Clinton didn’t disappoint; and was dynamic and articulate. He touched on many “big picture” topics, namely advancements that we were fortunate enough to witness in our time: the mapping of the human genome, space travel and exploration, cell research, and other profound innovations in biology, physics, and our favorite, technology. As he highlighted those benchmarks of achievement, he underscored the importance of each person, regardless of age or background, being committed to lifelong learning.

Lifelong learning, to me, is the concept that each of us follow our passions, and realize that we are evolving every second, and with that, we need to augment our knowledge base and skill-set whenever the need arises. Traditionally, education is punctuated by completion dates: high school graduation, throwing your cap in the air at college graduation, and finally, for a segment of the populous, earning that master’s or doctorate degree. Clinton inspired us to blur those hard lines, and instead embrace the idea of education being a lifelong commitment. This could mean a stay-at-home mother taking an online class in childhood education to better understand her children or a retiree going on campus to Berkeley because he is curious about poetry.

On a more granular level, Former Vice President Al Gore also addressed the topic of global advancements and how they will change the face of our nation’s education landscape. When he spoke at the EduRG conference in Phoenix a few months ago, he honed in on how technology, and specifically the relatively nascent online education space, has erased barriers to education. Geography, age, and socioeconomic background, no longer impede getting an education.

Now, soldiers in the desert can attend classes from their laptops in tents and a farmer in the wilds of Montana can be in the same virtual classroom as an executive in Manhattan.

At PMG we are admittedly technophiles! It was inspirational to hear these two visionaries address how advances in technology will blur lines and erase barriers to learning.

-John McKusick, Co-Founder GearyPMG

One of the world’s largest and successful sales software and lead management companies had the opportunity to share their “new school approach” for successful student enrollment at CCA 2010 last week in Las Vegas.

Currently there are many factors positively affecting student enrollments due to the landscape and evolution in higher education.

• The increase in schools competition and growth.
• The growth in online courses.
• More adult learners than before.
• More platforms (mobile, online etc..).
• The economy – trigger events.
• Obama would like to have the world’s largest share of college graduates by 2020.

A best practice enrollment strategy ensures that schools are able to enroll more students by focusing on the three drives of successful lead conversion.  These three drives include the quality of demographics, enrollment strategy, and lead attributes.

Combining new and traditional ways of generating leads is essential for success. Social media is also very important in the recruitment process and for retention.  Schools brands have not yet mastered social media so there is a lot of opportunity for companies to help schools in recruitment via twitter, facebook etc…

Another crucial part of the recruitment process is contacting the leads faster and more consistently.   Companies have not stressed enough how important it is to get back to the prospect within minutes of an inquiry. It’s not only about that.  Other best practices for contacting inquiring prospects include:

• Calling a lead 5-6 times, not just 1-2 times
• Calling a lead between 4-10pm and calling a Saturday lead the same day
• Sending 2-4 nurturing emails

Lastly, when recruiting successfully you must stress quality and process.   There are 3 imperative parts to this including speed, process and persistence.

Speed.  A lead contacted within 5 minutes converts 22x more often than a lead contacted within 30 minutes.  If you do not get back to them, someone else will.

Process.  A lead conversion is determined 57% by lead quality and 24% by sales process.

Persistence.  93% chance of contact after 6 attempts verses 39% on the first attempt.

Schools continue to need more and strive for better enrollment process.  Before you can implement a new process, evaluate your current process.  Look at sales, conversion rates and marketing strengths and weaknesses.   You also want to make sure you have a blend of marketing mediums, a strong and effective consumer experience, and processes that motivate prospective students to graduate.   Examine your lead management process and once you have the best practices in place you can implement a system that will allow you to monitor performance.

A CCA session on this topic was lead by Sean Pittman of PlattForm Advertising and Eddie Colon of Pinnacle Career Institute. Eddie brought a number of phenomenal ideas to the table that any school can take back to their communities and implement. I am going to list the as many of the ideas as I can here and hopefully you can find a few actionable ideas for yourself.

According the Mr. Colon, it’s important to take inventory of your resources first. What do you have at your campus that you can leverage?
- Employees
- Students
- Chambers

What is going on at your school on the weekends? Some schools have weekend classes, but for most schools there is not a whole lot going on. This could be a perfect opportunity to offer up your resources (i.e. parking lot, class rooms, computers, etc) for public use. Maybe the local church or community group could your space for a special event or community fair. The impact you your school’s brand will have on the people that visit these events will be priceless. It is possible that many of these new visitors will have never known about your school or the classes it offers, but by having these events at your school, and having them on a regular basis, they will build a personal bond with the school.

Mr. Colon strongly encouraged schools to get involved with their community leaders. (i.e. Senators, Business Leaders, Law Enforcement, Civic Advocate groups, American Cancer Society, etc). He gave the example of how he took an unused room and turned it into a break room for the local police department. After a few months Mr. Colon had police officers stopping by the school for coffee and short breaks. Over time these officers began promoting the schools criminal justice program by way of word-of-mouth. What a better way to generate quality leads!

The session was excellent and reminded schools that it is not only about generating leads online. It’s also about making a name for yourself in your community. At GearyPMG we take a strong look at local promotions similar to the ideas that Mr. Colon raised. Marketing a school goes beyond aggregating leads and it was great to see this being discussed at an event like CCA.

The Best of Times
President Obama has suggested that we restore America’s leadership in higher education and regain lost ground by 2020, returning to its #1 ranking in the world in higher education (currently 14th). To help achieve this, the President has requested a 6% increase overall in Department of Education (ED)’s FY 2011 budget, with $2.1 billion directed at higher education programs. Not to mention the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (stimulus) funding of Pell grants for school year 2009-2010 is $33B up from $18B in 2008. The money and desire are there for the proprietary education industry to continue the phenomenal growth realized over the past decade, and that growth must come from continuing adult learners and for-profit institutions.

The Worst of Times
Depite the benefit that proprietary education brings to our country, there are a few “bad apples” that have inappropriately taken advantage of the current system, catching the attention of Uncle Sam and the mainstream media. As a result, in December 2009, ED held negotiated rulemaking sessions concerning 14 program integrity issues, claiming that current regulations cause fraud and abuse.

The issues are listed below (as well as whether a consensus was reached):

• Definition of High School Diploma – (Yes)
• Ability-to-Benefit – (Yes)
• Misrepresentation of Information to Students and Prospective Students – (Yes)
• Incentive Compensation – (No)
• Definition of a credit hour – (Yes)
• Agreements between Institutions of Higher Education – (Yes)
• Verification of Information included on Student Aid Applications – (Yes)
• Satisfactory Academic Progress – (Yes)
• Retaking Coursework – (Yes)
• Return of Title IV Funds, Term-Based Programs with Modules or Compressed Courses – (No)
• State Authorization as a Component of Institutional Eligibility – (No)
• Employment in a Recognized Occupation – (No)
• Return of Title IV Funds, Taking Attendance – (No)
• Disbursements of Title IV Funds – (Yes)

Most of the attention during Mr. Moran’s presentation was paid to Gainful Employment, but I’ve included some additional bullets on Incentive Compensation and Misrepresentation.

Gainful Employment Definition
The newly proposed Gainful Employment regulations were easily the hottest topic going into this session. However, it needs to be said that about 25 minutes into the presentation Mr. Moran received an announcement that Gainful Employment would not be a part of the new regulations due to be announced in the next couple of weeks, drawing a resounding applause from the audience. However, it was not clear whether or not the gainful employment regulation would resurge at another point during the rulemaking process.

The term “proprietary institution of higher education” means a school that provides an eligible program of training to prepare students for gainful employment in a recognized occupation. This is the statutory basis for the Department’s proposed gainful employment regulation, which stated that any programs failing to meet a gainful employment definition would lose Title IV eligibility. The gainful employment proposal establishes an 8% debt-to-earnings ratio using median loan debt, including all types of student loan debt incurred by a student.

What’s Wrong with Gainful Employment Proposal?
• Lack of Evidence or Statistical Foundation
• Statutory Authority Missing
• Creates Double Standard
• Confuses Excessive Borrowing with Excessive Debt
• Constitutes Tuition Price Fixing

CCA Approach: Real Data vs. Anecdotes
In order to combat the “broad stroke” that the for-profit industry is being painted with by the media and others, the CCA commissioned a study to get answers about any unintended consequences of the Gainful Employment Proposal. Major findings of the study show:

• Over 360,000 students a year would be displaced
• At historic growth rates, 5.4 million students displaced through 2020
• Limits access opportunities for education in critical professions, including Healthcare and Information Technology
• Disproportionate impact on minorities and women
• At-risk programs actually generate better loan repayment results

In short, the study commissioned by the CCA shows that, at least, the Gainful Employment rule needs to be revisited. And based on the fact that Gainful Employment won’t be part of the upcoming rule change, it’s safe to assume that someone was listening.

Incentive Compensation
• Rules surrounding incentive compensation deal with compensating enrollment advisors/recruiters based on number of students enrolled
• The current law states that compensation cannot be based solely on enrollment
• The current law also provides 12 “safe harbors” or clarifications on how the current law applies to certain situations
• The proposed change would eliminate those safe harbors, and further state that enrollments cannot be a factor at all in compensation
• This leaves a lot to interpretation and would make it difficult for schools to know if they are legally compliant

Misrepresentation
• The Federal Trade Commission has jurisdiction over private sector schools in areas of deceptive advertising, promotional marketing or sales
• ED wants to harmonize its rules with FTC and expand coverage to all institutions
• ED’s over-reaching language covers direct or indirect misrepresentation to a student, prospective student, any member of the public, an accreditor, a state agency or ED
• ED’s language also adds employability of graduates to areas covered

In closing, Mr. Moran gave a brief picture of what to expect moving forward. Rules should be announced within the next two weeks, after which there will be a period for public comment. The rules must then be voted on by November of 2010 in order to take effect in July of 2011. Regardless of the outcome, it behooves anyone involved in the for-profit education industry to take note of this legislation, as it will undoubtedly have an affect on how we do business.

Social Media is key to any brand that has a web presence. At CCA they hit on only one of the many important reasons you should use social media; that being brand-awareness. Their main point was that schools have to start paying attention to what is being said and posted on these social portals. (If you are not sure which portals are social media take a look at Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube, to name a few.) Now this is a great point because you don’t necessarily want inappropriate things coming up in the search engine when people search for your school, but there is so much more to it.

Imagine being able to not only manage your reputation online, but also get a better understanding of the demographic that enrolls in your school. Imagine being able to really interact with the students on their level. Social Media is the doorway to becoming more enlightened about current and potential students and the topics that matter most to them.

Here are some of the other key opportunities that exist in social media:

1. Quickly and easily connect to your audience of students

2. The ability to gain knowledge on any market

3. Reach a market by simply engaging with them online

4. Gain insight into problem areas that may exist

Remember that once you understand how to use social media, you’ll understand what your students are looking for, and where to find them. For many, the web isn’t “A” place to search for info; it’s the “ONLY” place.

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us and we’ll be more then happy to help you along.

Here at GearyPMG, we consider this event to be the most
important event in the educational industry. It is only
three days long, so in the past we have found that many have challenges with making the most out of it. So we thought we would share with you our preparation sheet that we have passed on to our clients.

Hot Topics we expect many to discuss: