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Leveraging big data to meet enrollment (and revenue) targets

At the beginning of this year, school presidents and leading education thought leaders were asked to forecast trends for the year and into the future. Some of the major concerns were centered around enrollment figures in our colleges and universities. There were some positive trends around technology that will help mitigate the enrollment crisis that our schools face.

Here few of the predictions by the experts for 2015:

• Over half of nonprofit private colleges failed to meet enrollment and revenue goals for 2014. In spite of that disappointing track record, it's predicted that a majority of schools will be increasing tuition during 2015. The result will most likely be even more schools falling short of enrollment targets.

• The usual client base for colleges is the 16-24 year-old post-high school adolescents. This group is predicted to shrink nearly 13% by 2022, thereby reducing the pool of potential enrollees from that group. This will be offset by a 3-5% increase in the number mid-career adults ages 25-55 that will returning to school to improve existing education and skill sets. Also noted is the 5-10% of Baby Boomers that are going back to college upon retirement.

• As students arrive on campus that are more tech-savvy and have integrated technology into their learning at an earlier age, the demand for schools to enhance the state of its technology and corresponding tech education offerings will correspondingly increase. Schools will need to meet this demand in order to remain as attractive options in a sea of competition. OneNote for Students, Teachers and Administrators >>>

• Online learning will become commonplace on college campuses. Instructors will need to be trained in order to integrate technology into their daily teaching. Students will come to expect this type of interaction looking for immediate feedback, coaching, learning in virtual communities and social networking.

• Schools are gathering more and more data on their students. Admissions data, student performance in the classroom, faculty reporting, student evaluations, and the like are contributing more and more data that schools can use for all manner of decision making. Having access to robust data and analytical tools will be important for schools moving forward.

On the topic of big data, schools are now able use data for current enrolled students to create models that predict likelihood that future applicants will enroll. These predictive models will identify the characteristics of students that are most likely to enroll which schools can leverage in their marketing and outreach efforts.

The fear or concern by administrators may the perceived cost of implementing technology and infrastructure to capture the data. Fortunately for schools, costs and investments to secure this data is minimal as most of it is already collected during the application and admission process for current students. Scaling infrastructure no longer requires massive investment in hardware as it did in the past.

Today's cloud-based infrastructure is quickly scalable and can be added by even the most budget-constrained organizations through a cost-effective "Pay As You Go" pricing model. Management of the IT platform is easily entrusted to a technical service partner eliminating the need to add IT headcount or resources.

It simply becomes a matter of utilizing the data already on-hand and beginning to mine it for insights that can be leveraged immediately in current or near-term initiatives.

Managed Solution is the premier provider of IT support services and technology recommendations for educational organizations. Founded in 2002, we enjoy a proud tradition of partnering with the IT staff of the many organizations we work with. We can even act as your IT team. For more information on educational technology solutions contact Managed Solution at 800-308-6107 or fill out the contact form.

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