The Business of Enrollment Management: Focus on Transfer Students. By: Tom von Gunden, Ph.D., corporate strategy lead, Hyland Software

Transcription

1 The Business of Enrollment Management: Focus on Transfer Students By: Tom von Gunden, Ph.D., corporate strategy lead, Hyland Software

2 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION... 3 THE NEED FOR SPEED... 4 STAYING AHEAD BY STABILIZING OPERATIONS... 5 MAXIMIZE RESOURCES AND OPTIMIZE PROCESSES... 6 INCREASE PERFORMANCE BY OPTIMIZING YOUR TECHNOLOGY... 7 GETTING DOWN TO BUSINESS... 7 ABOUT THE AUTHOR... 8

3 INTRODUCTION With funding decisions becoming more closely tied to retention and graduation rates, higher education institutions across the country are ramping up efforts not only to matriculate students, but to retain and graduate more of them. And as the transfer student population continues to grow in size and significance, serving this particular segment well helps an institution maximize its cash flow. Thinking in such businesslike terms may require a shift in approach for many institutions. In my related article, The Business of Enrollment Management, Part One: 3 Keys to Surviving and Thriving, I present a case for admissions, financial aid and registrar s offices to be among the first to adopt more overtly businesslike approaches. With enrollment management directly impacting an institution s fiscal stability, attracting and retaining students parallels the for-profit activities of securing new business and managing accounts along the way to generating new and ongoing revenue. In this challenging economy, institutions need to secure as many tuition dollars and as much funding as possible. That s why it s critical for institutions to be high performers when it comes to competing for and retaining larger numbers of transfer students. Embracing ways to gain a competitive advantage is where higher education environments and corporate environments have traditionally taken vastly different approaches. Businesses have been comparatively quick to acknowledge that they are in competition and, more importantly, measure how they stack up against their competition. It s time for higher education to do the same because competition is certainly on the rise. Students are increasingly shopping for the fastest and least expensive path to graduation. Consider, for instance, the transformation of enrollment behaviors in the community college population. Higher numbers of students who would not have considered attending community colleges in a more stable economy are starting their coursework there to save on costs before transferring to four-year programs. Additional boosts to that population come from veterans and other adults seeking re-training. And in general, more students are attending two or more institutions as they make their way toward a certificate or degree. As a result, more students arrive on campus with existing college credits. Schools that are slow to make transfer credit decisions risk falling behind in the competitive race for students and falling short of their goals for increased retention and graduation rates. 3

4 THE NEED FOR SPEED Businesses frequently face the need to quickly produce results and effectively manage volume. They re no stranger to external market forces or internal pressures either. They often deal with them in the manner that enrollment management offices must: by keeping a constant focus on process and resource efficiency. Businesses make it a priority to effectively use every resource to its fullest potential. And now, schools must do the same. However, all too often one of the greatest resources of any higher education institution its staff is stifled by low-value, time-intensive tasks many of which come from paper-based files and processes. This has been particularly true when it comes to transfer credit processing. In a paper-based environment, staff members must manually enter transcript information into the student information system (SIS), keying in each course, for each semester, for each transcript. Often they must look up course descriptions in the catalog to find equivalencies and rely on intercampus mail to route exceptions to faculty for review and approval. Making sure staff have the right tools to manage transcript information and transfer credit review processes ensures they perform at top efficiency and provide their highest value. With overall transfer numbers on the rise and demographic shifts in the community college crowd, these old ways manual data entry and paper-based review for equivalency matching won t be good enough to keep up. And not only is the number of transfer students rising, so, too, is the number of transcripts students bring with them. Typical transfer students have not just one, but anywhere from three to five transcripts. If process slowdowns continue to occur, institutions may pay a very heavy toll: Poor performance at the front end the preenrollment stage can mean losing students, often to formerly non-competing local or regional options. Poor performance in the post-matriculation stages can lead to dropouts, drift-offs and outright transfers to other schools. The result is lower retention and graduation rates and a correspondingly negative impact on funding decisions. 4

5 STAYING AHEAD BY STABILIZING OPERATIONS Businesses, college and universities have been hit by the economic downturn. In addition to triggering increased competition for students, the changing economy has raised students concerns about the cost and value of higher education. The heightened concern about cost may in fact be responsible, at least in part, for the transfer student population increase. And while businesses have always had to prove a return on investment, higher education institutions now find themselves facing a similar need to demonstrate value. For that reason, offices that process transfer student data and conduct credit evaluations are now playing very strategic roles in illuminating their institution s effectiveness or lack thereof to students and prospective students. Because transfer students are looking for the best possible package of accepted transfer credit, retention efforts for them start before matriculation. For an institution to prove that it will meet a student s needs, it must be utterly clear about course equivalencies. Doing so enables students to evaluate their enrollment and registration options wisely. The faster an institution is able to answer a student s questions about which credits will transfer, the better chance it has of moving a prospective student to a matriculated student and of seeing more students through to graduation. Also critical to making that happen is student advising. Faster transfer credit evaluation provides a foundation for solid advising, which includes high-level advice about career path, as well as ground-level guidance about the programs to pursue and courses to take to get there. As savvy consumers, transfer students want to stretch each dollar, purchasing only what they need to keep their road to degree completion detour-free, confidently enrolling in courses without unnecessarily repeating a class. While especially true for financial aid recipients, wasting time and money isn t popular with those who are paying their own way either. 5

6 MAXIMIZE RESOURCES AND OPTIMIZE PROCESSES In the past, many higher education institutions have improved the speed and volume of processing transcript information primarily through increasing head count. However, budgetary constraints prevent nearly every school from hiring additional full-time staff. While temporary staff may help at peak processing times, the practice doesn t offer a viable, long-term solution. Instead, schools must find ways to improve process efficiency so they can process more transcripts and evaluate more transfer credits with the same number of staff and in less time. Many businesses have a constant focus on process efficiency, applying apporaches such as Lean Six Sigma, continuous improvement, and others to operate at top efficiency. While mostly associated with the manufacturing world, these methodologies identify the functional areas within a process that can be made more efficient. Offices handling transfer credit can take a similar approach to their operations, constantly examining where processes slow down and identifying areas where process automation can increase efficiency and drive down operational costs. To identify these areas, you must first establish a benchmark against which you ll measure the effectiveness of your operations. This kind of self-assessment is an on-going exercise hence the term continuous improvement. Ask: What is our average turnaround time? For example, from the time a transcript is received, how long does it typically take us to make a transfer credit decision? If we don t find an existing course equivalency and have to engage faculty to review and evaluate, how long does that typically take? During peak transcript submission cycles, how well are we able to handle spikes in processing volumes with existing full-time staff? How reliant are we on paper-based filing and manual processing to capture transcript data and evaluate transfer credits? How common is it for us to quickly answer a student s question about the receipt or status of a submitted document? Do we have all necessary information easily accessible so people don t have to leave their desks to find it? If there are delays in processing transcript data or making transfer credit decisions, can we identify the causes and, if so, how quickly? Have we shown the ability to reduce or eliminate bottlenecks on a consistent basis? Do our advisors have the most accurate, up-to-date information available to reference when advising students? 6

7 INCREASE PERFORMANCE BY OPTIMIZING YOUR TECHNOLOGY In another of my related articles, The Business of Enrollment Management, Part Two: A Case Study in Contrasts, I compare the enrollment management operations of two fictitious, rival institutions to underscore the benefits a more businesslike approach brings to enrollment management. Examining the work environments at Bottleneck Technical University and Streamlined State University clearly shows that effective process tools and access to information offer Streamlined State a clear competitive advantage. The biggest difference between the two is that Streamlined State has optimized processes with technology. Like many businesses, it maximized its existing technology investments so that they are optimally tuned to support operational efficiency. So, in addition to looking at processes and identifying areas of improvement, look at the way you are using or not using technology. Consider making the move to paperless files and automated processing by integrating an enterprise content management (ECM) solution with your institution s core applications in particular, your SIS. Doing so provides electronic capabilities that allow you to automatically: Pull line-level course and grade data from transfer transcripts Feed that data into the SIS or degree audit system Search for and accept existing course equivalencies Route and monitor (i.e., track the timely return of) exception courses requiring faculty review and approval With the ECM system updating your systems of record with transfer transcript data as it arrives, equivalency matches as they are identified and review decisions as they are made, your institution will be perceived by students and prospective students as a paragon of timeliness and responsiveness. As mentioned above, students are increasingly shopping for the best deal, which, in this case, is the school that will accept the largest amount of previously earned course credit. They re also highly influenced by how quickly the offer arrives. While two schools might ultimately present equally generous credit acceptance packages, many transfer students will take the first offer to arrive, even if that school was not their first choice. Basic psychology applies here: It s the reassuring presence of the known versus the anxiety-inducing wait for the who knows? In addition, real-time updates to the SIS allow returning students and their advisors to know exactly which courses are still ahead on the path to completing the planned program or degree. GETTING DOWN TO BUSINESS By thinking like a business that is to say, by addressing the process inefficiencies that impede rapid and accurate decision making, enrollment management professionals will be well prepared to provide their institutions with a competitive advantage. They ll also bolster the bottom line by helping drive steadily rising rates of retention and graduation. To do so, offices handling transfer credit must embrace an elevated role and the technology enhancements that support it. 7

8 ABOUT THE AUTHOR Tom von Gunden s deep understanding of best practices in deploying Enterprise Content Management (ECM) capabilities in colleges and universities comes from his direct involvement in numerous successful implementations. Tom spent more than a dozen years in higher education, serving as a tenured university professor, program director and accreditation specialist. A longtime observer of the emergence of ECM as a business-critical platform, Tom also served for several years as chief editor of Web and print publications focused on ECM and related technologies. Learn more at Hyland.com/HigherEducation 8 Hyland Software, Inc. All rights reserved. v