Rather than wait until final enrollment numbers are reported in the fall, schools with strategic international recruitment plans should begin now to review and change the way they have recruited international students in the past.

This article will focus on how a refreshed communication plan can assist colleges and universities to better recruit international students for the upcoming academic year.

My suggestions are based on the following:

• There can be no effective communication plan without some application of big data and predictive analytics.
• There can be no effective communication plan without a side-by-side parent communication plan.
• There can be no effective communication plan without input from deans, student services personnel, and career service counselors.
• There can be no effective communication plan without real time analysis of each segment of the plan.

Big Data and Predictive Analytics

Most colleges and universities have a traditional communication plan, a funnel, which is more of a marketing tool, not a tool for understanding market behavior.

Data analytics has the ability to create evidence-based international communication strategies by providing college international admission deans and recruiters with speedy, actionable information. Predictive analytics has the ability to inform if and when a brand message is working. What was the application prompt? At what point in the application process did it occur? There is no need to guess or wait until the end of the recruitment year to find the answers to these questions. Big data can inform international recruiters and the communication staff of the needs and expectations of the applicant pool in each step of the choice process.

Parent Communication Plan

Few colleges and universities have a separate communication plan for parents from preapplication to postenrollment. The focus is on the applicant. I believe the entire family should be recruited (and re-recruited after acceptance.) For many applicants, their parents have the final say in where they enroll. Why not engage parents as one way of creating a meaningful differentiation from your competitors?

Communication from Deans, Student Services Staff, and Career Counselors

The admission staff works in a sales office. Once an application is received and an applicant has been accepted, their job is over. Heresy? I don’t think so. The team responsible for closing the deal, in my opinion, resides in the offices of the academic deans, progression and retention staff, student services staff, and career counselors. Frequent communication from these offices to both applicants and parents can have the effect of distinguishing your school from your competitors. More importantly, the information from these administrators can reinforce your brand and value proposition.

Analyze Each Part of the Communication Plan in Real Time

Strategic plans written now are only valuable if they are assessed frequently for effectiveness and, if necessary, for change. Real-time analysis allows for the realignment of staff and resources based on what your market is telling you now. But it is essential that the information be divided into chunks to make it actionable, not overwhelming.

Questions to Ask of Enrolled Students and Parents

1. What made you apply, and when did you make the decision to apply? What was the trigger point?
2. What made you accept the admission offer? What was the most important factor?
3. What made you enroll, and when did you make the final decision? What was the most important factor in your decision?

Questions to Ask Applicants and Students Who Did Not Apply and Enroll

1. Why and when did you decide not to apply?
2. What was the most important factor in your decision to enroll in another school?
3. Use the answers to these questions to create a data-driven communication plan.

Suggested Communication Plan

Because so much information about colleges and universities can be found online by prospective students, I am recommending a communication plan that focuses on outcomes, not features, and that begins with the end: successful admission, enrollment, progression, and graduation.

Pre-Application Stage

Applicants

• Send information about graduation statistics, job placement, and successful alumni.

Parents

• Send the same information as above.
• Send a letter from a current international parent.

Application Stage

Applicants

• Send information about student services for international students, organizations, clubs, and athletic opportunities.
• Send a letter from a current student.

Parents

• Send information about outreach services for international students, including counseling services and health services.
• Send a letter from an international alumni parent.

Accepted Applicants

Applicants

• Send a letter from faculty advisor.
• Provide a list of first-semester courses.

Parents

• Send a letter from the president, board chair, or academic dean.
• Send a four-year calendar.

Deposited Applicants

Applicants

• Send information about roommate selection, registration procedures, airport pick-up services, and orientation.
• Send information about academic convocation.
• Send information from a faculty advisor and student mentor.

Parents

• Send contact information for all appropriate offices.
• Send information about registration, tuition payment, and parent orientation.
• Send information about academic convocation.

Conclusion

Flexibility will be the currency for future international communication plans, allowing strategic international planners to implement the changes necessary to engage and manage expectations of future applicants and their families.

As the title suggests, Grawe explores how the changing demographics of the United States will impact demand for higher education in regard to the number of students going to college, the makeup of those students, and the types of institutions they’ll choose. (Note: I have not yet read Grawe’s book, but at the time of this writing, it’s currently being shipped, and I’m looking forward to reading it!)

The findings will make a lot of higher ed professionals nervous. And, for some, rightly so: The total number of traditional-aged students enrolling in college is expected to decline in the coming years with more dramatic declines occurring in the late 2020s.

As we know, however, these changes aren’t equal across all states or regions. Some areas will grow, others will decline. New England and parts of the Great Lakes will face the steepest declines in high school graduates, while parts of the South, Plains, and Rocky Mountain areas will grow. The map below from Grawe’s research shows the forecasted growth in high school graduates between 2012 and 2032 by state.

Of course, the research is fascinating (if a bit unnerving), but I’m more interested in how these demographic changes affect how higher education is delivered. In other words, if we know that changes are coming, how will higher education adapt in response?

The list below includes five things I believe will change as a result of shifting demographics in our country. Some of these come from Grawe and some from my own thoughts and experiences. This list is hardly comprehensive, but it reflects some of the ways in which higher ed marketing, enrollment management, and administration may change in response to an evolving “customer base.”

#1. Redefining first-generation college students

In the past, the definition of a first-generation student has been straightforward: People who would be the first in their families to attend college (i.e., neither parent has a college degree). The assumption is that first-generation students need more guidance to navigate college. Parents who went to college can help their kids understand what to expect, but first-generation students are figuring it out for themselves.

This will continue to be an important audience for colleges to serve in the future, but our understanding of a first-generation student may change. We’re in an age when, for the first time, a student’s parent may have a bachelor’s degree but never set foot on a college campus. Parents who earned a degree online can help their kids navigate the world of majors vs. minors and how to use a college’s online library, but they’ll be less helpful when it comes to figuring out residence hall issues, how to get involved in extracurriculars, and when to speak with an advisor. Colleges will need to consider how to serve this segment of students who are not technically first-generation but nevertheless need guidance on the college experience.

#2. Assessing (and promoting) academic strength

Grawe anticipates the college student population will continue to diversify. Latinx students will make up a greater share of the college-going population, as will students of minority races/ethnicities often categorized as “Other.”

Historically, non-white and non-Asian students have scored lower on standardized tests such as the SAT and ACT, which colleges frequently use not only as indicators of a student’s preparation for college, but also as promotional tools to demonstrate the academic strength of the incoming class. If the prospective student pool diversifies, will colleges continue to use these standardized tests in the same way? What other metrics may be better indicators of a student’s preparation? Will average scores decline and, if so, will colleges continue to use them as a marker of academic strength?

#3. Continued pressure on tenure

In the wake of the recession in the late 2000s, budgets were tightened, and colleges and universities sought to limit expenses by hiring adjunct professors as opposed to full-time faculty. Rather than a temporary fix, however, it appears this practice has become the new normal. Newly minted PhDs have a hard time finding full-time employment in academia and instead cobble together adjunct appointments at multiple schools, conduct post-doc research, or find work outside of the academy.

If declining numbers of high school graduates put a strain on enrollment, universities will struggle to sustain current business models. For a long time, tenure has been a standard practice at colleges and universities that seek to attract top talent. But if tenure is a fixed cost in an era of turbulent revenues, some colleges will be forced to re-evaluate tenure’s benefits vs. its costs.

#4. Increased focus on international enrollment

When the domestic pool becomes smaller, schools will look elsewhere to maintain enrollment. International students offer schools an opportunity to supplement enrollment when domestic students are not enough. However, it’s not as easy as merely opening the doors to more students. We know that recruiting international students requires a lot of time and money to be done well—an investment that some schools have not been willing to make (yet).

Additionally, it’s impossible to say how American protectionism may discourage international students from coming to the United States in the future (or whether that will change after 2020). However, it remains true that international students view U.S. colleges and universities as an outstanding option for international study. Therefore, it’s safe to expect an increase in international students in the future.

#5. Increased focus on retention

When it becomes more challenging to recruit new students, schools will strengthen their efforts to keep the students they already have. In other words, I expect we’ll see a greater focus on retention efforts so colleges sustain overall enrollment even while new student recruitment may decline.

One final thought on how changing demographics will bring about new priorities and processes: As mentioned above, New England is expected to face the steepest declines in new high school graduates. This will create a competitive environment in which enrollment growth depends on brand strength, recruiting in other parts of the country, and/or innovating to deliver a college education in new and better ways. Innovation may come in the form of new academic programs or new methods of delivery. Grawe predicts New England colleges that grow in the coming decades will provide illustrative examples of how to deliver postsecondary education in a changing environment. They will serve as case studies for other institutions around the country seeking to find success in a shifting landscape.

Again, I present this as a list of thoughts and reflections—not as a definitive set of “will-be’s,” but rather as a short list of “could-be’s.” The history of higher education shows that schools have been responsive to changes in the student population. For example, consider the growth of professional programs that resulted from the end of World War II and the signing of the GI Bill. We can expect that higher education will continue to evolve as the student population changes. It’s only natural that a business responds to the needs of its customers since doing so ensures its survival. The same can be expected of our nation’s colleges and universities.

Hamilton took the world by storm when it premiered in 2015, won 11 Tony Awards in 2016, and began a national tour last year. A hip-hop musical about a founding father was hardly the recipe for a runaway hit, but the fascinating story, extraordinary music, and incredible performances made it a success.

Part of the musical’s mission is to shine a light on a relatively obscure historical figure. Sure, we recognize Hamilton from the ten-dollar bill – and the musical undoubtedly played a role in keeping him on there – but there weren’t too many people who knew much about Alexander Hamilton, the man. Hamilton changed that by telling the founding father’s story and drawing attention to the things he accomplished in spite of his humble beginning.

What’s more, the show spurred people to learn more about him. Consider, for instance, Google search data for “Alexander Hamilton” between 2004 and 2018:

Suffice it to say that Hamilton would be proud to see his relevance in American culture today—more than 200 years after his death.

And so it occurred to me recently after chatting with a graduate of Hamilton College that the popularity of this musical and the interest in Alexander Hamilton also may extend benefits to the institution bearing his name.

Hamilton, the first secretary of the treasury, became a trustee of a seminary in upstate New York and consented to giving it his name. The Hamilton-Oneida Academy eventually became Hamilton College in 1812 and has become one of the highest-quality liberal arts colleges in the country (of this, too, Hamilton would be proud!).

In recent years, Hamilton College has wisely capitalized on the popularity of the musical. The College has purchased blocks of tickets to the show for fundraising events. Hamilton College’s former president, Joan Hinde Stewart, was known to rap some of the lyrics during speeches. And even before the show premiered, Lin-Manuel Miranda visited campus to celebrate the school’s 200^th anniversary and performed the show’s opening number. Students have reported a special feeling of pride in the musical knowing they are part of an institution that carries on the legacy of one of America’s (now) most popular founding fathers.

But does the connection between Hamilton (the college), Hamilton (the man), and Hamilton (the musical) affect students’ interest in the school? The data would suggest it does!

I compiled application data for Hamilton College between 2006 and 2018 using a combination of IPEDS data and figures reported on the College’s website for 2017 and 2018 class profiles. Based on the show’s premier in 2015 and its booming popularity in 2016, the earliest we would realistically expect to see a change in applications would be 2017.

Based on that, I applied a linear trend to see how many applications we would have expected in 2017 and 2018 if trends from the previous ten years (2006-2016) had continued. The trend indicates that Hamilton should have received 5,413 applications in 2017 and 5,482 in 2018. In reality, however, Hamilton received 5,678 applications in 2017 and 6,240 in 2018—1,000+ more applications than would have been expected!

Now, we are, of course, careful not to confuse correlation with causation. And Hamilton College, being the outstanding institution that it is, has likely done a lot on its own to increase application volume in recent years. Nevertheless, the data tell a story all their own and indicate that Hamilton has played a role in driving applications to the College.

So what’s the takeaway? Is it that in order to increase applications it’s necessary to have a once-in-a-generation talent write a groundbreaking hip-hop musical with the same title as your institution? Certainly not (although it would be interesting to hear rhymes for Quinnipiac, Valparaiso, or Oberlin).

Rather, I see two lessons here.

The first is that when an opportunity comes along, seize it. Hamilton College was smart to embrace the musical and reinforce the connection between the founding father and the institution.

Second, your brand is partly built on who and what you align yourself with (or don’t align with). I hardly believe that Hamilton College would have gone out of its way to promote Hamilton if it had remained, as Miranda originally conceived of it, merely a rap album. But instead, the album became a musical—a musical inspired by an 800-page historical biography, a musical that starred a diverse cast, a musical that made people reflect on their own lives, and ultimately a musical that gripped the nation with its innovation and compelling storytelling. Those are brand elements that most colleges would be happy to associate with. Hamilton College was lucky enough to have the opportunity and smart enough to seize it. That choice, the data suggest, is paying off.

We’re here to help debunk some persistent myths around the adult student market so you may compete in this market confidently and better serve adult students.

1. Myth: There is plenty of room in the adult student market.
   • • Reality: In fact, the adult market is overcrowded. There are too many colleges trying to serve a relatively flat, and even declining, number of adult students. This is especially true in the online space.
2. Myth: The adult student market is high-margin.
   • • Reality: Most adult programs have razor-thin margins and these margins continue to narrow. A glut of offerings has driven prices down even as the costs to offer adult programs increases.
3. Myth: It is relatively easy to market to adult students.
   • • Reality: Because there is no comprehensive “list” of prospective adult students, most colleges must create their own prospect pools using a wide-ranging marketing strategy that includes digital advertising, special events, re-targeting campaigns, and other forms of demand generation. This upfront and ongoing investment in marketing to adult students must not be overlooked.
4. Myth: Adult students are attracted to high quality programs.
   • • Reality: While quality is always valued, convenience and cost are often of equal or greater concern. This is especially true for adult students who are seeking a commodity buy rather than a brand buy. Solid rule of thumb: The best price for your programs will likely be at the top of the bottom third of all your competitors.
5. Myth: Because we are a private, we can charge more for our online programs.
   • • Reality:The idea that private colleges are often of higher quality than public colleges is largely untrue. Many two- and four-year publics offer an outstanding educational experience. Private institutions that insist on pricing their programs above those of their public school competitors because they believe their programs are of higher quality will meet significant marketplace resistance.
6. Myth: We don’t need to worry so much about cost because we know that in an improved economy employers are reimbursing students.
   • • Reality: While the economy has improved over the past five years and companies are again offering tuition reimbursement, there are a couple of caveats. First, tuition reimbursement tends to focus on graduate degrees and less on degree completion. Second, tech companies are more likely to reimburse for tuition than service companies. Finally, tuition reimbursement tends to be a benefit for full-time rather than part-time employees. Your best bet is to do an analysis for your marketplace to determine what employers are reimbursing for what types of programs. Don’t assume. Check it out.
7. Myth: Adult students persist.
   • • Reality: Not only are adults less likely to persist than traditional-age students, those that do persist often do so on their own They are more likely to stop in and stop out as the vagaries of life intervene with college attendance.
8. Myth: Adult students learn the same way as traditional-age students.
   • • Reality: Adult students are more mature, they have more life experience, and they tend to be more practical with clear expectations on outcomes. The result is that they want an educational experience that is seasoned with real-life application. This means lectures and presentations, and discussions and assignments that they see are of clear value in helping them meet their goals.
9. Myth: It’s all about the educational experience.
   • • Reality: While the educational experience is pivotal, today’s adult students are increasingly interested in certain types of extra- and co-curricular offerings. They are involved in internships and co-ops. They are networking. They are meeting with career planners. They are seeking and creating opportunities to share both life and work experience.
10. Myth: Recruiting adult students will save your college.
    • • Reality: Some colleges and universities have enjoyed significant economic successes in the adult market. However, these colleges tend to fall into one of two categories. Either they were early entrants to this market, or they were willing to make a very significant investment to enter the market.

Summary Statement

Colleges and universities that hope to do well in the adult market space must recognize a couple of realities.

• The adult market is highly competitive and will demand a significant investment for entry. This investment will involve both hiring highly skilled marketers, and giving those marketers the dollars and resources they need to succeed.
• Institutions must build their adult student initiative around a carefully designed set of high demand, high margin programs that lead to high(er) paying jobs.
• Institutions must offer their programs at a price point lower than their competitors. In addition, they must be willing to offer gift aid to this student segment.

Here’s a look at the four-step process:

• Determine what kind(s) of students you want.
• Find out where they live.
• Build a brand around high-value programs.
• Recruit.

Let’s unpack this.

What kind(s) of students do you want?

To gain insight into these students, develop three profiles of persisting students:

• Demographic profile
• Psychographic profile
• College-choice profile

Because you are looking for students who will persist, and not merely enroll, you will turn to your own pool of persisting students to create these profiles.

The demographic profile examines identifiers, including age, gender, household and disposable income, employment status, and other “hard” data. These insights are obtained through institutional data mining.

The psychographic profile is a bit trickier to develop because it looks at values, attitudes, and lifestyle characteristics and explores such things as motivations for returning (going) to college, fears and reservations about returning to college, outcomes expectations, and other variables.

The college-choice profile includes variables like:

• How students prioritize and weigh different college attributes in the choice process
• Academic programs/majors of interest
• Media (including social media) habits and channel preferences
• Influencers
• Inquiry source codes that identify where the student/lead originated

Defining an accurate—and institution-specific—psychographic profile and a full understanding of the college-choice process typically requires a survey of your persisting students.

Where do they live?

Determining where they live is a bit more complex for adult students than for traditional students because the “where” may be both geographic (states, zip codes, street addresses) and virtual (the websites they use to help them navigate the college-choice process). Of course, if many of your students are online, the “where” can become more distributed.

Fortunately, because you are building your recruiting model on students who will persist, you can use that same pool of existing students to gather these insights.

Of course, you might also be interested in attracting online or hybrid students. Again, your primary source of data for further understanding these students will be a survey of students who already succeed in those programs. Using basic market research methodologies, you can understand their motivations, the websites they peruse, and the college-choice variables they value most. You can also use this research to refine your search engine marketing (SEM)/search engine optimization (SEO)/Social Media Marketing (SMM) and pay-per-click (PPC) strategies.

Build a brand around high value programs

In most cases, we suggest building an institutional brand before building a brand around specific academic programs. However, because adults are so program-oriented, the third step focuses on building a brand around those academic programs that:

• Are clearly in demand
• Offer substantial quality
• Are undersubscribed by prospective students (i.e., you have capacity)
• Are high margin
• Lead to high(er) paying jobs
• Do not have a significant competitor

These criteria will help you evaluate existing programs and enable you to identify those programs with the highest viability. Building a reputation, through ongoing and consistent marketing efforts, around select high-value programs will positively impact your adult student recruiting efforts.

Recruit

Too often, aggressive recruiting (which means heavy resource investment) is needed because the degree programs being offered are not competitive. They are too similar to programs offered by other schools, more expensive, or offer unclear job prospects.

Because the recruiting strategy will be built around high-value, high-demand programs, the actual recruiting efforts should be relatively straightforward. In many cases, your goal will be more about creating awareness of your programs than persuading prospective students to attend.

When it comes to recruitment tactics, we know that adult students respond to a multichannel communication channel that includes traditional, digital, and social media efforts. You’ve done the hard work already by identifying and understanding your prospective adult students’ needs, expectations, and media habits. (And don’t forget to recognize their fears and motivations outlined in our May blog.) It then becomes a matter of working a segmented plan that moves them from prospect to inquiry to applicant to enrolled student.

Let’s explore a handful of top-level survey findings:

For institutions of all sizes, affordability, and competition remain primary challenges.

Sixty-six percent of respondents cited tuition and fee affordability as the major internal challenges facing their college or university. These concerns echo the ongoing national conversation about the cost of the higher education, its affect on the health of both public and private institutions, and the long-term economic impact of student debt.

From an external perspective, nearly 70% of survey respondents ranked competition for prospective students as their institutions’ dominant challenge—reflecting a tightening market, an expanding base of constituents, and the need for more strategic marketing and recruitment plans.

Only a slight majority of schools feel they have the data necessary to make strategic decisions.

Regardless of field, research-driven decision-making has never been more important for maximizing marketing budgets and fueling long-term success. Still, only 51.6% of respondents report having access to current and relevant data. These results suggest that a significant portion of higher education professionals are operating without solid data, aren’t confident about the information they have, or are unaware of the contemporary research tools available.

Branding initiatives are often a casualty of institutional politics.

If political fallout were not a consideration, a majority of respondents (more than 44%) would invest more dollars in branding. This finding surprised us because it reflects a dual insight: First, it confirms an awareness of the importance of branding across all institutional levels—particularly in today’s hyper-competitive higher education market. Second, it shows a profound understanding of the internal roadblocks (perhaps informed by firsthand experience) brand-building and brand engagement initiatives typically face.

No doubt the concerns we’ve touched on directly or indirectly affect every college and university professional. As each of us tries to make the most of a rapidly changing higher education marketplace, we’ll be challenged to work smarter, campaign harder for the initiatives we believe in, and find new ways to influence student success.

Not surprisingly, these sources include a blend of:

• Digital and non-digital information
• Channels controlled by the school and channels independent from the school

University Website

The most powerful owned media, not surprisingly, is an institution’s website. Recognizing its importance, here are a handful of best practices:

• Consider creating an area in your website for adult students. This will allow you to develop content that is of immediate interest (think personalized content) to this audience. It will also communicate the importance you place on adult students at your institution.
• Make sure your navigation, and navigational aids are intuitive, jargon-free, and current.
• Commit resources to a comprehensive, sustainable demand generation strategy and use research to measure effectiveness.
• Use SEO, and SEM to heighten the presence and “searchability” of your site on the Internet.
• Use your analytic tools (Google Analytics being the primary one for tracking web traffic) to determine where prospective students land on your site, how long they stay, and where they go next. Make sure these pages are continually refined and updated.
• If your adult students struggle with using the internet or the college-choice process make sure the “contact information” or a similar call to action button is readily available; alternatively consider adding an online chat application.

Other Web Pages

Focus on your inbound marketing channels to drive traffic to your website. Some best practices include:

• Use paid search advertising strategies to drive students to your site when students are conducting a general search.
• Make sure information and all contact information about your college on earned media sites is current.
• Highlight specific program information rather than more general “this is us” kind of content.
• Continually evaluate the efficacy of leads generated by paid campaigns (owned media) and adjust your keywords and landing pages accordingly. Eventually you want a specific cost-per-lead and a cost-per-enrolled student. This is especially important when considering your future digital marketing budget.

Family/Friends

This channel is both influential and problematic. It is influential because second-party endorsements are much more believable than information disseminated by the university. At the same time, they are problematic because you have little control.

Some best practices:

• Make sure you are providing the student experience you promised.
• Continually monitor chat rooms and other social media and web gathering places (Rate My Professor) to see what students and others are saying. Carefully address clearly errant information.
• Develop consistent, forward-leaning communication to alumni, parents, and other influencers.

Program Brochures

The fourth channel is program brochures. Both online and in print, these communication tools should focus on specific academic (usually) and co-curricular (sometimes) programs.

Some best practices:

• Keep information current. This is especially true of high-demand programs.
• Include the following must haves:
  • Sample schedules for various programs, including part-time and full-time options
  • Average/typical time to degree (and associated caveats)
  • Easily discernible tuition/costs
  • Brief/relevant biographic information for each major professor
  • List of any prerequisites
  • Types of jobs this major qualifies students for
  • Job placement data
  • Program specific support services and other resources
• Focus on what students want to hear and less on what you want to say.
• Balance the verbal and visual vocabulary, utilizing bullets and underlining to highlight key information.
• Compare your program brochures with those used by your competitors

This handful of best practices should help you focus on the channels adult students turn to most. Keep in mind, however, that it is always best to use specific research and your own data points to refine your communication efforts with adult students.

What schools often forget, however, are the very fears that many adult students often have about going to or returning to college. And until these fears are addressed, there is little likelihood that entreaties to them to enroll will be effective.

A recent Stamats study of adult students revealed the top four concerns:

1. Cost
2. Juggling time issues
3. Securing resources to pay for college
4. Childcare neatly summarize the big challenges adults face: Issues related to cost and issues related to family

Research and practice indicate that helping a prospective adult student deal with any three of these four issues will dramatically increase the likelihood they will enroll.

As they seek to overcome these issues, adult students are interested in two things.

First, the resources a particular school has to help them address their concerns (i.e., financial aid, child care, etc.). At this point, students are seeking factual information. They want to see how you have dealt with these issues in the past.

In addition to information from the school, students are keenly interested in how students like them addressed and overcame these same issues.

Example of Covering Need

For example, testimonials from other students on how the college or university helped them deal with cost or child care are highly persuasive. The key, of course, is that they see/hear students who are actually like them; students with whom they can readily identify.

Ideally, you want to capture the actual words of the students who dealt with these issues. This will be much more believable than an overly sanitized, highly scrubbed video or written testimony.

While you may cringe at some of the words and phrases used by these current or recently graduated adult students, the unedited information will be much more believable. In addition, it speaks to the overall confidence you have in both your students and the support services you provide.

Best Practices

From a best-practices perspective, it is best to have a number of testimonials on hand so you can “match up” with adult student segments. Another best practice (and this one is even scarier to admissions professionals), is allowing prospective students to call or email current or recently graduated students.

The majority of the other concerns: transfer, academic preparation, transportation, dealing with administrative issues, and the feeling that they might be technologically challenged are of clear concern, but they tend to fade into the background once the bigger worries are addressed.

Keeping the concerns of adult students in mind as you develop and refine your communication strategy will go a long way toward recruiting success.