Why Enrollment Should Be a Shared Institutional Priority
The future hangs in the balance as enrollment management at your institution spirals into chaos.
Siloed growth initiatives are relegated solely to marketing departments, which bear the full weight of institutional pressure yet lack the authority to grow enrollment throughout the entire funnel. Overburdened marketing teams bombard campus stakeholders with complex, opaque data and demand astronomical digital marketing budgets that few truly understand. It’s just easier to say no.
Meanwhile, admissions teams and faculty pursue divergent, often conflicting strategies to recruit students, each operating in isolation with little coordination.
Student success teams, critical to retaining and supporting new enrollees, are entirely excluded from strategic discussions, leaving vital continuity efforts out of the equation.
As these disconnected forces collide, the institution risks a catastrophic decline in enrollment, eroding its mission and future viability — an unfolding crisis in which collaboration is abandoned and the system teeters on the brink of collapse.
This isn’t the latest thriller from your favorite streaming platform but instead a worst-case scenario of what some higher education institutions face today. The only one who can save them? You, the university president.
The President as Chief Enrollment Champion
It would be easy to assume that enrollment success and growth are mandates of marketing, admissions, and student support teams, as they focus on enrollment key performance indicators (KPIs), customer relationship management (CRM) systems, return on investment (ROI), lead-to-enrollment (L2E), and other such tools and metrics. For many university presidents and leaders, the details of enrollment management success are often isolated from broader priorities, such as mission, strategy, and resource allocation, even if enrollment growth is mentioned in the strategic plan.
Enrollment success is the lifeblood of institutional stability. The president and provost set the tone, vision, and degree of urgency around enrollment success initiatives. Without executive involvement, schools and departments compete instead of collaborating, pitting enrollment management teams against each other in a crowded market. This approach can lead to silos, missed opportunities, and uneven accountability. At worst, this approach leads to finger-pointing and a cycle of frustration and disappointment across the president’s cabinet.
While marketing and enrollment management teams are the frontline drivers of enrollment strategies, the ultimate success of growth and student satisfaction hinges on the strategic leadership of university presidents and provosts. Effective leadership necessitates active engagement and oversight to ensure that these efforts are successfully integrated into the university’s priority initiatives.
Strong executive involvement signals holistic institutional commitment. This helps break down barriers that can impede enrollment success and diminish the student enrollment experience, such as disconnects between the operational teams supporting enrollment management and the academic teams safeguarding quality, reputation, and ranking.
Here, we discuss why the university president must champion ambitious and responsible enrollment. We explore how executive leadership can ensure that enrollment efforts are appropriately resourced; aligned under a single vision; and integrated across governance, academics, operations, and administration to achieve the most compelling metrics: exceptional student experiences and outcomes.
Ensuring Adequate Resources and Support
One of the key ways presidents and provosts can bolster enrollment success is by ensuring that marketing, recruitment, and student success teams are sufficiently resourced. No one expects executive leadership to be in the weeds of enrollment management operations.
However, having a working understanding of digital marketing and how it differs from event-driven marketing (for example, enrollment fairs or conferences) can be helpful during budget allocation conversations for marketing campaigns.
Equally important is ensuring that faculty and enrollment management staff have access to training and development opportunities to stay current in a rapidly evolving field, which is full of new tools and approaches, as well as a diverse ecosystem of third-party support opportunities. Faculty and staff are on the front line of student engagement. Presidents and provosts can cultivate an environment of continuous professional development focused on inclusive teaching, technology integration, and student engagement strategies. Well-supported faculty and staff are more effective in creating positive learning environments that attract and retain students.
Finally, presidents and provosts should invest in a process for new academic program development that assesses whether programs meet market demand and provide graduates with specific professional outcomes.
When components such as the above are underfunded, efforts to increase enrollment and enhance the student experience are likely to falter over time.
Leveraging Modern Data and Analytics
Are enrollment management staff using outdated and siloed technology systems that require significant manual work to develop basic reporting and analysis? This is a critical area for institutional-level investment and support.
Data-driven decision-making is essential in today’s competitive enrollment environment. Presidents and provosts should champion investments in analytics platforms that provide insights into prospective students’ behaviors and indicate their likelihood of enrollment, academic performance, and postgraduation outcomes.
Using this data, enrollment management and academic leadership can tailor recruitment strategies, optimize academic pathways, and identify at-risk students early, enabling targeted interventions that improve retention and graduation rates.
Championing a Student-Centric Institutional Culture
At the heart of enrollment and student success is a culture that prioritizes the student journey, from initial inquiry through graduation and beyond. While the traditional student journey may be well understood, that of the adult and online learner may require special analysis and support.
Presidents and provosts must champion this student-first culture by fostering collaboration across academic units, student services, and administrative departments, ensuring that every touchpoint enhances the student experience for all types of learners.
Establish Intentional Governance for Enrollment Success With Shared Performance Metrics
Enrollment growth and student success are inherently cross-functional. Presidents and provosts can foster collaboration by establishing formal structures with the authority to act, such as integrated enrollment planning committees or task forces that bring together academic leadership, student affairs, admissions, marketing, and technology teams. This helps align cabinet-level leaders around a unified enrollment vision.
These cross-functional collaborations ensure that strategies are coordinated, data-driven, and responsive to emerging trends. For example, aligning ambitious enrollment growth plans with course section scheduling and staffing planning ensures responsible outcomes, rather than having faculty leaders scramble at the last minute to find instructors to cover overfull admitted-student course sections.
To ensure sustained focus, presidents and provosts should embed enrollment growth and student experience metrics into the university’s performance evaluations. This reinforces their importance across the institution and encourages all units to align their priorities accordingly. Shared accountability metrics should measure success from inquiry through graduation and be accessible to all teams through executive dashboards and regular reviews.
Promoting Innovation and Building External Partnerships
Staying competitive requires ongoing innovation and connection to the broader marketplace. Presidential and provost leadership should support the development of flexible academic pathways, such as online or hybrid programs, competency-based education, and microcredentials that appeal to diverse student populations.
Partnerships with industry, community organizations, and alumni can keep academic programs and curricula relevant, expand opportunities for students, and enhance the institution’s reputation. Presidents and provosts can lead efforts to establish these collaborations, opening pathways for internships, research projects, and employment while keeping a finger on the pulse of evolving industry and workforce skills needs and gaps.
Demonstrating Visible Leadership and Accountability
Finally, effective presidents and provosts demonstrate visible leadership by regularly communicating progress, celebrating successes, and holding units accountable for results. Transparent reporting on enrollment trends, student satisfaction, and graduation rates fosters a culture of continuous improvement. Training everyone to understand the basic KPIs that connect marketing, admissions, academics, and retention ensures that all are speaking the same language and working in partnership.
Key Takeaways
The strategic leadership of university presidents and provosts is essential for sustainable enrollment growth and a high-quality student enrollment experience. By actively championing student-centric culture, ensuring appropriate resourcing, fostering aligned governance and collaboration, leveraging data, and embedding metrics into institutional goals, executive leaders can create an environment where enrollment strategies are not only initiatives but also integral components of the university’s shared mission, leading to higher retention; better outcomes; and a stronger, more competitive institution.
Increase Leadership’s Role in Your Enrollment Experience
Archer Education partners with institutional leaders and admissions, marketing, and strategy teams to help them overcome enrollment challenges. Using tech-enabled, personalized enrollment marketing and management solutions, we can help your institution align its teams and create a strategic roadmap to sustainable growth.
Click here to request more information about Archer’s full-funnel engagement strategies and digital student experience technology.
