Rural University Sees Record Enrollment and Net Tuition Revenue Gains with Enroll360 Partnership
- type
- Public
- location
- Southeast
- undergraduates
- 8,300
Impact Highlights*
79%
Increase in freshman enrollments
201%
Increase in freshman net tuition revenue
3.4+
Average GPA of enrolled students
*Fall 2018-Fall 2022
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Challenge
After decades of sluggish freshman enrollment, Jacksonville State University (JSU) decided it was time to reinvent their recruitment strategy. They wanted to build their reputation as an affordable higher education option within their local market and scale their communications and admissions process to reach more students.
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Solution
In late 2018, JSU implemented all four Enroll360 solutions Cultivate, Apply, Yield, and Aid—to grow enrollments and maximize revenue. In partnership, EAB worked with JSU to optimize their audience strategy, create a seamless application experience, and execute new relationship-building strategies. Through these improvements, several other CRM innovations, and a robust communication plan including SMS, JSU’s admissions staff expanded their capacity to reach more right-fit students and nurture them from inquiry through enrollment.
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Impact
Over the past four years, JSU has nearly doubled their freshman enrollment—going from 1,086 students in 2018 to well over 1,900 in 2022. Freshman net tuition revenue also increased from $4.7M pre partnership to $14.2M in 2022, while their discount rate has decreased over 13 percentage points. These record-breaking enrollment and revenue numbers have given JSU the opportunity to expand their campus and become an even stronger choice for college-seekers in Alabama and beyond.
Enroll360 Solutions Help JSU Find and Enroll More Right-Fit Students
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Cultivate
An audience-identification and inquiry-generation solution designed to transform the recruitment pipeline. This includes a behaviorally responsive marketing campaign for sophomores, juniors, and their parents that builds brand awareness, generates inquiries, and nurtures interest.
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Aid
The Aid solution helps teams understand their inquiry pools and optimize their financial aid strategy to successfully seat incoming classes. Our team constructs aid models, designs policy strategy, and monitors award activity.
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Apply
An audience-identification and application-generation solution that builds immediate demand and drives submission activity. Apply campaigns use a proven call-to-action approach that successfully engages academically qualified seniors and their parents.
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Yield
Our Yield solution combines advanced surveying techniques with big data to deliver best-in-class prescriptive analytics. Over 150 data variables from across the EAB Ecosystem generate lead scores, which guide the workflow of busy admissions teams and maximize the impact of every student interaction.
Collaborative Approaches to Harness Technology and Build Relationships
| EAB | JSU |
|---|---|
| Diversified audience strategy to include multiple list sources | Configured new data load to auto-admit qualified students |
| Created a seamless application experience with collateral and a custom web application | Offered incentives, including institutional need-based grants as well as merit-based institutional scholarships |
| Marketed to both prospective students and parents | Waived application fee with counselor verification to accommodate low-income applicants |
| Led annual admission trainings on relationship building | Collaborated across campus on recruitment and yield events |
Cultivate and Apply Help JSU Reach More Students in Their Own Backyard
Application Marketing Amplifies Admission Team Outreach
Through display advertisements, emails, and paper mailers, EAB’s Apply campaign was able to generate a combined total of over 1.58 million impressions to extend JSU’s admission outreach.
Sophomore, Junior, and Senior Search Campaigns Expand JSU’s Enrollment Funnel
Consistent outreach as early as 10th grade helped JSU grow their applications, admissions, and enrollments in record amounts.In alignment with their institutional goals, JSU wanted to enroll more local students. With EAB’s guidance, Alabama residents accounted for 87% of freshmen enrollments. Notably, their admissions growth did not conflict with student academic readiness, with an average freshman GPA that was above 3.4.
Yield Helps JSU Track Student Intent from Admit to Enrollment
To support their yield effort, EAB sent surveys to admitted students to gauge their interest and intent to enroll. JSU then used the survey results to help them gauge which admits needed more direct outreach in order to influence their college decision.
JSU Improved Yield with Admitted-Student Survey Results
Through advanced surveying techniques and predictive modeling, EAB’s Yield solution helped JSU to more effectively yield their class.
More than 3,000 students replied to JSU’s surveys in 2020 and 2021, with a 54% increase in response rate year over year. This information helped JSU determine the right level of follow-up for each survey respondent.
Survey Reports Allow JSU to Monitor Admits Who Haven’t Yet Decided
JSU’s admitted-student surveys helped them better understand student intent as accepted students weighed their options.
Using these surveys, JSU tracked 1,022 undecided students in 2020 and 2021, ultimately receiving a “yes” response from 150 undecided students.
Aid Solution Helps JSU Optimize Award Structure For Record NTR Gains
JSU enrolled a record-breaking class in 2022, which more than tripled their NTR since before partnership.
Net Tuition Revenue and Discount Rate
Full-Time Freshmen
Financial Impact
Full partnership
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$3K+
Increase in net tuition revenue per student
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13-pt
Decrease in discount rate
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201%
Increase in overall freshman net tuition revenue
The insight, expertise, and services that EAB has provided to JSU allowed us to experience undergraduate enrollment growth over the past five years. Beyond just the enrollment growth, our team has been inspired to produce extensive and constant innovation regarding recruitment, yield, and aid packaging practices.
Associate Vice President
Enrollment Management
