What makes schools grow?
Two recent reports from the National Student Clearing House packed a one, two punch for education marketers. Total enrollment and both retention and persistence were down.[i] These reports mean that about 160,000 fewer students were in school last spring. Although the FAFSA application[ii] data is not the best measure of enrollment, it is a good proxy, relatively recent and available by school. The Q2 data says that not all schools are affected equally. In fact some are able to grow in this tough environment. The question is how do they do it? Let’s look at the top ten fastest growing schools and identify factors that might be driving their growth.
Table 1. FAFSA Applications
Second Quarter 2014/15 Award Year Data
Ten Schools that Added the Most Applications
School School Type Total Change y/y growth
SOUTHERN NEW HAMPSHIRE UNIVERSITY Private 43,408 17,748 69%
GRAND CANYON UNIVERSITY Proprietary 53,171 7,330 16%
WESTERN GOVERNORS UNIVERSITY Private 38,691 5,949 18%
MISSISSIPPI GULF CST CLG-PERKINSTON Public 8,390 5,713 213%
CALIF STATE UNIV-NORTHRIDGE Public 66,863 5,330 9%
ARIZONA STATE UNIV (ALL CAMPUSES) Public 92,158 5,092 6%
GEORGIA REGENTS UNIVERSITY Public 9,275 4,885 111%
UNIVERSITY OF NORTH GEORGIA Public 15,968 4,433 38%
LIBERTY UNIVERSITY Private 75,687 4,381 6%
BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY-IDAHO Private 21,537 4,333 25%
CHAMBERLAIN COLLEGE OF NURSING Proprietary 21,257 4,198 25%
Table 1 lists the 10 schools that added the most applications year to date through the second quarter on a year over year basis. Several things stand out to me as I look at the this list.
Southern New Hampshire’s and ASU’s innovation and investment is paying off. They are full service Universities serving a variety of student segments with a broad array of programs. Although the FAFSA data doesn’t say it, I bet most of this growth has come from online.
Although Grand Canyon is following a similar strategy, there are two major differences with theirs. First, it has already seen the burst in growth from online that SNHU and ASU are enjoying. Second, their strategy has an important source of competitive advantage. They are positioned as providing Christian education with the affordability of a public school. This positions them right between the high priced private Christian, primarily catholic schools and the state schools with little to no religious education. They have very little competition if any in this position.
Evidence that this strategy is sound can be found in Liberty University’s growth. The statement on their website is “The largest Christian University in the world with over 230 online programs.” Their tag line is “Training Champions for Christ.” Although their targeting and positioning is slightly different from Grand Canyon’s is it similarly effective.
Western Governors also has a specific, focused strategy that is driving their growth. Their tagline is, “online, accelerated, affordable, accredited. This suggests to me that they just as Southwest focused on frugal travelers with a no frills service that gets you there quickly, WGU is focused on frugal working adults who want to get their degree quickly.
Chamberlain’s story is easy to tell. They are tightly focused on perhaps the fastest growing segment in the economy, health care.
While it is harder to discern what is going on with the public schools, there is evidence that a focused strategy is driving their growth as well. Georgia Regents is a medical school and University of North Georgia has a large military population.
This is starting to sound repetitive. Schools that focus on a specific segment and then serve them better then the alternatives with innovation, affordability and the right programs are growing. Certain faiths, the military, nursing and some segments of working adults might be taken, but there are plenty of other opportunities for schools to target specific segments of students and position themselves to serve them better than anyone else.
[i] Persistence is a measure of students’ propensity to stay in school even though they might transfer to another school. Retention is a measure of students staying at a particular school.
[ii] https://studentaid.ed.gov/about/data-center/student/application-volume
