AI is the latest buzzword in higher ed, but without a clear strategy and solid data, institutions risk overinvesting in additional products, platforms, and applications they can’t fully support or operationalize. Instead, take a step back and ask, “What’s the impact I want to achieve, and how can AI fit or support my broader goals?”

In this webinar, AI Jumpstart Kit: How to Build Toward IMPACT with AI in Higher Ed, Collegis Education’s AVP of Analytics & Technology Solutions, Dan Antonson, and Senior Director of Strategy and Innovation, Wes Catlett-Miller, will guide attendees through an interactive discussion about how to approach key use cases with AI in higher education. We’ll whiteboard out what an AI-enabled institution can look like, how it all works, and live demo actual AI initiatives Collegis has deployed for its partners.

No clunky PowerPoint slides. Just a clear path for approaching AI enablement.

What you’ll walk away with:

• A thorough understanding of how AI fits into the broader ecosystem (add-ons vs. platform)
• A model for making decisions on when to build and when to buy
• A clear understanding of the role tech and data play in AI enablement

Who should attend:

• Presidents + Provosts
• CFOs + COOs + CMOs
• Enrollment + Marketing leaders

Part two of a three-part series. Originally published October 28, 2022, it’s been updated to reflect changes in the OPM market.

• OPM (online program management) companies: Offer turnkey services to help institutions bring programs online in return for a sizeable share of the tuition over a set, long-term period of time. Solutions are typically one-size-fits-all and providers typically own program web pages, inquiry forms, and data.

• OPE (online program enablement) companies: Offer bundled, fixed-fee services to bolster a school’s online program and provide long-term support. Solutions are customized to the school’s specific goals, challenges, and mission, and providers work with schools to optimize their websites and processes.
• Unbundled service providers: Offer separate, fixed-fee point solutions to augment a school’s internal online program efforts and maximize their impact quickly. Solutions reflect a school’s immediate capacity gaps, and partnerships are often short-term and flexible enough to adapt as an institution’s in-house capabilities grow.

schools to invest in the upfront costs of managing online offerings, because there is no on-going revenue-sharing required with an outside company in exchange for investment, the institution is able to enjoy the following benefits:

• Stability. Major OPM providers have shown instability with acquisitions and bankruptcies stemming from unstainable rev-share business models. Fixed-fee providers have become more reliable, strategic choices for many schools.
• 100% Transparency. Tools, best practices, intelligence, and insights are shared with the school. With a non-OPM partner, there should be open, strategic conversations around what it takes to successfully implement marketing, admissions, and enrollment strategies.
• Full-funnel data enablement. Data from across the entire student journey is collected, connected, and activated, and the insights are used to optimize investment, increase reach, and improve conversions.
• Improved infrastructure. The performance of a school’s website, systems, and student experience are objectively assessed. Schools retain ownership and get recommendations and expertise to improve them.
• “Whole university” impact. If you’re working with a full-service provider, the health of the entire institution is taken into consideration, not just one particular program, ensuring the work positively impacts the school as a whole.
• Full control over decision making and strategies. Institutions have control over their investments, as well as branding and messaging, with no reliance on the “black box” paid media tactics OPMs typically use to drive leads.

Online learning options are essential to sustainable success. The right fixed-fee partnership is compatible with a schools’ long-term goals and short-term needs, allowing institutions to add online programs and grow in-house capabilities while retaining control and meeting the demands of today’s students.

Collegis Education can help schools successfully own the future of their online courses and programs.  This article is part of a series about OPMs and OPM alternatives. Read part one, “The Hidden Secrets of an Online Program Management Company,”.

Tuition reimbursement and partner discount programs provide Collegis’s employees with more options to advance their education, grow as professionals

OAK BROOK, IL (July 1, 2024) — Every year, millions of adults aged 25 and over choose to enroll in college either to complete a degree they previously started or pursue advanced learning to further their careers. To help employees who wish to pursue higher education, Collegis Education announced an updated tuition reimbursement program and new partner tuition benefits.

At Collegis Education, we recognize that our talented, experienced team is the key to providing higher education partners with the counsel and tools they need to succeed in today’s environment. These newly updated tuition reimbursement and partner tuition discounts are a part of our broader employee training and development program, offering competency-based, on-demand learning and targeted internal training sessions aligned to organizational objectives. This well-rounded program provides employees with additional opportunities to expand their knowledge and grow as professionals to support both their work with partners and their overall career goals.

“Collegis strives to offer its employees a work environment where they can thrive and grow. We offer hybrid work schedules, competitive salaries, comprehensive benefits, and now, more choices for our employees pursuing higher education,” said Katie Ingvalson, Collegis Vice President, Human Capital. “We know that our employees are fundamental to our success.”

Collegis offers eligible employees annual funds through the tuition reimbursement program to pursue a degree program of their choosing. Employees are welcome to pursue any approved program, whether it aligns to their existing role at Collegis or takes them down a new career path.

Through the partner discounts program, employees are offered tuition discounts by Collegis partner institutions, including Arizona State University (ASU), University of North Alabama (UNA), and Saint Louis University (SLU). For the biggest savings, employees can take advantage of both the tuition reimbursement program and tuition discounts by choosing a degree program from one of these partner institutions.

About Collegis Education

Collegis Education is higher ed’s innovation enabler, empowering schools with a better vision of how they fit into learners’ lives and what’s possible when they do. With more than 10 years’ experience as industry pioneers, we’ve proven how leveraging data, tech and talent can transform everything from student experiences to business processes. As higher ed evolves, you’ll need a thought partner and tactical pro, not a pre-packaged product or platform. Our strategic services allow institutions to leapfrog from wondering to doing, implement long-term growth plans and build in-house capabilities to thrive in a complex market. Learn more at CollegisEducation.com.

Career-focused adults represent a promising market for higher ed institutions faced with declining enrollment from traditional students. Yet, enrolling in an academic program can be a daunting task for adult learners who are often juggling multiple responsibilities and navigating complex life circumstances.

To ensure adult learners include your institution in their consideration set, it’s crucial to streamline enrollment processes and remove barriers. It’s equally important to recognize the barriers adult learners face may be different from those of traditional students.

In this blog post, we’ll explore some best practices for simplifying enrollment procedures and making them more user-friendly for adult learners.

Adult learners need clear and easily accessible information about admission requirements, program offerings, tuition costs, financial aid options, and deadlines. They are less likely to consider institutions with difficult-to-find or vague information. They prefer institutions that provide relevant information upfront to help them make informed decisions about their academic pursuits. Institutions can give themselves an advantage with adult learners by optimizing their site for navigability and user experience.

Institutions often charge a nominal application fee, thinking that it demonstrates the applicant is serious about wanting to attend the institution. But paying the fee can be a cumbersome process, requiring the use of systems unfamiliar to adult learners and presenting just one more barrier in the enrollment journey.

Many schools are rethinking the value of standardized test requirements for adult learners, such as the SAT, ACT, GRE, and GMAT. Their rationale is that standardized tests don’t accurately measure student learning and performance-based assessment is more equitable, accurate, and engaging.

Alternatively, if requiring standardized test scores, offer preparatory resources or remedial coursework to support adult learners in meeting academic readiness standards.

Adult learners often have attended multiple institutions, sometimes many years ago. Requesting transcripts from multiple institutions can be a significant barrier to enrollment.

For applicants to master’s programs, consider limiting transcript requirement to the institution conferring the bachelor’s degree. For bachelor’s students, consider offering to retrieve transcripts on behalf of the student.

Rolling admissions or multiple enrollment periods throughout the year can accommodate the varying schedules and timelines of adult learners. Avoid requiring newly admitted learners to wait months to start their program of study. Avoid rigid deadlines for admission materials, recognizing that adults have many competing priorities and often miss deadlines due to other important commitments.

Acknowledge the value of life experiences for adult learners by implementing a robust and transparent system for evaluating and granting credit for prior learning, including work experience, military service, and non-credit coursework. Recognizing and valuing the knowledge and skills that adult learners bring to the table can accelerate their progress toward degree completion while reducing duplication of effort.

Simplify the process for evaluating and transferring credits from prior college coursework or other accredited institutions. Provide clear guidelines and resources for submitting transcripts and ensure timely evaluation and recognition of transferable credits.

This helps adult learners avoid unnecessary repetition of coursework and expedites their academic progress. Consider accepting the most recent transcript to conduct an unofficial transfer credit evaluation.

Application requirements should only include information used to make admission decisions. Applicants are often required to submit reference letters, resumes, or personal statements. However, using these materials for evaluating admittance is often inconsistent and not driven by objective criteria, opening the possibility of bias in the decisioning process.

Additionally, analyzing how often these items lead to declining an applicant may uncover opportunities for process improvement. Often, institutions find a very small percentage of applicants are denied admission based on these admission materials.

Offer personalized guidance and ready access to support throughout the adult learner enrollment process. Assign dedicated enrollment advisors or counselors who can assist them with navigating the application process, interpreting program requirements, calculating total program costs, and understanding how the program specifically supports them.

Having a point of contact who can address their questions and concerns in a timely manner can significantly reduce anxiety and confusion and help prospective students move through the enrollment process.

Ensure that online enrollment systems and platforms are intuitive, accessible, and user-friendly. Conduct testing with adult learners to identify and address any usability issues or barriers to navigation.

Provide clear instructions and guidance for using the online application portal, and offer timely, first-resolution-focused technical support outside of normal business hours for those who encounter difficulties.

Provide comprehensive support and guidance for navigating the financial aid process, including assistance with completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and applying for scholarships or grants. Offer workshops, webinars, or one-on-one sessions to help adult learners understand their options and maximize available funding opportunities.

Actively seek feedback from adult learners about their higher education enrollment experiences and use that input to improve and streamline the process. Conduct regular evaluations of enrollment procedures and make adjustments as needed to better meet the needs of adult learners.

Breaking down barriers to enrollment benefits individual adult learners and contributes to the academic community’s diversity and vibrancy.

By implementing these best practices, higher education institutions can create a more inclusive and welcoming environment for adult learners, increasing enrollment rates and expanding access to educational opportunities for this important demographic.

With the volume of programs outpacing demand from prospective students, schools that want to stay competitive will have to rethink their marketing strategies to grow enrollment. Let’s explore five key components to optimizing your digital marketing for higher education.

1. Prioritize data-driven strategies

Leverage your data to understand how prospective students engage with your school’s online presence. Connecting website, social media, email marketing, and other data can help your marketing team identify trends, optimize marketing channels, and strategically allocate resources.

Read more: Data-Driven Strategies to Increase Enrollment

2. Content marketing: Building authority and SEO

Content marketing is the heart of a long-term, organic online presence optimization as it builds authority and boosts search engine optimization (SEO). Utilize SEO best practices to guide your content, then embrace analytics to understand audience engagement and finetune your strategy.

Read more: Capturing Interest: Content Marketing for Higher Education

3. Leverage paid media

Paid media still has an important place at the table for a healthy higher education marketing strategy. Balance content marketing with paid media — which is particularly useful for targeting and nurturing specific audiences — to get the most out of the digital landscape.

Read more: Rethinking Paid Media’s Role in the Marketing Mix

4. Use AI to boost efficiency

Artificial intelligence (AI), such as chat bots, can create a more efficient student experience. Our work suggests that students who use chat bots have a conversion rate over 2x higher than those who do not. AI can be used for predictive analytics and personalized marketing strategies, with new developments emerging regularly.

Read more: Impact of Artificial Intelligence in Higher Education

5. Align marketing and admissions teams

For any strategy to be as successful, marketing and admissions teams need to work together. Break down the silos to create a collaborative culture, sharing data and engagement insights to best serve students and grow enrollments.

Read more: Marketing and Admissions: Better Together

Enrollment growth starts now

Embracing a holistic approach to a higher education marketing strategy is key to rising above the crowded market and reaching students. This takes time, expertise, and an understanding of which marketing technology tools are worth investing in. Collegis is the expert in leveraging data and technology to create comprehensive marketing strategies that grow enrollment. Need help? The innovation enablers at Collegis are ready to get to work on your strategy.

Employers want to partner with external providers to upskill and reskill their employees — presenting an opportunity for higher ed institutions to grow revenue by creating programs for employers. Our recent research with UPCEA found that from 2022 to 2023, companies partnering with external organizations to provide employee training/professional development increased 26%.

Higher ed is quickly losing these opportunities to private providers like Coursera and LinkedIn Learning. While partnerships with professional organizations and private providers rose year over year, partnerships with higher ed institutions fell. Schools need to aggressively align programs and processes with market demand and employer partnerships, or the market will go elsewhere.

The best way to take advantage of these opportunities is to play to your school’s strengths, prioritize program growth, and avoid overextending your resources. Consider using existing courses in high-demand areas to create online certificates and pathways to stack certificates into degree programs.

Here’s a list of graduate certificate programs with the best growth potential (according to national conferral volume and growth). Are there any programs your school could develop to take advantage of this growing need?

After determining the most in-demand certificates for your school, partnering with employers to design the curriculum and develop enrollment pathways can help scale enrollments. Collegis can help you analyze your regional competition and the skills demanded most by local employers to develop the right programs for your market, support employer partnerships, and develop custom strategies for growth and differentiation.

Understanding Employer Perceptions: The Collegis-UPCEA 2024 report

CHICAGO, Ill. (February 4, 2014)—Collegis Education today announced the appointment of Kimberly Fahey as its new chief information officer. Fahey, who joins the company effective immediately, will oversee all technology and information systems at Collegis Education, a technology-based education services company that prides itself in helping schools navigate the changing landscape of education through integrated technology.

“We are very excited and fortunate to have Kimberly join the Collegis Education team,” said Michael Locke, Collegis Education president and chief executive officer. “Kimberly brings nearly 20 years of industry experience working at premier companies such as RR Donnelley & Sons, Nexus Consulting Group and James Martin & Co. She is a very effective leader and has specific expertise and knowledge around the software and services Collegis Education uses to help educational institutions around the country improve student outcomes, attract and retain new students, as well as manage operating expenses. We know she will help us empower other colleges and universities to increase efficiencies in their technology infrastructure, and we look forward to her sharing her experience with us.”

Prior to joining Collegis Education, Fahey served as vice president of IT at RR Donnelley & Sons, a global provider of integrated communications. In this position, she oversaw more than 80 employees and 90 on-shore/off-shore consultants working in project management, architecture, quality assistance, master data management and customer relationship management (CRM). Fahey also worked at Project Leadership Associates (PLA), formerly Nexus Consulting Group as director of the company’s Business Intelligence practice.

Fahey earned a Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Distribution Management from University of Illinois. She is a Dale Carnegie Leadership Course graduate and was one of only thirty-two (32) executives chosen for RR Donnelley’s comprehensive Executive Mentoring Program.

To learn more about Collegis Education, visit www.CollegisEducation.com or follow Collegis Education on Twitter: @CollegisEdu.

About Collegis Education

Collegis Education is an enrollment growth management and technology services company that offers industry-leading solutions for colleges and universities of every size in every sector. Using a proactive and analytical approach, Collegis Education empowers education institutions to make a broader impact by providing insights that help grow enrollments, improve student outcomes and optimize expenses. With several decades of experience working within the higher education industry, the team at Collegis Education was founded within the walls of a college and expanded to help change more lives through education. Currently, the infrastructures established by Collegis Education support more than 30,000 students nationwide. For more information about Collegis Education, please visit www.CollegisEducation.com.

Over 130 years ago, Illinois Institute of Technology was founded with a focus on providing affordable technological education to students from all walks of life. Since then, many institutions have talked about the importance of accessible and affordable education, but few have been willing to rethink business models, operational processes and historic approaches to break the iron triangle of quality, cost and access.

With that commitment in mind, Illinois Tech has collaborated with Coursera to embed industry-recognized credentials into degree programs and begin delivering contemporary, relevant and affordable online education with clear pathways for achieving career goals. As a proud Illinois Tech partner, Collegis is playing a role by facilitating more inclusive pathways to admission that allow students to demonstrate readiness through experience and prior education.

This innovative partnership ecosystem has positioned Illinois Tech to rethink solutions to the iron triangle. With new ways to deliver exceptional learning experiences, the university is offering affordable and accessible programs — without sacrificing educational quality or straying from its core values.

Read Inside Higher Ed’s recent interview with Illinois Tech leaders to learn more about their innovative new online programs.

Explore additional resources on microcredentials and employer partnerships

Collegis Education has appointed Kenneth (Ken) L. Ender, Ph.D., to its board of directors and chair of its executive committee. With a career dedicated to higher education, Ender brings decades of knowledge and experience from the community college and university sectors. He currently serves as Professor of Practice in the Belk Center for Community College Leadership and Research at North Carolina State University and President Emeritus of William Rainey Harper College in Illinois. Prior to that he served as New Jersey’s Cumberland County College President.

Under Ender’s leadership, Harper College increased graduation, transfer, and certificate completion rates, so we sat down with him to get his expert take on key strategies for college leaders in today’s changing landscape.

I’m driven by the belief that universal post-secondary education is essential for all Americans if we wish to assure economic and social mobility for all. Higher education is in the midst of a great disruption or “upheaval” to borrow from the work of Levin and Van Pelt. Ultimately, it’s our job to ensure everyone has the experience of living the American Dream. Our job, through higher education, is to provide multiple pathways to that dream.

My work there is to provide North Carolina community college presidents with strategic planning tools and support their leadership initiatives. I support two doctoral classes in the community college leadership program and co-chair several dissertation and advisory committees. Today’s leaders need a strong set of management skills, including being able to adopt and scale technology enhancements, bring innovations to their campuses and their partners, and rapidly respond to challenges and trends despite scarce funding.

Our community colleges have built their reputations on access for all students. Now they must double down on providing pathways for student completion, transfer, and successful job attainment. The student bodies on their campuses are increasingly populated by first-generation, adult, and marginalized students. And these students are also becoming more the norm for private and regional colleges and universities. These are the students we need to design and tailor our programs and services for.

Collegis Education surveyed 1,000 adult learners interested in pursuing degrees, and their responses revealed four distinct personas. Get the infographic: The Adult Learners You’re Ignoring

Larger community colleges typically have the resources and can anticipate and plan for future challenges. If needed, they can align their resources accordingly to partner with third-party experts to help solve the challenges they face. But it’s a question of affordability.

State systems where community colleges share centralized support services and standardized service delivery are one way that smaller colleges can take advantage of outside expertise in areas of enrollment management and growth, technology management, and data enablement. It’s becoming more common for these systems to turn to service providers for technical support and managed services. Midsized and small institutions with autonomous boards have a greater degree of difficulty affording and leveraging those external resources.

Yes, but they must be of sufficient size to be able to do that. The challenge is scalability. The locus of authority to make those decisions is different for each college. If it’s at the state level, then the focus is on the system to make the decision and perhaps benefit from centralized support. If it’s at the institution level, then presidents and boards can make those decisions by determining if they can scale for a sufficient return. In some cases, this scale may only be developed through consortium arrangements with other likeminded institutions and service providers.

Most don’t have sufficient resources to do much more with data than compliance. Data enablement would be a tremendous boon to mid-level and small community colleges if someone can help them put their data together to tell a story — like Collegis can — so they can get buy-in to make the changes most needed. Most community colleges are not getting their data in a form that they can use. I saw this through my own experience leading a small, rural community college and then through the lens of a well-resourced, large, suburban community college.

We are excited to have Ender on the Collegis board and look forward to how his expertise will help drive Collegis and our partners even farther. Sign up for the Collegis newsletter to keep up to date on the latest developments!

The buzz around artificial intelligence (AI) is loud and growing—and for good reason. Maybe you’ve already used an AI tool to transcribe a video call or pore through reams of research to find just the right citation in seconds. If so, you already know how these new AI capabilities can easily accomplish tasks that were just too labor intensive or not technically feasible until now.

One of the most promising opportunities of AI—and a big one that colleges and universities should be laser-focused on—is the ability to create new streams of data and intelligence.

One of the most promising opportunities of AI—and a big one that colleges and universities should be laser-focused on—is the ability to create new streams of data and intelligence. AI has the potential to fast-forward your institution’s transition to data-driven decision-making, so you can move confidently from thought to action with insights that just weren’t possible before.

The Value of Tech That Learns

In the past, we’ve used very basic techniques to catalog and categorize data. As just one example, think about how you measure the strength of your brand. Today marketers can categorize social media posts and tweets in a rudimentary way using keywords to get a feel for how a brand is being received.

This is known as sentiment analysis, and for humans, it is both time-consuming and limiting.

For instance, let’s say you search for sentiment cues using pre-selected keywords (examples: like, love, best, worst, hate). You may be missing other keywords that could have something valuable to tell you. Was the tweet about a competitor? Was that post a feature request? Are you missing a support issue? A compliment? A comparison?

What makes AI so well-suited for tasks like this is machine learning and its flexibility to understand context. Because AI can recognize context, we can now analyze beyond keywords in way we couldn’t before. We can use AI to answer questions like:

• “What is the key concern?”
• “What is the primary topic?”
• “What is the recommended action?”

Collect, Connect and Activate Data in the Age of AI

One of the most exciting opportunities with artificial intelligence in higher education is the ability to create new streams of data that weren’t quantifiable before, giving schools more ways to collect, connect and activate data as intelligence. Here are some examples where AI can make data more impactful across campus:

• Enrollment data: Collect and analyze data from multiple channels—website analytics, social media metrics and email engagement rates— to understand user intent and reveal patterns in prospect behavior throughout the funnel.
• Marketing personalization data: Instantly scan and sort incoming emails or chats based on interest in specific schools or majors to deliver targeted and relevant outreach based on individual preferences.
• Social listening data: Identify and extract sentiment data to measure response to an alumni event or a new program offering.
• Student performance data: Use data from automated grading to learn how long students spend on certain tasks or what types of questions they struggle with to identify the need for curriculum updates or remedial instruction.
• Help desk call data: Analyze recorded calls and chats to monitor performance issues and accurately target staff resources and future investment.

Our recommended approach? Start thinking about how AI can expand on the data you already have. 

These new streams of intelligence can drive new types of insight that simply weren’t functionally (or financially) possible before.