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Yesterday, the National Student Clearinghouse published their 2023 fall enrollment report. For the first time since the pandemic, enrollment had increased at higher education institutions. However, this increase has come from a very nontraditional source.

One of the more interesting aspects of working in the higher education space is the amount of change and innovation that has been occurring in recent years. Dual-enrollment programs is one of the more exciting ways that schools are re-thinking how they engage with students.

Stealth applicants have always been a challenge for institutions. However, the pandemic amplified those challenges as institutions had to adapt processes, like going test-optional, and college fair and campus visit opportunities were limited due to pandemic-related restrictions and safety concerns. Although pandemic-related restrictions are being lifted, allowing more open on- and off-campus events, many institutions are not changing their test-optional policies.  

Spending nearly a decade as an enrollment management professional until recently, I experienced the challenge that the impending traditional enrollment cliff presents for universities and colleges. I was often faced trying to find solutions to the same recurring questions: 

It’s a wrap. We just finished our first event of 2022 – the SACRAO conference in Little Rock, AR. 

Is your institution having challenges reaching your enrollment goals for certain groups of students?  Perhaps you have initiatives for online curriculum or competency-based education that are not getting traction. Your institution’s culture could be setting you up to fail and you may not even be aware of it. 

Today, Business Insider had an opinion piece about Google's Career Certificates program, which allows non-degree learning to help people (especially people in IT) gain critical skills that can help them advance their careers.  In our blog, we've previously discussed how the higher education market is has recognized the opportunity growth of lifetime learning and the nontraditional student.  

In our prior bog entry, we defined the nontraditional student and described the impact they will have on the Higher Education Industry going forward.  Now that you’re ready to increase enrollment through this demographic.  How do you do it?

It’s a new year and new decade.  What are the trends and outlook in Higher Education?  Are today’s institutions prepared?