I'm glad I didn't attend the NACUBO conference this year, but it might have been interesting to be the person in the audience standing up and saying, "Yeah, it's awful right now, but here's a few things you can do to counter-act these existential enrollment and budget crises." What would follow is a reminder that many CFOs have on their campuses the very unit designed to drive alternative revenues and pivot rapidly to exploit emerging opportunities.
Of course, I'm talking about schools and colleges of continuing & professional studies and related units (PCE/Os).
Mid-tier tuition-dependent universities are discounting sticker price further every year just to keep the incoming class full (and some have failed to do even that this fall), a race that erodes net tuition revenue even as enrollment holds steady. At the same time, federal student aid is being significantly revised and disrupting LRPs. PCE/O units are naturally positioned to route around these challenges and their students enroll and pay differently. Short, stackable certificates and degree-completion programs financed through employer tuition-benefit partnerships, institutional payment plans, or income-share arrangements don't need to clear financial aid hurdles, so working adults, certificate-seekers, up-skillers and life-long learners shouldn't be caught in the same bidding war as 18-year-olds comparing offer letters and aid packages. Growing the non-traditional side of the business with low-overhead, fully online credit and non-credit programs gives a tuition-dependent university a way to add net revenue without digging the discount-rate hole deeper.
PCE/O units aren't silver bullets for fixing the structural problems facing tuition-dependent privates. But in the midst of all the chaos, they are strategically important lever these schools can pull now. They just have to understand how and why to do it.
No comments:
Post a Comment