EDUInsight.com


"Covering Innovation and Best Practice in Online Student Communication"

Journal of College Student Retention and Recruiting for both On-Campus and Online Universities



Communicating with students

"Students want to search for schools online, look at school web sites and apply online"

Mark Shay
Chief Academic Liasion
EducationDynamics

Has e-mail peaked?


- The Chronicle of Higher Education asksis email for old people?
- According to a 2005 Pew Internet and American Life study, almost half of Web-using teenagers prefer to chat with friends via instant messaging rather than e-mail.
- Business 2.0 describes a comScore report that statesteen e-mail use was down 8 percent, compared with a 6 percent increase in e-mailing for users of all ages.




Retention is a Measure of Quality

Colleges and universities now spend billions of dollars on their marketing efforts, delivering implied promises to prospective students to draw them to apply to their institutions. When an institution accepts that student, they convey a general sentiment that the student is capable of earning a degree, and that they will start to deliver on that promise. If a student drops-out, stops-out or transfers-out prior to achieving a degree – and nearly half of all students do – institutions fall short on their promise.

Retention is a broad-reaching term that, in essence, is really is a measure of customer satisfaction. Blaming consumers for not succeeding is a bad model for businesses and is a worse model for educational institutions. For far too long, higher education has accepted high failure rates, but fortunately, a number of factors are pointing to a reversal of this trend.

In the past, university administrators have stated there is a natural rate of failure and many have adjusted their number of incoming students to mitigate the financial impact of degree candidates leaving early. With the high school class of 2008 representing the peak of a rising population of young people interested in pursuing higher education, universities are now realizing the strategy of merely accepting more students is not the answer. For business reasons and for what some would consider a moral obligation, the all sectors of the higher education industry need to improve its quality of retention and graduate a higher percentage of its students.

Retention is a measure of quality. The things that impact retention are understandable, predictable, measurable and actionable. An aggregate graduation rate of 75% is possible. Medical schools confer degrees to nearly 95% of their students and law schools report rates of over 90%. These professional programs may be unique as competition for entry is very intense and post-graduate careers are extremely lucrative, but the fact that retention rates are so high is itself "status quo" and all parties - students, families, faculty and administrators - have built persistence into their normal behavior. The challenge for the rest of higher education field is to make this intolerance for failure the norm, which is indeed a change to its status quo.

Our company, EducationDynamics is taking the issue of retention further than its market-leading suite of engagement and communication tools, we are taking a leadership position in the fundamentals behind this problem. We are engaging the academic community in an initiative called the National Dialog on Student Retention Conference, an event designed to bring together people charged with student success, sharing the theory and working toward developing best practice across the industry. What makes this Dialog different is we are taking a macro view of the retention issue, looking at the big picture across institution types and delivery formats. An example of this big picture point of view is addressing the socialization/isolation issue that affect students and how it manifests, whether it is an 18 year-old dorm student or a 36 year-old working mom taking an online course late in the evening.

As was stated earlier - retention is a measure of quality. The things that impact retention are understandable, predictable, measurable and actionable. Retention issues can be categorized as:

  • Academic preparedness
  • Socialization
  • Career objectives
  • Motivational/academic engagement
  • Work/family support
  • Affordability

Remember, students that enroll in a school have supposedly overcome each of these barriers. The challenge for schools is to keep these lingering barriers at bay and to keep students focused on the promise and the future that a degree will bring.

As Christoph Knopess discussed in his piece, "Everyone Complains About Low Student Retention, but Nobody Does Anything About It" the way to tackle the retention problems is not to view them in silos or narrow bands, but to approach them in broad terms. The industry needs to make retention synonymous with quality and attack poor quality with aggressive initiatives that become part of the company culture. Need an example? Recall the longstanding "Quality is Job One" initiative and subsequent publicity that helped Ford Motor Company turn itself around.

I was recently directed to a couple of web videos that reinforce the challenge of what we have to do to improve retention and the power that we have to do it: A vision of students today The power of what teachers make

Tell us your story, and do your part to help improve retention in higher education. Join the National Dialog on Student Retention, comment on our blog or send us your thoughts




Need translation?, view the eMarketing Glossary, providing a basic overview of online advertising and the buzzwords, acronyms and technical terms.

Additional sections of this journal address student recruiting and student retention. We have also placed all articles with a common theme of online education and distance education programs in a separate portal. New articles will be posted each Monday, please check back by bookmarking this site or placing a link to this Innovative Practices in Communicating with Students portal.

Mark Shay is the founder of EDU - a leading academic advertising provider, - part of Halyard Education Partners, a leader in student lead generation and enrollment management services.