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Universities are no different than any other service trying to market itself. Higher education continuously seeks to market their degrees by showing the benefit of earning them with that particular school.

Colleges have found them in a position where they have to develop positive student perceptions in spite of rising costs in obtaining a degree. Students want to earn degrees from schools that offer respected diplomas. These three strategies show how to rate a university’s value proposition.

How well does the school’s marketing funnel work? 

Good marketing strategy is based on using a funnel to attract potential consumers and convert them to clients.

Universities begin by casting a wide net for interested students. These students become applicants, and from there, the school can measure their progress toward creating conversions by the number of applications completed, how many students were accepted, and the number who decided to matriculate. 

Retention rates

Staying in school can be harder than getting accepted, making freshman-to-sophomore retention rate an integral part of a school’s value proposition. It’s critical to find out why students are leaving higher education before their sophomore year.

Freshman who perceive that their freshman courses have little value will likely leave the institution and enroll in a different school or leave higher education altogether.

Return on investment

After spending four to six years earning a bachelor’s degree, students want to know the return on their investment (ROI).  They want to get the best bang for the buck, and with good reason since tuition costs are continuously rising.

One of the most common ways to determine ROI is to compare the cost of tuition against median earning power for university graduates.

More than facts

Creating a value proposition should be about data, and universities generate plenty of big data they can use in analyzing their marketing success. Facts, however, do not always support student and community perception.

Colleges with the best value proposition are also the ones who can best meet their students’ needs. For some enrollees, that means financial aid. For other students, the value proposition may come in the form of personalized learning experiences or bespoke degree plans that will set them apart from other graduates.

Ultimately, students want a degree from a respected university; often the value of that degree is deeply personal.

Attention to building the right value proposition can help universities meet those goals for the degree candidates.

University professors, provosts, and presidents know that higher education faces serious challenges, but those who hold these positions are too far removed from the problem to fix it.

To find how to overcome the dysfunction in higher education, you have to focus on the mid-management position of the dean.

What does a dean do?

The dean lives and works at the hub of higher ed. A dean’s duties include instructional program oversight, faculty and staff supervision, and budget management. They receive complaints, seek supplemental funding, and communicate with stakeholders within and outside the university system.

With so much on their desks, it seems evident that they need support, and this support could help deans fix the dysfunction in higher education.

What is the dysfunction in higher ed? 

When the business of higher education begins to fracture into isolated areas, dysfunction is taking over. The disconnection occurs when instruction, finance, scholarly research and professional collaboration exist in isolation from each other.  The silo approach to higher education is less effective than an integrated approach

Experts recommend reviewing each of the following departmental issues:

• Academic – Maintaining rigorous standards for research and teaching is critical to the success of higher education.
• Cultural – The tendency to do business the way it has always been done can have a negative impact on students and faculty.
• Interpersonal – Academia can attract personalities that clash with each other unless management can step in to mentor and coach faculty.
• Leadership – Effective leaders must be able to manage current situations and plan for future transition.
• External influences – Donors and alumni can influence department decisions.

What works

University of North Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA) thought so, too. Upper management developed a leadership program for deans. The idea was to help those at the center of impact develop the skills they needed for success.

The professional development for the deans consisted of timely discussions, training, feedback, and coaching. Committing time to the program was the most difficult challenge, but the deans developed the skills they needed for improved influence and leadership.

University deans were able to integrate their newly learned skills in areas critical to the success of the school.

In summary

Deans can fix the dysfunction in higher education, but to do so, they need continued support from upper management. They also need time to develop the necessary skills and apply them.

What would happen if students could get their money back for college?

Does that seem incredible? Well, some colleges and universities are pioneering policies to do just that.

For generations, students and parents have signed on for what could be the biggest expense of their lifetimes without questioning its worth. No one has argued that a college degree is worth the money.

But now, things are changing. Some students have difficulty finishing their degree on time, leading to additional expenses that they hadn’t expected. Some can’t find a job that pays enough to cover the cost of their student loans. Others may not find a job in their chosen field at all. These trends are leading many to question whether a college degree is worth the money. As with a car or a home, it seems desirable to have some assurance to fall back on in case the item is discovered to be faulty.

Creative Solutions?

To respond to these concerns, colleges have come up with some creative ways to guarantee value for their tuition costs.

For example, SUNY Buffalo’s “Finish in Four” program gives students free tuition until they finish their degree if they do not attain it within four years. Davenport University guarantees extra tuition-free courses for select students who do not find employment within six months of graduation. And Adrian College guarantees assistance in paying off student loans for graduates who earn a salary of $37,000 or less.

Or Just a Marketing Ploy?

Such programs add luster to admissions brochures and are attractive to finance-savvy students and parents. But the reality is that they have to be financed somehow. How much does that really benefit students?

In most cases, such programs have strict eligibility requirements, so that only a few students can qualify to take advantage of them. Students must be willing to take a consistently full course load, receive career counseling, and pursue employment aggressively. Such strict requirements diminish the pool and ensure that the cost of a “money back guarantee” will not get out of hand. Often, schools pass on the additional cost of the program to students in the form of increases in the cost of tuition and/or books.

There’s no denying that the time has come to reconsider the monetary value of a college education and how we can make this asset more valuable. Visionary “money back guarantee” solutions are a step in the right direction, but more work needs to be done.

There’s more to having a discussion about race on your campus than organizing a Professional Learning Community around the reading of Crucial Conversations (Patterson), although a PLC can be a good start. This observation may especially be true, as the book says, “When stakes are high.”

The stakes are at their highest when talking about race. It’s not an easy thing to do. A slight intonation of an innocuous word, a glance, or even the wrong tone can trigger resentment among any of the participants.

Try these suggestions when you need to have difficult conversations about race on your campus.

Acknowledge and validate

You can’t talk about a problem until you recognize that the problem exists.

Acknowledgment means that you are willing to admit difficulty. By saying, “I can see that this is important to you,” you have recognized that another person has an idea to share. You can go a step further and validate that opinion by accepting their viewpoint. You might not agree with it, but you can accept it.

Seek to understand

One of the biggest challenges in addressing racism on campus and having difficult conversations is getting the right people involved in the discussion. Minorities are willing to discuss the problems, but getting the majority to join the conversation can be challenging.

Minority students have been made aware of diversity for so long that they have become more accustomed to talking openly about it. Diversity is not as troublesome for majority race students and faculty; it’s not always at the forefront of their thoughts like it is with other students.

It should be though. Until everyone seeks to understand racism, no critical conversations can take place.

Focus on inclusion and diversity

Engage in a dialogue with persons of a different color or race than you. By asking open-ended questions that allow them to provide insight, you’ll get a better understanding of how you can create inclusion.

Ask about people’s experiences with bias and racism. How have they felt excluded? Was there a time that inclusion removed the barriers to success? What needs to happen now?

Look for commonalities you share

Race makes us different from each other, but only a little bit.

There are plenty of things people of minority and majority races have in common. By looking for these commonalities, we can begin to focus on our real purpose for being on the campus. Sharing common goals and finding ways to collaborate in reaching them makes us all stronger. It is when we come together for the common good that we can focus on what matters most: making humankind greater than before.

A lofty goal like that can only happen if you’re willing to have difficult conversations about race on your campus.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the landscape of higher education.

According to Dr. Keng Siau, artificial intelligence will “perform an array of general tasks with consciousness, sentience and intelligence.” That could mean that higher education may no longer be the path to a professional career.

University degrees have always led to professional careers; AI may change that path and offer new forms of learning. Ultimately, AI will change the way colleges have approached education.

Complex data and collaboration

Artificial intelligence will disrupt higher education; there’s no doubt of that. Already AI has been assuming some of the more basics tasks in academia, such as grading, data analysis and seeking correlations.

So far these automatic tasks have been within a single university system, but there’s no reason to believe that AI will continue to function in the isolation of the ivory tower. AI will connect academia to other industries, performing elaborate cognitive processes that search for connections between a variety of fields.

Think transformation, not disruption

Disruption describes an abrupt change in a process. The result may or may not be better. Transformation, on the other hand, has the connotation of a more well-thought- out approach, like a change that gradually evolves into something better.

Change is never easy for anyone, but universities who choose not change may be left behind.

Universities have an opportunity to transform practices and adopt new artificial intelligence technology.

Global reach

With students more interested in personalized learning, AI has the potential to provide increased opportunities for learning to more students at one time. Made possible through adaptive learning, these new systems meet students at their last point in the learning continuum and take them forward.

Artificial intelligence can do more for a larger student population. Professors may already have two and three hundred students in a classroom, but they are not able to reach every student and meet his or her personal needs the way an AI adaptive learning program like ALEKS or a personalized program like Udemy can do.

Changing skill sets

AI won’t likely replace the instructional practices in higher ed, but it will redefine the way students learn. Expect a blended learning model that seamlessly integrates input from AI and professors.

That will change faculty skill sets, allowing more time for research and AI begins to take over the more banal tasks of classroom instruction.

Will artificial intelligence disrupt higher education?  The answer is yes, and that’s a good thing. The disruption will force the acceleration of our cognitive thinking skills as we strive to stay ahead of the advance in AI.