How Graduate Schools Compete and Win in an ROI-Driven Market

Good afternoon or good morning, everyone, depending upon, where you are. Welcome to our webinar, how graduate schools compete and win in an ROI driven market. My name is Aaron Mall, and I serve as senior vice president of partnerships here at PeopleGrow. And we're just delighted to spend a little bit of time with you as we explore some research that we've conducted over the last few months. We're excited to share some of those findings with you. A couple of housekeeping items before we begin. We will open up the chat. There'll be several times, in the presentation where I'll I'll be asking, for you to share a little bit of feedback. In fact, that's coming up here in a minute. And so feel free to type in some of your answers and feedback in the chat. The chat is also a great place to ask questions as well. And so if you'd like to ask a question about something you're seeing in the data that we're presenting or some of the, application of the data that we're presented that were presenting, excuse me, you can go ahead and put that in the chat as well. The other benefit of that approach actually is oftentimes the answers are in the room. In in other words, you have colleagues maybe from different institutions here on the webinar today, and they might have some really insightful feedback. And so, feel free to utilize that chat. We will try to take some time at the very end, to answer questions. And if we don't have time, to get to all the questions, we will for sure follow-up with you, via email after today's event. So I think that's all the housekeeping items. Again, thank you for joining us today. We're excited to have you here. A little bit, by way of introduction, I've already shared my name. I've worked at People Grove now for for a little bit less than a year, but prior to People Grove, really has spent my entire career on campus and then serving campuses. So leading enrollment efforts at two different private schools, a little bit mostly undergraduate, some graduate, and then working as a consultant both for undergrad and grad programs and also running the the solution side of of an EdTech company who really focused on graduate online solutions. So pretty familiar with the graduate space. I can empathize with some of the challenges that you face and just excited to have this conversation with you today. So I wanna start with a question, and this is a great, way a great time to utilize, that chat feature, in, in the Zoom webinar here. I want you to think back, to your earliest childhood memory around career or jobs. What did you want to be when you grew up? This is by I think one of my favorite questions to ask, little children at times, like, typically at four, five, six, seven years old where where they're trying to discover who they are, what they like. Hey. What do you wanna be when you grow up? And oftentimes, their re their answers are in some ways candidly tied to just the things they know. Right? What does mom do? What does dad do? What do my neighbor's parents do? And what what jobs have I seen? I've been at the grocery store, and so maybe it's cashier. The the world is in some ways relatively small, and it gets obviously bigger as they grow and mature. But when you think about your earliest childhood memory around career, what did you want to be? For me, I wanted to be a trash man. And there's there's a reason for that, and this is still talked about within my family. When I was a kid, you know, I'm gonna date myself. They didn't have the trucks that had the the lever arms that basically you pull up next the trash bin, and then the arms go out and pull it up and then dump it into the truck instead. You had to actually physically lift, the the garbage, and and throw it over into, back of the truck. But because I lived in a neighborhood, there was always the driver of the truck, didn't want that job, but there was a guy who got to ride along the outside step of the truck. And I thought, as a six year old boy, is there a better job than that? Getting to ride along the outside of the truck, lift up heavy things, throw it into the back of the truck. I mean, that to me was the best job possible. Not a lot of relevance to my current role, but it is funny. Right? As you grow and mature how your jobs and what you want to be when you grow up, so somewhat changes. And I know it's it's a silly question in some ways, but I think it relates to our topic today, which is as graduate perspective students think about their next step in their career, they're they they still at their core are answering the question, what do you want to be when you grow up? And if we're trying to present graduate programs to them, market and recruit these prospective graduate students in a way that is meaningful to them, in a way that, aligns with their needs, then we have to be very aware of what their dreams, goals, and desires are. I think that's what we're gonna talk about a little bit today. So if you haven't posted what you wanted to be when you grew up, I'd encourage you to do that in the chat. So let's set the stage for today. We're gonna really cover four things. First, we're gonna set the market reality for you. There are a lot of competitive pressures shaping graduate enrollment in twenty twenty six. Hey. If you didn't know this already, your job is difficult, and there's a reason it's difficult. Maybe you know intuitively, hey. This is hard. It feels harder than it has been in the years past. But you don't know why or maybe don't have the data behind it. Think today you'll get a little bit of insight into that. Part of the reason it's it's hard is because what students want is actually shifting and changing a little bit. And sometimes campuses aren't quite positioned or agile enough to really respond to what students want. And so we'll talk a little bit about that. Then we'll spend the majority of our time really in sections three and four. What you told us. We'll we'll cover the survey that we sent, to the NEGAP membership back in the early spring of this year, share four, I think, findings that I think you can take those findings that apply to campus really tomorrow and really begin to to win. And that's the last section. Really, how do we connect a model that, takes the research into mind and ultimately positions you for success? So that's our agenda for today. So let's talk about the market. Stable enrollment is how we we we we describe it, intense competition. So there's about three point four million graduate students enrolled, in American colleges and universities in the fall of twenty twenty five. Of course, we know these enrollment markers always lag a little bit a year behind. Right? And while that enrollment market is steady, maintaining your share of that is is makes it very competitive. So for example, let's say that last year, you grew. Your enrollment grew. That basically means in a flat or stable market, you took market share from someone else. So for every campus who wins, there's a campus, sometimes two or three, who are ultimately losing because, again, that is not a growth market. The reality is the fall twenty twenty five numbers also probably shows a higher international student population than what twenty twenty six will show with all the all the changes, in the United States regarding immigration. Right? So the reality is that flat in twenty twenty five likely means decline in twenty twenty six. And if your market is an international student market and population, that signals, a possible threat. So, again, three point four million graduate students enrolled. What we do know about these students from from multiple research studies is that eighty six percent, the the majority of graduate students are motivated by career goals. Going back to that first question, what do you want to be when you grow up? Right? And so they're united by the single defining motivation, which is career advancement. So what do they expect? Well, National Research is pointing to a consistent pattern, and this is from the RNL and Education Dynamics modern learning report from earlier this year. About three quarters of prospective graduate students, they pursue grad education primarily to advance their current career. So this is not necessarily a a career change, although it might mean a job change within the career. But three out of four are saying, I'm doing this to advance my career. I'm investing in this program to advance my career. Twelve percent, a smaller number, enroll specifically to change careers. So it's not that necessarily we're gonna move from from sales to engineering. Right? That's a that's an odd mix. But we're gonna we're gonna basically again, mow three out of four mostly staying in the same career, but getting advancement in that career. And then about three quarters or so expect their institution to outline potential career outcomes tied to their program. They wanna know if your value promise, if your value proposition is true. If so, prove it. Tie it to outcomes. That's what they're expecting in this process. And so there are really three questions that every prospective graduate student is asking, and these three questions shape every decision that a prospective student makes during the enrollment process. Number one, will this program actually accelerate my career? They're asking that question because they've identified earlier in previous studies this is important to me. Right? Number two, does this school connect me to the people and opportunities I need? I had a conversation to the earlier this morning with an individual who talked about it's not just what you know, it's who you know. Right? That's part of what you're buying into when you buy into a graduate program is the network and the opportunities. And they wanna know, will this school connect me? And then is there visible ROI? Can I see the return on investment from day one? Day one seems a bit early. Right? If we're being honest, how do you want to know you're gonna start seeing ROI on day one? You know, one of the things I talk about, consistently is that every institution positions itself or tries to in a way that sets it sets itself apart from others. And the reality is oftentimes the messages from programs and schools are very similar. Right? Small classes, faculty who care, a a close knit cohort. Right? But the reality is your differentiator as an institution, as a program, is that no one else has your outcomes. No one else has your alumni. And because of that, it it is your true differentiator. So how can you show really investment ROI in in day one? It's connecting those those prospective students to those outcomes. I wanna pause here real fast and give you what is my personal hypothesis. I cannot find this in research yet, and I I wish a large organization would ask this question. But I'm convinced that part of the reason, the ROI question, the network access, and the career impact things are so important to prospective students is that there is a generation of students who have acquired a student loan student loans, and they have paid those loans off into adulthood. And I think there is a sense of as we think about even the questions at the macro level about the value of higher education, it's not just a philosophical question for so many students. It is a practical question. It's that some of these students may actually still have student loans. Some may have maybe some from kids who are starting to enroll in college, and they are acquiring student loans. Right? So there's a lot of factors that go into the perspective student decision making, but but I think that financial pull, the question around value isn't just philosophical. It's actually pretty pragmatic. It's can I actually afford this program? And I'll pay for it if I can afford it, but but is it only if it's worth it. Right? So those are the questions that students are asking. So let's talk about what you told us in a little bit into this NEGAP research, study we did this spring. So a little bit about the study. We conducted a survey of the NEGAP membership February and March of this year. It was an online survey. It was a good mix between public and private, about fifty nine percent public, forty one percent private, nonprofit institutions. Over half were were under five thousand students, and so it's pretty reflective typically of of the graduate schools we talked to. And the program format, was was mixed. Right? There you could you could choose hybrid in person or online, which is why those numbers don't add up to one hundred percent. And if you think those numbers add up to one hundred percent, maybe you didn't wanna be a mathematician when you grew up. Right? So the reality is, it's a good mix. Hybrid, in person, online, they could select more than one. So what did you say about what your world is like as you work to recruit these prospective students? So let's talk about finding number one. And by the way, this full report, I should have mentioned this earlier, is on our website. You can download this report, and it's much more in-depth than what I'm sharing today. We just took kind of four highlights out of that report to talk and discuss today. So the first question was, what percentage of your admitted students do you estimate are seeking career advancement as a primary reason for pursuing a graduate degree? So we asked them, hey. What percentage? Well, sixty four percent of you all believe that eighty percent of them are career driven. What does that mean? Is it relevant? Well, last year, we asked the same question to the same people, and last year's group said that thirty seven percent of you thought that eighty percent of them were were primarily driven by a career advancement as a reason to pursue a graduate degree. So a pretty significant delta year over year. I think as we think back to the earlier statistics from the education dynamics in the RNL report, it feels like your what you're seeing now is being reflected in what students are saying. The career advancement is the dominant driver for graduate enrollment. So given those realities, how should campuses respond? And that's what some of these next questions get to. I do wanna just pause here though and ask a question in the chat, and I won't necessarily be monitoring the chat as we go. If there are questions there, we'll we'll address them at the end. But I would love for you, as a participant in this webinar, to answer this question. Have you seen a shift over the last twelve months from your prospective students in their motivations around career advancement? If you're seeing that shift, in what way are you seeing it? I was talking to graduate enrollment leaders, I think it was two months ago, at a conference, actually at the NAGAP conference, and shared some of this data. And and what I heard, from the audience during the session was what we're seeing is almost a question around a guarantee. Well, can I get this internship? Can I get this job? What what guarantees can you provide me? And, of course, you know, campuses can't guarantee anything related to this. And, you know, if we're just being candid, there's different levels of individuals who are who apply apply and get admitted into your programs. I mean, some some individuals you know, this person has high potential. They could be a CEO. Right? And that's those are rare, but those are, the one percent to two percent. Others, very qualified, but maybe not at that level. And so you have a a a diverse group of graduate students who are now asking for guarantees, and that's a that's a challenge. And so one of the pieces of feedback that one enrollment leader shared with me is the reality is we we get a lot of questions pretty early on about how are you gonna help advance my career? That the courses aren't enough, that that the format's not enough, but you gotta go above and beyond in delivering a customer service experience to me that that guarantees I'm successful. I'm investing a lot of money. I wanna return that investment. So some people are seeing, some, I guess, enrollment professionals are seeing those kinds of shifts, and that's how it's being manifested. Let's talk through finding number two. Students are drawn to connection in real world access. The question was, which career advancement opportunities do you believe would resonate with graduate students in the recruitment funnel? So you're talking with prospective graduate students every day. What do you think resonates? I'm actually gonna draw your eyes to the bottom two. Resume writing and interview prep, career assessments. These are what I would call the traditional career services resources. Right? They're important, but if you think about how much is shifting in this space, I think they're becoming less important. There's so much now that ChatGPT and Claude, for example, can do around resume writing, career assessments. I would not recommend you have anyone create a resume for you without looking it through because AI makes a lot of mistakes. But the reality is there's a lot of tools that are available that don't actually cost a lot of money that students can access without, candidly, any help from you. Right? It's it's almost completely separate from you. Right? But what's what what advancement opportunities that you believe resonate with prospective graduate students are alumni networking, internship or clinical experiences, networking with potential employ employee employers. Those three seem to be the most important. Now some programs, internships, clinical experiences are baked into the curriculum. You have to have these to even offer the degree. So we're not surprised in some cases that would the rate high, but alumni networking and networking with potential employers is high. If we tie that back to what we know from the earlier student research, we know that that's because career advancement is a primary driver for for our prospective graduate students. So these alumni networking opportunities, these employer networking opportunities, these course embedded projects, those are rising to the top in what students are looking for and what you're seeing as you speak with prospective students. I think this next finding is pretty telling too because this this now asks a question, what career advancement opportunities is your program investing in the most? And you can select up to three. I wanna call out a couple things. We know internships and clinical placements are, again, are required for a lot of programs. So you might not see you might not sit you know, select that choice because maybe you're not offering those types of programs. But that resume writing interview prep was the highest beyond clinical placements and internships despite the fact that you as a group believe that actually it's probably the least important, right, of of of all these. And so not surprisingly, we have, we have inter oops. I'm sorry. I jumped the had a little pop up pop up and, distract me. So internships, clinical placements, of course, because those are required, but resume writing interview prep was second highest. Then networking and alumni networking were the two options there where you believe that would resonate most. And then where investment goes, only a third have that investment. So there is a strong, institutions are strongest in those transactional areas of career services, internships, resume prep, but weaker in this relationship based pathways around mentorship and alumni networking even though these are central to how actually careers advance. And so eighty three percent say alumni we we believe alumni networking resonates with students, but only thirty two percent are actually investing in that in that resource. So another question for the group. I'm gonna give a nod to tight budgets and low staffing because those are typically the reasons there's a mismatch between what students want and what campuses can provide. Those two things feel like after twenty five years in higher ed, those two things seem pretty steady. Right? It's always tight budgets, always low staffing. What other institutional barriers keep your university from investing in connecting your prospective students to current students and alumni for those networking opportunities? I I worked primarily in the enrollment offices, two different institutions. My wife actually worked at the second institution I worked at in the alumni office. And so we had a a a close relationship between alumni and enrollment primarily because, you know, we were married. And so, you know, we we talked about it and found ways to collaborate. But I think one of the challenges that many campuses experience is it's the silo effect. Right? It's that alumni has their thing over here. Enrollment has their thing. You know, the alumni office is sensitive about we don't wanna get overasked alumni. You got an advancement. You might ask them for money, and then you have enrollment who's asking to send prospective students or to network with this potential current student or or admitted student. And so sometimes those structures that we have in higher ed actually don't support the students that we claim to support. The structure is almost more important, than supporting the students, which is which is too bad. But I think silos are a part. If I was looking at the chat, my guess is we might see something about silos. Let's jump to the fourth finding that we'll try to lay in this plane and apply a few things. Awareness does not necessarily translate into action in recruiting. So we asked you when recruiting graduate students, to what extent do you actively promote career advancement opportunities? So they're looking for this. Do you promote it? While fifty four percent of you promote often or very actively, while forty six percent promote sometimes rarely or not at all. So, again, to summarize, institutions believe that eighty percent of your students are career driven, yet thirty eight percent promote career advancement only sometimes rarely or not at all. So recognition does not automatically become action. Let's talk about this just for a minute. Why do we think this is? Why do we know this is important to students, but we don't promote actively? I think there's, like, some legitimate reasons and challenges as to why. First, I think data is hard to come by sometimes. Right? We don't know what percentage, especially at the graduate school level where there's not maybe a traditional, survey that we send out six months after. Do are our students successful? I think they are. We we know that kind of, I would say, intuitively. We we see some LinkedIn job announcements, but do we actually have a relationship with those students after they graduate? Do we feel comfortable following up? I think that's a full time job, and the reality is most folks aren't able to do that. Most campuses can't report on macro level data. And then I think sometimes it's hard to get even the micro stories. Right? We oftentimes, I think recruitment really lands on the three to four alumni we know. We have a case study for. We have the we have the picture that, you know, the campus photographer took and their little bio about what jobs they got and how successful they were. But even partnering with marketing to to keep those stories updated and and still relevant, I think, is is a difficult job. So I think this finding to me is not about a stubbornness by enrollment professionals. That's not what it is at all. It's more like the frustration. It's hard to do this. It's hard to translate this career advancement thing, the outcomes into recruitment, materials. And so I think that's the challenge, for a lot of campuses. So there's some of the research. Let's let's kinda land the plane on how to win it. How do we create the connection centered enrollment model? And that's that's a terminology and the phrase that we use here at PeopleGrove. I think to summarize, there's five persistent themes from the survey. We know career advancement is the dominant driver for graduate enrollment, with most institutions estimating that seventy to eighty percent, ninety percent are motivated by professional advancements. That that traditionally institutions invest most heavily in these traditional career services models like internships and career excuse me, resume writing opportunities, which which, again, reinforces experiential learning and job preparation. But there is a gap that exists really between the relationship career pathways of mentorship and alumni networking because those are highly valued by students, but, you know, comparatively, don't receive a lot of institutional investment. And so there is this disconnect that that is between awareness and action. Most institutions consistently, do not consistently, excuse me, promote career advancement during recruitment. And so when there is advancement, investment is often informal with many institutions lacking a clear budget allocation, and it really relies on staff effort, which often feels like one off efforts. So that's, in essence, what the theme, the five persistent themes of the entire survey, shows us. And, again, you can download that survey on our website. So we wanna talk about what we call the connection centered enrollment model. You've typically seen the enrollment funnel, which goes top down, and there's been a lot of different attempts over the years to to replace the funnel with something that's, I think, more, I would say, relevant and maybe real than the funnel seems controlled in some way. Right? There's walls on each side, and it goes in a particular way. That's not really how enrollment works. Right? It's very dynamic. And the the most, successful offices are those that can adapt to all these changes. But when we think about the enrollment model, we think about a circle. Right? That we're gonna lead as a marketing and enrollment effort, lead with career outcomes and alumni stories on first contact. Why do we wait until the end the end of the funnel, at at the admit stage, to lead with those pieces? Why not lead on the front end and begin to differentiate early on? There is a stat, and I'm I'm pulling it, from my memory, which is a little bit dangerous. But I think it was about fifteen years ago, there was a study done by EducationDynamics that said that the average graduate student applied to about one point two schools. One point two. So, really, it was down to you and inertia. It was you or status quo. So the question wasn't do they want to enroll in your program? It's do they want to enroll in a program? And if it was yes, it was yours. Right? Fast forward ten years, I think the data now is three or four years old, but the average now graduate student applies to over three. I think it's three and a half schools. So now it's status quo inertia, you and two other schools. The ones who win will lead with career outcomes and alumni stories from that first contact because you understand that's the most important piece of their decision making process. The other institutions who win will engage. They'll connect those prospects to alumni, maybe volunteers from alumni council, employers, mentors before they even apply. They'll offer those kinds of connections up because they understand that that could be the difference in that student completing the application, becoming admitted, and maybe losing interest and falling out. Yielding those students is just a continuation of this process. It's building community and belonging confidence in day one. The way you do that is what you show you showcase your outcomes at scale. You showcase your alumni. You showcase their success. You let them actually talk about it in an organic way that is relevant to those prospective students. You help them connect. And then once they enroll, you're reinforcing ROI with that data outcomes in that peer connection. A lot of our PeopleGrow partners utilize our platform, to not only connect those applicants and admits, but actually, once they become enrolled students, they then become that enrolled student who talks to those applicants and admits. They also become that enrolled student who connects with those alumni, and the circle goes on and on. So career connection is not just a program feature. It is a recruitment strategy, and the campuses who deploy it as such really enhance their opportunities to win. So what are three strategic recommendations, for graduate enrollment leaders? And these are, again, from the twenty twenty six report. I wanna call out just a couple pieces. And by the way, I think, I wanna actually ask a question. There's gonna be a poll question that pops up, because I think, if there if you're interested in learning more about how PeopleGrove can help you explore these ways to, I think, deploy some of these things at scale, we'd love to have a conversation with you whether that's exploring how engagement help can help you do that with enrollment, a demo of the platform, really informal demo just to kinda show you how our campus partners are experiencing success or even just a follow-up email with some information. Please feel free to respond to that poll that's popped up right now. Okay. So let's talk about three strategic recommendations for enrollment leaders. Number one, think about expanding relationship based career pathways. How can you strengthen mentorship, alumni engagement, and employer connections? Some of these things you can do outside of a PeopleGrow platform. It isn't that you have to work with us to do these things. But how can you activate alumni as recruitment assets, not just stories? Alumni are, again, your number one selling point. They're they're the proof of what you offer. So them telling their stories and doing that at scale is important. How can you activate them? There's oftentimes alumni panels at these events, employer spotlights. Those are great ways to do that. I'm sure many of you are doing that right now. But is there a small group of alumni who would who would volunteer to mentor maybe an admitted student or or a student kinda late stage enrollment process and have a couple conversations with that admitted student to help kinda reinforce that value proposition? Make career advancement visible in recruiting. Highlight those outcomes in every program page on every inquiry email. Include employer testimonials, alumni testimonials, open virtual employer sessions to prospective students. Make it very evident. Make it obvious that you're serious about this, that your institution can accomplish those things. And then build digitally accessible career ecosystems. I think one of the pieces of the research that we didn't really talk about today, but it is in the report, is that, again, most students expect these kinds of things to be virtual and online. And that makes sense. Right? With the majority of students pursuing hybrid and online programs, the flexibility of that means that if you're if they're pursuing an online degree yet everything we offer them is in person from a a mentorship in connection perspective, then we've we've kinda missed the mark. Right? And so extend those networking mentorship on demand, features to really, digital formats, scale career resources beyond those scheduled campus events, and and offer those preenrollment community access for admitted students. Those are some important pieces. So a couple thoughts as we think through action planning. A couple ways for you to assess, your career first and alumni marketing efforts. So four questions to ask yourself. Number one, are you are your career advancement opportunities clearly featured in all recruitment touch points, website, email, and events? That's that's a yes or no question. You can look at the look at three different examples, three websites, three pages in your website, three email sequences, and three events. Do career advancement opportunities, do they feature? If so, great. If not, there's there's a takeaway right now. Second, our alumni and mentorship assets actively showcased during recruitment and yield process. So think about the recruitment and yield processes you deploy on campus. Are alumni featured? Are there mentorship opportunities that are highlighted? Yes or no? If not, again, an opportunity. And, again, this is where I think PeopleGrove specifically offers a lot of value to our partners. Digital access. I referred to this in the last slide. Are networking mentorship career resources available fully online on demand formats, or do I have to go to an event on your campus to access some of these resources? Again, some low hanging fruit there for you to consider. And then consistency in the report. Do you consistently promote career advancement in recruiting, or does it happen only sometimes? The reality is that programs answer yes to all four of these are the ones that are gonna win in a competitive graduate recruitment landscape. Last slide. A couple key takeaways, what to bring back to your team. Listen. Career driven enrollment is the baseline. It's not a trend. My guess is that if we continue to survey prospective graduate students over the next five to ten years, at some point, one hundred percent will be motivated by career mobility or career outcomes. And so that that trend is going up, and it but it is it is table stakes for our prospective graduate students. The the biggest opportunity for you, the gap, isn't that offer to promote gap. Most programs have strong career assets that are simply not visible in recruiting, and so find them, chase them down. One more story, one more statistic on your site might be that thing that that that moves the needle for that prospective student. The relationship based pathways, alumni mentorship, they have the strongest student resonance and the weakest institutional investment. Where are you spending time, money, energy, effort right now that is not most important to students? Can you realign that spend, that investment to the things that matter most to students? I wanna pause before I get to the fourth because I think if we think back through our personal largest purchases we've ever made, more than likely that purchase was informed in a relationship, whether it was a car you bought, a school that your son or daughter attended, whatever it might be, more than likely, someone spoke into that buying process and it was someone you trusted. So part of what we're we're positing right here is is there an opportunity for you to connect that prospective student with the relationship that ultimately, is instrumental in helping them choose your institution? Again, your alumni are perfectly positioned to do that. And then recognition without action isn't enough. Every institution knows that career advancement matters and are not promoting it consistently enough in recruiting. And so how can you begin that process today? Those are just four key takeaways to bring back to your team. Again, the whole, research study is available online for for download. I'd encourage you to do that. And, that is the end of the presentation. I think we have a few minutes left for questions, and so I will pop into the chat to see if there are any questions. I know Liz is here as well. Alright. I don't see any big questions. So with that in mind, I will honor your time. Thank you so much for joining us today. It's been an absolute joy. We look forward to working and speaking with many of you in the days ahead, and wish you the best as you head into another busy season of recruiting. Thanks so much, everybody. Have a great day.