What I Learned from College Presidents

I recently attended the National Small College Enrollment Conference.  My many thanks to Scott Novak and Chris Coons for putting on a great event as well as a shout out to my friend Laurie Koehler for recommending I attend. 

One of the great content pieces at the conference included the opportunity to hear from small college presidents that worked to advance their respective institution’s sustainability.  For those insomniacs that read my stuff regularly, you won’t be surprised to find I found a number of common themes and threads existed within each president’s presentation that helped sustain their institutions. 

First, a few college presidents emphasized doubling down on their institution’s student success efforts.  No argument from me here.  From my perspective, this is the gold of institutional sustainability.  Most higher education professionals understand it costs more money to recruit a new student than to retain a current student.  The greater the number of current students who persist means increased tuition revenue – helping an institution’s bottom line.  In most cases, increased student persistence contributes to achieving the institutional mission given the outcomes driven nature of such statements.  It does play a role in rankings, if you care about that sort of thing given how first year persistence is a metric in most rankings’ rubrics.  And word of mouth reputation is positively enhanced as students return home to talk about the positive experiences they are having at their college or university. 

Next, several college presidents worked to grow and expand their curriculum by adding new majors and programs to stimulate additional new student demand.  Some programs were offered at the graduate level by adding certificate, badging, or +1 post undergraduate credentials that led to a master’s degree.  Some college presidents noted that such programs did not need to be heavily discounted resulting in higher tuition revenue margins.  At the undergraduate level, program expansion focused on a combination of professional, technical, and STEM related fields – nursing, AI or cyber security, and engineering.  In many cases, the institutions had faculty and laboratory infrastructure in place that offered a level of scaling so as not to add meaningful additional cost.  Where the institutions did not have the infrastructure in place to offer new programs, they offered the courses via online modality with an outside partner.  Some college presidents noted that such programs attracted students from higher socioeconomic backgrounds resulting in less financial aid being awarded.

Other college presidents talked about working to diversify their respective student populations to attract greater enrollment.  Again, some of this was via graduate enrollment but some college presidents talked about working to cultivate transfer student enrollment or working to enroll students from different socioeconomic backgrounds.  Many college presidents noted that further investment in international recruitment would not likely result in the same return as the past given the current geopolitical environment. 

Having interacted with a few college presidents of late, a number are considering adding athletic programs to attract additional student enrollment.  Two college presidents in the Midwest are working to add women’s flag football and another men’s volleyball.  What is noteworthy is that the roster sizes of each of these sports is somewhat meaningful and additional facilities do not need to be added to support these programs if a gymnasium or athletic fields already exist – saving on additional cost.  One college president I connected with, Dr. Jeffrey Docking, from Adrian College in Michigan, had grown the number of varsity sports from 16 to 53.  Among the sports offered were Bass Fishing and Cornhole.  Over 70% of Adrian’s current students are varsity athletes and this initiative contributed to doubling the enrollment at the college. 

All of this is innovation at work to remain sustainable given a shrinking traditional student age demographic when many are questioning the value of higher education.  Which brings me to my most important point for long term institutional sustainability – that we in higher education – need to continue to invest in and drive the uniqueness of our individual institutional value propositions while communicating an outcomes with value message.  It is not enough to say we offer great communities of people that care in a personal environment.  Working to identify what is unique about our respective institutions is a critical and meaningful exercise.  It is hard and long-term investment work to ensure institutional sustainability.  The work is grounded in student success initiatives that also drives new student demand.  Not a quick fix but an important investment.