A few weeks ago, the Washington Post had an interesting article “Freshman Applications to Selective Area Colleges Surge”. Or consider the UK market where applications are up by almost 20% according to an article in The Guardian “University Applications Reach Record Levels for Fourth year in a row”. For many people, this is no surprise. Yes, in times of uncertainty, an education can be viewed as an opportunity to make one more “marketable”. Students are increasingly becoming more discerning with their education choices and most are placing a higher weight on the Return on Investment a post secondary education provides… in essence their “outcome is income”. They’ve applied to more than one institution and are carefully evaluating all their options.
Considering the hyper competitive global education market, and the pressure on institutions to be more accountable to their varied stakeholders, it is clear that each step in the recruiting cycle be examined and scrutinized to ensure that results are fully maximized.
Yield seems to be one possible area of opportunity where business results can be enhanced. Consider a report a couple of years ago by Bearing Point whereby “a four-year private university with a first-year class size of 1,500 seeks to increase class size to 1,660 through improving its yield rate by 4 percent. This change would equate with an increase in tuition revenue of $3.4 million annually and more than $13 million over four years”. So even if one was to achieve half of these results, I think there would be a lot of very happy Chancellors and VP’s of Enrollment out there.
Your institutions yield strategy then begins with a very simple concept. Relationships. I always thought the folk singer Joan Baez had an interesting perspective on this… “the easiest kind of relationship for me is with ten thousand people. The hardest is with one.”
Check out Azorus Webinar:
20 Minute Take Away: Yield Management
