Students coming to college today and tomorrow must be recruited very differently from yesterday’s students, said a panel of presenters during a concurrent session that addressed “Who are Today’s…and Tomorrow’s…Prospective Students?”
    Shawn Coyne, co-president and CEO of Connexxia and Thomas Williams, president and CEO of Noel-Levitz, generally agreed with Neil Howe’s assessment of the characteristics, needs, and concerns of the coming generation of students. “They are talented, motivated, and concerned about choosing the ‘right’ college, yet they are very different—being more diverse, demanding, impatient, and ‘wired,’” said Coyne.
    Williams noted that “a big part of the story is the increased diversity of the student population. Students of color will represent 80 percent of the increase in college-aged students; nearly 50 percent of the new growth will be Hispanic; and among minority students, 45 percent will come from low-income families.” He stressed that “by 2012, the students enrolling in higher education will be more numerous, more diverse, and quite likely less prepared than any generation preceding them. While the increase in numbers may be welcome news for some institutions, the changing demands will also be overwhelming.”
    These factors have “enormous implications for colleges and enrollment managers,” Williams said. “Colleges will need to re-examine their mission and organize to meet the demand for postsecondary education among the growing number of “average” and “at-risk” students. For example, they will need to “strategically increase capacity, maintain affordability, maintain admission standards, actively partner with secondary schools to better prepare at-risk students for college; and focus on retention,” he noted. In addition, strategic enrollment planning—with increasing reliance on enrollment technologies to support one-to-one marketing—will become increasingly important, he said, and there will be a greater need for enrollment leadership from the president and senior staff. Williams suggested that colleges will need to invest more time and resources in retention strategies, as well as in continuing education, distance learning, and alternative delivery systems. Institutions will also need to invest in their infrastructure in order to increase capacity and meet growing demand over the next 15 years.
    Coyne added that colleges should focus on their electronic communications to attract today’s and tomorrow’s students. Connexxia recently conducted a series of focus groups and one-on-one interviews with students accepted at a broad cross-section of more than 100 colleges and universities nationwide to find out “what’s on their minds” regarding the college admissions and decision process. Coyne reported that virtually all (94 percent) of today’s students have access to the Internet, with the most important usage by far being for e-mail (63 percent) rather than for schoolwork (39 percent), research, or other uses. However, Coyne stressed, they overwhelmingly use the internet for college and admissions information (63 percent said the internet was the top source of college information)—and they are uniformly unimpressed with college websites.
    In response to these criticisms, Connexxia conducted an analysis of college websites and found that the students’ impressions are well founded. “Most websites do not present information in an exciting, user-friendly way; have sub-optimal graphics; are cluttered and difficult to navigate; and contain static information, at least some of which is out of date,” Coyne said. In addition, virtually none are truly interactive or establish a “human connection.” Coyne offered a number of suggestions for colleges looking to attract these prospective students:

Sharpen your message—students now investigate more options than
ever before, and you must differentiate yourself;

Deliver your message more effectively—make it exciting and user-friendly, update it frequently, and personalize or tailor it;

Establish the “human connection” by facilitating two-way communication with admissions staffers, selected students and your institution’s key players, including the president; and

Optimize your media mix—hard copy documents are still vital, but the internet is now your most indispensable medium.

    Both the Noel-Levitz and Connexxia presentations are available on CIC’s website (click here).

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Last updated: March 2003
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