Craft a Future-Oriented Strategic Enrollment Management Plan
Many community college leaders have turned to Strategic Enrollment Management (SEM) as the solution to their enrollment issues. However, SEM plans at community colleges have come to encompass a laundry list of hopes, goals, and initiatives that colleges would like to accomplish without accounting for resource availability. In order to achieve financial sustainability, community colleges must evaluate external and future influences, craft enrollment strategy that articulates institutional priorities, and allocate specific resources to strategies that achieve enrollment goals.
Learn about SEM and the key components of an effective plan
Strategic Enrollment Management is a tool co-opted from four-year institutions to prioritize marketing, recruitment, and student success efforts to meet institutional goals. Yet all too often community college SEM plans try to solve all the college’s problems without prioritizing market segments and making trade-offs between scarce resources. Successful SEM plans are an effective tool to combat the changing higher education landscape, but they require bold thinking and difficult decision-making.
Conduct scenario planning to ensure institutional enrollment goals are future-oriented
Community college strategy is focused on the here and now, but that mindset doesn’t allow leaders to adequately plan for future shifts. In order to prepare for the dramatic changes expected to occur over the next five to ten years, leaders need to adopt a future-oriented mindset.
Use our toolkit to develop contingency plans that will prepare your cabinet for a multitude of enrollment futures.
Build a prioritized SEM plan specific to institutional needs
While SEM plans are created with the goal of resource and market prioritization, many fail to make critical tradeoffs and thus attempt to fix too many issues at once. To create a successful SEM plan that clearly defines enrollment goals, it’s important to be realistic, consider market trends and projections, and prioritize your resources and market segments.
To do this, surface the market and demographic forces shaping your enrollment landscape. Then, analyze market segments to find your target student markets and prioritize resources to reach them. To get you started, we’ve created a framework to help create your SEM plan.
Craft strategies to serve your target market segment
Once you’ve identified your most promising student segment, focus energies on recruiting and enrolling these students. Keep in mind that a one-size-fits-all message won’t work: different market segments necessitate different marketing strategies. For instance, what appeals to Gen Z students with many college options is much different than what’s needed to recruit students who think college is not for them.
Enroll and attract Gen Z students
Even if you’re prioritizing K12 recruitment, this segment isn’t one monolithic block. When reaching out to K12 students, marketing approaches can be strengthened by creating distinct sub-categories. Learn how to shape recruitment strategies to reach non-college-going students and students who have many options each of these target markets.
Win more adults with employer partnerships
Community colleges have experienced steady declines in enrollment of adult learners in today’s strong labor market. To enroll more adult students, leverage your current employer partnerships to remove enrollment barriers, align program and career goals, and facilitate the hiring pipeline.
Create messaging that responds to student motivations
Tailor messaging specifically to your institution’s core target market segment. Be cognizant that not all emerging student segments have the same needs when crafting messages. Start by evaluating your marketing from a student perspective, and then tailor messaging to students’ specific needs. For help, use our Persona Development Guide from our Integrated Prospect Communication Plan Toolkit.
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Access the roadmap
Learn how you can get access to this resource as well as hands-on support from our experts through Strategic Advisory Services for Community Colleges.
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