Resnik: I couldn’t agree more, Pam. In fact, we need, and we’ve said this over the years, GEM professionals to truly lean in on NTR. To me, at almost 40% being unsure, this very well may suggest a lack of appreciation of its importance. And interestingly, as I’ve just shared, this has remained stubbornly persistent and persistently high at this level over the course of many years. So again, we need to do what we can to encourage professionals to lean in on NTR. Important to note, while schools need to consider that their GEM teams may feel pressure that originates outside of their own units, whether it’s undergraduate, development, operations, or otherwise, they need to be extremely careful not to treat graduate enrollment as the automatic fix for broader systemic enrollment and revenue challenges. It is not an automatic fix. And in fact, the goals that are established in this arena need to, in fact, reflect market realities, program-level opportunities, and just as importantly, team capacities. And I know we’ll get into that a little bit later on, but all of those variables need to be considered very carefully when goals are being established.

0:10:56.1 Val Fox: Thank you. I think that all these pressures are a helpful reminder that graduate enrollment leaders really aren’t operating in isolation here. Many are being asked to deliver, well, what you elevated, which is headcount, maybe not knowing how to tie that to revenue, but landing precise enrollment targets in a market that’s harder and harder to predict, right? Another thing that struck me is that graduate enrollment has really moved from being a conversation about just numbers, headcount numbers, to really being an institutional strategy conversation. We’re seeing graduate programs asked to offset undergraduate softness, support revenue growth, justify new investments, all at the same time, which is a real different place than where graduate offices were playing maybe five, 10 years ago. So how are graduate enrollment leaders experiencing that pressure? And what did the survey reveal about stress and burnout?

0:11:52.2 Pam Royall: Well, perhaps the most distressing finding from our research is the continuing stress and burnout reported by enrollment leaders. We were motivated to begin this research program six years ago because of COVID. We were really concerned about how we were going to support enrollment teams in an unprecedented state of stress and anxiety. So this year, again, tracking over six years, 85% of the respondents described their current work environment as at least moderately stressful. And 53% said their stress levels were higher than they were at the same point in time the prior year. Now, the top stressors they identified are those broad structural pressures; uncertainty due to state and federal policies, budget and fiscal challenges, and leadership changes. We saw that when VPs get new presidents, things are even more uncertain and stressful. And something that we’ve seen since the first survey in this six-year partnership: unfulfilled staff positions, heavier workloads, and unrealistic goals continue to contribute to the stress.

0:13:20.0 Val Fox: Yeah, it’s interesting that, you know, teams used to maybe focus more on operational stressors. “Oh, my CRM is frustrating.” Well, we always hear that. There’s rarely a conversation where people are shouting from the rooftops, “We love our CRM, we love our website.” But really, the bigger stressors you’re saying are federal policies changing, budgets are shrinking, international markets are shifting. The international piece with changes in visa restrictions and immigration policies, that’s a very different kind of leadership challenge because many of these factors they can’t control. So Donald, I’m sure you’ve got some ideas on this too.

0:13:58.1 Donald Resnik: I do, Val. It’s actually interesting, having a couple of degrees in psychology, this aspect is kind of near and dear to my heart. And much of the research that we do, we like to share with as broad a constituency as possible because this is Exhibit A. Many enrollment leaders do not know that they are not alone in this space. They are operating as though, “We’re challenged, it’s our problem, it’s not a systemic problem.” So part of the takeaway here, to my mind, was enrollment leaders need to know that you are not alone. Many are facing exactly the same problems and pressures. Second point, again, in the psychological realm, it’s important to note that burnout is not just a morale issue. It can, in fact, weaken enrollment performances if the teams lose capacity or focus. Leaders should certainly be prepared to reassess where staff time is going, reduce redundancy in the workplace, and try to clarify the priorities. Interesting point, capacity planning should always be treated as part of the gestalt, if you will, the enrollment strategy as a whole, and not separate and distinct from it.

0:15:09.6 Pam Royall: And Donald, if I may add just one other point, that this continuing stress cannot be explained away by COVID effects as it was in the first two or three years of this partnership.

0:15:22.6 Donald Resnik: Right.

0:15:25.2 Val Fox: Well, given this pressure, did it bear out in the results of the survey that teams are looking for smarter ways to work? Did we learn anything about how grad enrollment teams are using AI? I think you dropped a hint earlier, Pam, on that front. I’d love to hear your take on that.

0:15:42.3 Donald Resnik: Yeah, it’s actually, if I could just chime in quickly, Val, it actually ties in quite nicely to what we were just talking about on the morale and the “psychological front.” It is not surprising that the comfort and familiarity with AI has increased sharply over time. As recently as 2023, the data shows that 25% of respondents had never used AI. Pam and I last year went out on the limb and said, “Okay, that data would suggest it would be at zero for 2025.” Well, it’s dropped to 5%. We were close, Pam, we were close, but 5% is significantly down from as short as two years ago. And following on this comfort with AI, the institutional use of AI has been really intriguing to follow. It’s very heavily and appropriately used for marketing and enrollment, and in fact has grown in that same two-year period from 19% in ’23 to 42% in ’25. So for those teams that are already using AI, many are using it for what you would otherwise not be surprised to hear, tactical efficiencies. And again, it goes back to that psychological redundancy of work concern. Chatbots, content creation, campaign support, things that perhaps have a negative impact on the workplace from a redundancy of work perspective. The larger opportunity that we all believe should be leveraged in the AI space is for strategic advantages, which are not as commonly used in the workplace, but will grow over time. Examples include mining enrollment data, optimizing communication flows, and improving your modeling efficiencies. So these are exactly relevant to our earlier points, how AI can not only benefit outcomes, but improve the workspace environment.

0:17:27.3 Pam Royall: And Donald, as a point of pride, I want to credit us for… This fall will be our fourth year of asking…

0:17:36.2 Donald Resnik: Yes.

0:17:36.8 Pam Royall: GEM professionals about AI. So we were in early and we have tracked it over time. And at the same time, EAB’s made a commitment to understanding how AI is being used by prospective student pools as well. So we can always add additional data.

0:17:54.7 Donald Resnik: Agreed. If I could just quickly add to that point, we were talking about this, as you said, four years ago, with our desire to be at the front of this wave, and we were, and the data and reporting on these data have certainly borne some significantly beneficial fruit.

0:18:08.7 Pam Royall: And I love thinking about the larger opportunities that AI supports, the things that you mentioned, Donald. But institutions need first to establish guardrails for AI use. And maybe some have and some haven’t yet, but consider the implications for brand value. Consider the legal risk that is associated with using AI and the need for human review, which we are still very much in support of.

0:18:38.9 Val Fox: Yeah, I think one of the things that stood out to me is only 1 in 10 leaders said they’re confident in how their institution actually appears in AI-powered search. And maybe that’s the next frontier. Maybe we’ll add questions about what you’re doing to improve visibility in AI search next year. We’ve got lots of great content on that at EAB, but it sounds… I guess, I’d say to wrap up this section, it sounds like the unlock for teams is really shifting from AI as a productivity tool to AI as a strategic enrollment enabler. And so I think that’s really exciting. And kudos to both of you for dialing into this four years ago and being able to track the movement there in that space. So I want to shift now to the student side of the equation. One of the report’s key findings is that enrollment teams need to reframe messaging around what prospective students actually care about. What do the surveys reveal about the gap between what enrollment leaders think students want and what students themselves report?

0:19:41.8 Pam Royall: Well, Val, I just want to give another plug for the work that I have the privilege of doing at EAB, and that is with… Within our broader EAB research, I have the opportunity to do a specific study into what prospective students are thinking, wanting, prioritizing, et cetera. And it’s that survey of graduate student prospects, including many adult learners, that gives us a chance to compare what they tell us is important to them versus what GEM professionals report they think students prefer. And our surveys with GEM professionals reveal that they tend to assume students are primarily motivated by career advancement and earning potential. And while these motivations matter to students, when we ask students directly, they also cite pursuing their passions, making a difference in the world, and exploring interests that they have in greater depth. So GEM professionals we survey reported that communicating the value of graduate education is their top priority. And it’s this kind of information that will bring some strategy into value messaging that will allow institutions to connect to career outcomes, affordability messaging, flexibility, and also add that notion of personal purpose and fit.

0:21:19.3 Donald Resnik: It’s interesting, Pam. So I’m a big fan, again, on the psychological front, big fan of focusing on an institution’s “abilities.” And you touched on a couple, I’ll add a couple more; affordability, flexibility, accessibility, accountability, in terms of providing their students the tools for success going forward. The other point that I think is really important for us to reinforce is something that we’ve been talking about for actually a number of years as well, Pam, and the research has consistently reinforced this, is that enrollment professionals think they know what motivates graduate students, but the data has consistently suggested otherwise. There continues to be this disconnect or misalignment, if you will, between what the enrollment professionals think students want to hear and what students report their true motivators are. Final point, I am a big fan of teams not relying on internal assumptions about value, i.e., take a look at the data, that stronger student insights can help teams prioritize the right messaging channels and follow-up strategies by listening to what their audience is telling them.

0:22:01.9 Pam Royall: Absolutely.

0:22:44.6 Val Fox: That’s great. Listen, I feel like as marketers, we’ve probably been guilty of reducing some of this messaging to an ROI calculator, right? And I’m gonna have Donald’s voice in the back of my mind with all of the “abilities” that we need to be also messaging to. So I love that framing. Thank you both. We’ve talked about a lot today. We’ve talked about revenue pressure, staff burnout, the adoption of AI, and changing student expectations, and Pam so artfully stitched together some of the student survey research and the GEM professional research. So with all of that in mind, what’s the most important advice that you’d leave graduate enrollment leaders with heading into the next enrollment cycle?

0:23:27.2 Donald Resnik: Well, Val, if I could… I’ll jump in. So from my perspective, and we talked a little bit about this earlier, goals and priorities seem to be very much front of mind, stressors, and ultimate outcomes. To my mind, it is one thing to state that something is a goal and priority. Very easy to state. I have often said to follow the money. See where the resources, both human and fiscal, are actually going to determine if it really is indeed a goal or a priority. Once goals and priorities are established, it is also important, arguably just as important, to manage expectations along the way and complete fulsome assessments along the way as to what is working, what has worked, what didn’t work, et cetera. So this is not a track that is immovable or unchangeable. It should be dynamic and iterative.

0:24:33.9 Donald Resnik: Final point. And I’ve… For those that have heard me speak before, I’ve used the acronym DINKA in almost every presentation. But for those that are listening for the first time, DINKA acronym, and no, it’s not a Jimmy Durante saying, although it was way back when. DINKA, D, data, IN, information, K, knowledge, A, action. What does that mean in combination? Be sure to take the mountain of data that we all have. I used to say back in the 80s and early 90s that we were data poor and perhaps information richer. We are no longer data poor. Perhaps we are in data overload. Take the data that we all have and importantly translate it into usable information. Take that information to provide knowledge to those who will need it and use it so that those teams can take the requisite action. Give the teams the data input and support that they need to act on.

0:25:25.5 Pam Royall: Brilliant, brilliant. And I would hope that everyone listening will read the full report of our research findings. While our research did surface some real challenges, the report identifies some clear opportunities for enrollment teams. As we’ve hinted, strategic use of AI, more intel based on a focus on NTR, student and value-centered messaging, just to name a few. There’s much more content that we want to offer you in the form of that report.

0:26:02.7 Val Fox: Well, Pam and Donald, thank you so much for your work on these surveys, for leaving us with some bumper sticker moments. Donald, maybe we need to get DINKA printed on some bumper stickers, [chuckle] GEM bumper stickers. Next time we see each other at NAGAP, I might have some in tow. But the findings and year-over-year trends are always really helpful, and you elevate it in a way that makes it just really digestible for all of us. So thank you for that. I appreciate you taking the time to dive deeper into this. And this was just a preview into the findings. If you want the full report, we’re gonna have a link to the report in our show notes, so look for that. There’ll be additional themes we heard about in that full report related to strategies and all sorts of resources you can take back to your teams. So thank you both so much. And for all our listeners today, thank you for joining us. Until next time.

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