Career-focused institutions face different challenges from those of large universities, liberal arts colleges, or other types of schools.
One of those differences—and perhaps among the biggest—is how the enrollment management process works.
How?
More than other types of institutions, career and trade schools need to develop an enrollment management system that’s:
As such, enrollment management for career and trade schools has to be personal, transparent, and efficient. Schools need to move quickly and make the process seamless for prospects and enrolled students.
Yet, there are many misconceptions about enrollment management that can create disjointed operations and poor student experiences.
Here are five myths about enrollment management…and why they’re wrong,
Many people in higher education incorrectly assume that enrollment management is synonymous with the Admissions department.
This simply isn’t true.
Of course, Admissions is one of the primary teams involved in enrollment management—but they’re not the only ones.
This is an important distinction, because it can leave admissions staff feeling siloed and frustrated, often times leading to employee turnover. Moreover, it lets other departments “off the hook” when they should be more involved.
In reality, enrollment management should be a united effort shared by multiple departments across your institution: Admissions, Registrar, Financial Aid, Faculty, Administrative, and more.
Like with the Admissions example in Myth #1, many people make the mistake of assuming Enrollment Management comes down to just marketing: your website, social media channels, advertising campaigns, video production, and other content.
Yes, marketing is absolutely a critical part of the equation—but it’s only part of it.
Marketing is what sparks an interest, helps students understand what program options are available to them, and teaches them how further education can transform their lives. In other words, it turns interest into outcomes.
But, there’s a lot to enrollment management beyond marketing.
Enrollment management neither begins nor ends with the act of enrollment.
In fact, enrollment management starts before the Admissions process even begins, when prospects have the idea that continuing their education would benefit them and begin researching options that make the most sense for them.
The journey continues through admissions, enrollment, taking classes, passing certifications and exams, walking at graduation, and even as they begin finding job placements.
We talk about the importance of tracking the entire student lifecycle in our recent blog post, Ask an Expert: How Should Technical Colleges Rethink the Student Lifecycle?
It’s actually the opposite. This is an important one.
Higher ed teams relying more on software to automate, streamline, and simplify enrollment doesn’t take away anything from the human connection—in fact it enhances it.
Software isn’t going to replace staff, it's going to make their lives easier. It will empower them to spend less time on manual data input and more time interacting with students in meaningful ways.
That human connection is essential to the student experience, and enrollment management software makes it more possible than ever.
Referrals are essential to this process—in fact, the “secret sauce” of college admissions—because they’re based entirely on the trust and credibility they’ve earned. They’re based on relationships, which is why utilizing software to free up time for faculty and staff is so important. Software will never replace that human connection.
This is perhaps the most important myth to dispel, and one that is near and dear to me because I’ve personally worked with many schools that operate under this misconception.
Not only do smaller schools also need enrollment management…they probably need it more.
Unlike with larger schools that rely on high-volume inbound activity and massive lists, every single contact matters even more for smaller schools. Losing just a handful of prospects can mean a significant loss in revenue on which small schools rely.
Yes, smaller schools can feel “out-resourced” compared to their larger competitors. However, with the right software you can have a very productive enrollment management process that delivers results. Whether your institution is large or small, strategic enrollment management is critical to long-term success.
The best career-focused schools align their people, processes, and systems to guide students from inquiry to completion.
Their staff is flexible because they know students won’t put up with long lag times or disconnected communication.
And…they use software as the backbone of their enrollment management process. It’s the key ingredient that makes their entire operation function and scale as they grow.
They use CRMs and SISs to create better student experiences. They use dashboards to get real-time reporting on student outcomes and behavior. They rely on secure document management, engage with students on mobile-friendly apps, and manage the entire student lifecycle in one place.
To see how Portico’s integrated suite of tools simplifies enrollment, financial aid, recordkeeping, accreditation, and student success for career-focused education, Request a Demo today.