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  • My Posts from Jarche’s Personal Knowledge Mastery Workshop – Teaching in Higher Ed

    My Posts from Jarche’s Personal Knowledge Mastery Workshop – Teaching in Higher Ed

    As part of participating in Harold Jarche’s Personal Knowledge Mastery workshop, we were given lessons and activities three times a week for six weeks. I had been blogging perhaps once or twice a year for a while now, never feeling like I had found my voice with those posts. Doing that much sharing via the written form seemed daunting, yet I had a strong suspicion that the discipline would pay off. I was not wrong at all on that front.

    Here are the various posts I wrote, along with an overview of the concepts explored in each one.

    01 – Getting Curious About Network Mapping

    Great insight lies in visualizing and analyzing the relationships that surround our work and learning. Networks are fundamental lenses for how we connect, influence, and grow.

    Key themes:

    • Network mapping and the difference between strong ties and weak ties (and how both kinds are essential to a thriving learning network).
    • The habit of giving first and nurturing relationships as network fuel.

    Quote:

    “Most intuitive notions of the “strength” of an interpersonal tie should be satisfied by the following definition: the strength of a tie is a (probably linear) combination of the amount of time, the emotional intensity, the intimacy (mutual confiding), and the reciprocal services which characterize the tie.” — Mark S. Granovetter (1973)

    Both strong and weak ties are vital to our learning.

    02 – Let’s Get Curious

    Allowing ourselves to wonder opens up our capacity to learn, connect, and co-create more deeply.

    Key themes:

    • Sparking curiosity means we tap into a power well beyond certainty (as illustrated so well through this beloved clip from Ted Lasso).
    • The world of work is increasingly complex; the very skills that matter now include creativity, imagination, empathy and curiosity.

    Quote:

    “The skills required to live in a world dominated by complex and non-routine work requires — creativity, imagination, empathy, and curiosity.” — Harold Jarche

    Stay curious, widen our lenses, and lean into the discomfort of not-knowing as the gateway to meaningful growth.

    03 – Connecting Birds, Grief, and Communities

    Grief, networks, and belonging are deeply intertwined in shaping the places where we learn, grow, and support one another.

    Key themes:

    • The isolation that grief can bring creates a powerful invitation to community when we’re willing to show up with vulnerably.
    • Communities (using Mastodon) and how we sustain communities when the baskets we placed our eggs in (platforms, networks) change or disappear and what that means for our learning ecosystems (I didn’t write about this in the post, but many say the answer is federated networks)

    Quote:

    “If we put our metaphorical eggs in one basket and something happens to that basket, there’s no putting Humpty Dumpty back together again.” — Bonni Stachowiak

    Invest in communities that embrace complexity, invite connection across networks, and hold space for both loss and belonging.

    04 – Engaging with Intentionality and Curiosity

    As I reflected on intentionality this week, I realized that showing up with purpose—not just going through the motions—significantly shapes what I notice, how I respond, and who I become in the process.

    Key themes:

    • Intentionality helps clarify why something matters and helps resist the pull of the urgent and focus on the important.
    • Analyzing who Harold Jarche follows on Mastodon offered an opportunity to reflect on my aims for the network.

    Quote:

    “Show up for the work.” — Bonni Stachowiak

    Jarche also gave some examples of the practices on which PKM is built upon, such as narrating our work and sharing half-baked ideas.

    05 – Scooping Up Adulting and the Benefits of Being Curious

    Moving through life’s messy, liminal spaces requires curiosity, humility, and movement.

    Key themes:

    • The relevance of the Cynefin framework in helping us learn in the complex domain.
    • The value of formal and informal communities and open knowledge and formal knowledge networks as our learning ecology.
    • Curiosity as a pathway through liminality: staying attuned to what is becoming.

    Quote:

    “In a crisis it is important to act but even more important to learn as we take action.” — Harold Jarche

    This Learning in the Complex Domain post by Jarche is likely the most important one for me to revisit from all that I read throughout these six weeks, as I’m still struggling to understand the Cynefin framework.

    06 – Why Isn’t RSS More Popular By Now?

    It’s still wild to me that RSS isn’t as common as navigating websites.

    Key themes:

    • A well-curated set of feeds via an RSS aggregator turns passive reading into active sense-making.
    • RSS remains undervalued in the age of algorithmic feeds, yet when we control our own feed-ecosystem we reclaim agency over where our attention goes.

    Quote:

    However, I’m picky about my reading experience and have gotten particular about being able to read via Unread on my iPad and navigate everything with just one thumb. — Bonni Stachowiak

    I was also glad to learn from Jarche about subscribing to Mastodon feeds and hashtags via RSS, though I haven’t experimented with that much, yet, since the Tapestry app does a lot of that for me.

    07 – Can You Keep a Secret?

    Understanding the frameworks behind our media tools unlocks far deeper insights than simply reacting to what comes our way.

    Key themes:

    • Exploring Marshall McLuhan’s Media Tetrad helped me see every medium as doing four things: extending, retrieving, obsolescing, and reversing.
    • Applying the tetrad to the smartphone made visible how it extends access and connection, obsolesces older single-purpose devices, retrieves communal spaces, and reverses into distraction and isolation when pushed too far.
    • This kind of analysis invites me to pause, notice, and interrogate the media I use daily rather than assume they’re neutral or benign.

    Quote:

    “The reversals are already evident — corporate surveillance, online orthodoxy, life as reality TV, constant outrage to sell advertising. The tetrads give us a common framework to start addressing the effects of social media pushed to their limits. Once you see these effects, you cannot un-see them.” — Harold Jarche

    Analyzing these media tools heps us choose how to engage with them, rather than passively being shaped by them.

    08 – Fake News Brings Me to an Unusual Topic for this Blog

    It is critical to engage in ways to increase the likelihood of us being able to identify fake news. .

    Key themes:

    • The articulation of four primary types of fake news — propaganda, disinformation, conspiracy theory, and clickbait — as outlined by Harold Jarche.
    • How propaganda intentionally spreads ideas to influence or damage an opposing cause; disinformation deliberately plants falsehoods to obscure truth.
    • The persistence of conspiracy theories despite lacking evidence, and how clickbait uses sensationalism to manipulate attention and action.

    Quote:

    Misinformation implies that the problem is one of facts, and it’s never been a problem of facts. It’s a problem of people wanting to receive information that makes them feel comfortable and happy. – Renée DiResta, as quoted in El País

    Our identities get so wrapped up in what we believe, it can be so challenging to consider how we might be part of combating fake news in our various contexts.

    09 – From Half-Baked to Well-Done: Building a Sensemaking Practice

    It can be so generative to share thoughts before they’re polished and this openness fuels learning, creativity, and connection.

    Key themes:

    • Half-baked ideas make space for iteration: they invite others in, rather than presenting a finished product that shuts conversation down.
    • Sharing early thinking helps me stay curious, flexible, and less attached to being “right.”
    • When we release ideas in progress, we give our networks something to build on, remix, or nudge in new directions.

    Quote:

    If you don’t make sense of the world for yourself, then you’re stuck with someone else’s world view. — Harold Jarche

    Let ideas be emergent rather than complete so that learning can unfold collaboratively.

    10 – The Experts in My Neighborhood

    Jarche introduces us to various PKM roles for this topic.

    Key themes:

    • Our learning ecosystems benefits from curating a diverse set of experts to help navigate complexity.
    • Through my PKMastery practices (bookmarking, sense-making, sharing), I can engage with expert ideas over time.
    • The real value comes not from one “expert,” but from a network of thinkers whose disagreements and different perspectives stretch our own thinking.

    Quote:

    “Writing every day is less about becoming someone who writes, and more about becoming someone who thinks.” — JA Westenberg

    The value of PKM is in curating many voices, cultivating a “neighborhood” of experts to follow, listen, question, and to build a rich, networked sensemaking practice rather than rely on single voices alone.

    11 – Network Weaving as an Antidote to Imposter Syndrome

    Turning toward connection can be one of our strongest antidotes to imposter syndrome.

    Key themes:

    • Network weaving reframes “Do I belong here?” to “Who can I bring together?” — shifting the energy from proving my worth to creating belonging.
    • Connecting people, ideas, and stories becomes my purpose: not to be the smartest person in the room, but to serve as a bridge, curator, and connector.
    • Vulnerability matters: acknowledging I don’t have all the answers, but inviting others to learn out loud anyway.

    Quote:

    A triangle exists between three people in a social network. An “open triangle” exists where one person knows two other people who are not yet connected to each other — X knows Y and X knows Z, but Y and Z do not know each other. A network weaver (X) may see an opportunity or possibility from making a connection between two currently unconnected people (Y and Z). A “closed triangle” exists when all three people know each other: X-Y, X-Z, Y-Z. – Valdis Krebs

    This reminder feels like fuel for the next leg of my PKMastery journey — leaning into weaving networks as practice not just for growth, but for belonging and shared strength.

    12 – I Can See Clearly Now The Frogs Are Here

    Growth often comes not from jumping to answers but from staying curious, experimenting, and traveling alongside fellow learners.

    Key themes:

    • Fellow seekers offer empathy, solidarity, and space to wrestle with ideas, often more supportively than experts alone.
    • As described by Harold Jarche, combining curiosity with connection can help transform seekers into knowledge catalysts, nodes in our networks who learn, curate, and contribute meaningfully.
    • Innovation and insight often emerge through playful experiments (half-baked ideas) from the beginner’s mind held by seekers.

    Quote:

    Your fellow seekers can help you on a journey to become a Knowledge Catalyst, which takes parts of the Expert and the Connector and combines them to be a highly contributing node in a knowledge network. We can become knowledge catalysts — filtering, curating, thinking, and doing — in conjunction with others. Only in collaboration with others will we understand complex issues and create new ways of addressing them. As expertise is getting eroded in many fields, innovation across disciplines is increasing. We need to reach across these disciplines. — Harold Jarche

    Seeking is not a sign of weakness, but as a source of collective curiosity, connection, and growth.

    13 – What Happens When We Start Making the Work Visible

    There is strength in making invisible processes and decisions visible.

    Key themes:

    • When we narrate our work, we open up pathways for real-time collaboration and shared learning rather than one-way transmission.
    • Narration allows for experimentation: sharing work in progress de-commodifies knowledge.
    • It shifts the emphasis from polished deliverables to ongoing learning — not just focusing on the final product, but how we got there, and what we learned along the way.

    Quote:

    The key is to narrate your work so it is shareable, but to use discernment in sharing with others. Also, to be good at narrating your work, you have to practice. — Harold Jarche

    Narrating our work offers a window into our process of learning.

    14 – No Frogs Were Actually Harmed in Describing Systems Thinking

    As I reflected on systems thinking, I found myself returning to how challenging (and how necessary) it is to see beyond events and into the structures that shape them. Revisiting Senge’s The Fifth Discipline reminded me just how often we can slip into reacting instead of zooming out to notice patterns.

    Key themes:

    • How easy it is to fall into organizational “learning disabilities,” like assuming I am my position rather than part of a larger whole.
    • Chris Argyris describes the phenomenon of “skilled incompetence,” where groups of individuals who get super good at making sure to prevent themselves from actually learning.
    • The invitation to practice systems thinking collectively, not just individually.

    Quote:

    You can only understand the system of a rainstorm by contemplating the whole, not any individual part of the pattern. – Peter Senge

    Sitting with this reminded me that lest we fall victim to skilled incompetence, we need to continually nurture the humility and curiosity to keep looking wider, deeper, and more generously at the forces shaping our organizations and our work.

    15 – Asking as a Way of Knowing: PKM Embodied By Bryan Alexander

    The potential for adding value through PKM helps make our contributions much richer when paired with curiosity, generosity, and intentional sharing.

    Key themes:

    • PKM isn’t just about what I read or bookmark — it’s about how I transform that input through asking questions, sense-making, and offering what I learn into shared spaces.
    • Public sharing (through podcasting, writing, conversation) complements private learning — the two together deepen meaning and foster connection.
    • “Adding value” can look like holding space for others’ learning — asking curious questions, offering resources, and modeling openness rather than trying to prove expertise.

    Quotes:

    Every person possessing knowledge is more than willing to communicate what he knows to any serious, sincere person who asks. The question never makes the asker seem foolish or childish — rather, to ask is to command the respect of the other person who in the act of helping you is drawn closer to you, _likes you better_ and will go out of his way on any future occasion to share his knowledge with you. — Maria Popova

    It was great getting to see this all in action, through a dinnertime conversation with Bryan Alexander.

    16 – The Gap

    Fear and self-doubt often keeps us from beginning and from recognizing how much value we hold even before we “arrive.”

    Key themes:

    • There’s often a gap between where we are now and where we want to be — but that gap doesn’t diminish the worth of what we’re already learning and creating.
    • True learning requires embracing vulnerability: pursuing new practices.
    • Public sharing matters: showing work in progress reminds me (and others) that learning is ongoing and that we don’t need to wait until we’re “expert enough” to contribute something meaningful.

    Quote:

    “The biggest gap is between those doing nothing and those doing something.” — Tim Kastelle

    Commit to practice, to sharing, and to staying open to becoming someone who learns out loud.

    17 – Walking With PKM: Reflections From Six Weeks of Practice

    Stepping away from busyness — even just to wander — creates the space for real insight and creative thinking.

    Key themes:

    • Walking becomes a practice of reflection: giving my brain space to wander and surface ideas.
    • Learning isn’t always quantifiable.
    • The value in a consistent PKM practice allows me to my own capacity to notice, wonder, and ultimately learn.

    Quote:

    Creative work is not routine work done faster. It’s a whole different way of work, and a critical part is letting the brain do what it does best — come up with ideas. Without time for reflection, most of those ideas will get buried in the detritus of modern workplace busyness. — Harold Jarche

    PKM is part discipline, part letting go of the busyness, and part listening to whatever emerges.

    18 – The Last Step Toward the First Step

    “Mastery” is not an endpoint, but a habitual practice of learning, sharing, and growing.

    Key themes:

    • Value lies not in perfection, but in consistency: the small acts of sharing half-baked ideas and imperfect work.
    • What I do contributes to a larger learning ecosystem: by sharing what I learn, I contribute to collective sense-making and encourage others to do the same.

    Quote:

    It is not being in the know, but rather having to translate between different groups so that you develop gifts of analogy, metaphor, and communicating between people who have difficulty communicating to each other. — Ronald Burt

    The real power of PKM shows up not at the end, but in the consistent rhythm of seeking, sensing, and sharing.

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  • Most Americans Believe in the Effectiveness of Childhood Vaccines — But There’s a Catch – The 74

    Most Americans Believe in the Effectiveness of Childhood Vaccines — But There’s a Catch – The 74


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    This story was originally reported by Barbara Rodriguez of The 19th. Meet Barbara and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy.

    Although a majority of Americans are confident that childhood vaccines are highly effective against serious illness, Republicans’ trust in vaccine safety and support of school requirements is dropping, according to new polling from Pew Research Center.

    Sixty-three percent of Americans are extremely or very confident in the effectiveness of childhood vaccines, according to a survey published Tuesday. But Democrats and those who lean Democrat are much more likely than Republicans and Republican-leaners to hold that view — 80 percent versus 48 percent.

    And while the majority of Americans believe in the safety of vaccines — 53 percent believe childhood vaccines have been tested enough for safety and 51 percent agree that the childhood vaccine schedule is safe — there is significantly more uncertainty among Republicans. For Democrats, 74 percent show high confidence in the safety testing of vaccines and 71 percent believe the childhood vaccine schedule is safe. For Republicans, those numbers are 35 percent and 32 percent, respectively.

    “Both things can be true, that people believe in vaccines’ effectiveness overall and the confidence is a little softer on safety,” said Eileen Yam, director of science and society research at Pew who was part of the primary research team. “But writ large, that’s been pretty stable to see confidence in vaccines. But at the same time, when it comes to things like school requirements, or ‘telling me what to do,’ or requiring me to do something — that’s where you see the bristling on the Republican side.”

    Americans have become more skeptical of requiring that children get the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine to attend public school. Sixty-nine percent support it, a decline from 82 percent in 2016. Most of the drop can be attributed to Republicans — with just 52 percent believing in the requirement, compared to 79 percent in 2016. For Democrats, that support was 83 percent in 2016 and actually climbed to 86 percent this year.

    This all comes amid a major measles outbreak in the United States that started in Texas and has spread to multiple other states. And while students are required in each state to get the MMR vaccine to attend public school, officials in Florida have indicated a willingness to drop that requirement.

    Pew found broad and consistent support for the MMR vaccine: 84 percent believe its benefits outweigh its risks (of which there are minor side effects). When Pew first started asking about this in 2016, support was at 88 percent. Yam said the findings show some agreement on the benefits of the MMR vaccine. While 92 percent of Democrats believe the benefits of the vaccine outweigh the risks, 78 percent of Republicans do, too.

    Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, an anti-vaccine activist who has revamped a key panel that helps decide vaccine policy, has questioned the safety of the MMR vaccine without evidence. He has the backing of President Donald Trump, who has perpetuated misinformation this year about childhood vaccines.

    Pew surveyed parents and found a majority with minor children (57 percent) say they are extremely or very confident in childhood vaccines’ effectiveness. Republican parents are far less likely than Democratic parents to have that confidence (45 percent versus 71 percent), belief in safety testing (29 percent versus 63 percent) and the childhood vaccine schedule (27 percent versus 58 percent).

    Democrats are more likely than Republicans to say medical scientists should have a major role in decisions about childhood vaccines (85 percent vs. 62 percent). There are more partisan fissures on the role of parents: 71 percent of Republicans say that parents of young children should have a major role in policy decisions about childhood vaccines. For Democrats, it’s 46 percent.

    “That speaks to just a divergence in trust in science that we’ve been tracking since before the pandemic,” Yam said. “Just Republicans since the pandemic, their confidence in scientists, the way they look at the CDC has just dropped off much more than on the Democrat side. Democrats have had fairly stable views on scientists and on the CDC, in contrast to Republicans.”

    Pew also examined how recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations have influenced Americans’ decisions around getting a COVID-19 shot. The agency recently agreed with Kennedy’s new vaccine panel to stop recommending the shot to everyone and to instead leave the choice up to people. Forty-four percent say they have heard nothing at all about the CDC’s changes to recommendations. Among those who have heard at least a little, 63 percent say it has had no influence on whether they got an updated vaccine.

    “The one big takeaway there is that policies really can’t influence behaviors if people haven’t heard about the policies or the recommendations,” Yam said. “And in this case, a lot of people haven’t heard about it, and some when they have, their minds were made up. They’ve already kind of decided, and it really didn’t influence their behavior one way or the other.”

    This story was originally published on The 19th.


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  • Budget 2025 for universities and students

    Budget 2025 for universities and students

    There’s not generally a lot for higher education in the chancellor of the exchequer’s annual budget statement – but this year marks an exception.

    We were expecting further details of two policies first announced earlier this year – a levy on international student fee income, and the promised return of maintenance grants for students from deprived backgrounds studying priority subjects.

    Though the return of grants (even in a very limited form) was welcomed by students and the sector, the levy has been the focus of sustained lobbying from providers struggling to balance their books with the one area of income that has sustainably grown over recent years.

    The budget also provides a few other unwelcome surprises – thresholds and interest rates have been frozen for plan 2 loan repayments (those made by the majority of recent graduates) until 2029-30, meaning that graduates will pay more. A tweak to pension salary sacrifices may make it even more expensive for some providers to employ staff. And the looming threat of a mammoth schools SEND debt being covered by departmental expenditure means that every area of education spending is likely to face pressure from 2027-28.

    But it is the fee uplift for the next two years that is likely to get most attention.

    Fee uplift

    The higher rate for tuition fee loan caps will rise, as announced, in both of the next two academic years – to £9,790 a year in 2026-27 and up to £10,050 for 2027-28, with other statutory caps (including for classroom-based foundation years) rising in lockstep. These are expected to be the final two rises that apply to all providers – primary legislation will be laid that means future fee cap rises will be linked to the Office for Students’ revised teaching excellence framework.

    It should also be noted that these are per year amounts, not the per credit amounts that the (as-yet unenacted) Lifelong Learning (Higher Education Fee Limits) Act allows the government to set – this is interesting as the entire funding system is due to move to a per credit basis (to allow for the Lifelong Learning Entitlement’s modular approach to study) from 2026.

    While this decision has been widely trailed by the minister as evidence of her department addressing the financial problems faced by universities, it should be noted that both increases are (as usual) by OBR projections of interest rates which may differ from the actual interest rates. The rise of what is widely seen as the default tuition fee to north of £10,000 in 2027-28 is likely to trigger widespread commentary – if you believe the stories from the coalition years the original £9,000 figure was chosen precisely to avoid being above what was seen as a psychologically important £10,000 sticker price.

    Here’s how that breaks down for all of the common fee caps:

    Fee caps 2025-26 2026-27 2027-28
    With TEF and APP (FT) £9,535 £9,790 £10,050
    With TEF and APP (PT) £7,145 £7,335 £7,530
    With TEF and APP (Accel) £11,440 £11,750 £12,060
    With APP only (FT) £9,275 £9,525 £9,780
    With TEF only (FT £6,355 £6,525 £6,695
    With neither TEF nor APP (FT) £6,185 £6,350 £6,520

    International student levy

    We were expecting details of the international fee levy first announced in the immigration white paper – and these arrived via a consultation with a closing date of 18 February 2026.

    The proposal is that from August 2028, the levy on international student fee income has been set at a flat rate of £925 per student (rising by inflation in following years), with the first 220 students entirely exempt. It is estimated that this will generate around £445m in 2028-29, equivalent to around 4.5 per cent of total international fee income across the sector. However DfE estimates that the sector would lose £270m for that year (equivalent to around 3 per cent of international fee income), suggesting that more than half of the cost of the levy would be passed on to students, given that the same estimates suggest 14,000 less students would come to the UK to study in that year.

    Importantly, “international students” are defined as those who are registered for study during the year in question (excepting those who leave during the contractually protected first two weeks of study). Transnational provision, and provision at further education colleges below level 3, will not be in scope. And the system will be run by the Office for Students – there’s even an option to pay the levy quarterly by direct debit.

    The impact analysis notes that the levy will – unsurprisingly – reduce the ability of the sector to cross subsidise domestic teaching or research from international fee, but we are reminded that this is before accounting for any reinvestment of the levy in the sector, and before accounting for the rise in domestic tuition fees (though as fee rises are linked, nominally at least, to inflation that last one is a little disingenuous.

    The effect of a flat fee, as opposed to the blanket 6 per cent of international fee income levy first proposed in the annex to the immigration white paper, is to decrease the impact on providers who are able to charge higher fees per student. The “free” 220 students will keep many smaller specialist providers out of the levy entirely, meaning that proportionally more costs will fall on providers who attract large numbers of international students with lower fees.

     

    [Full screen]

    While the University of Suffolk will lose nearly 14 per cent of international fee income to the levy(on 750 students) and the University of Huddersfield will lose 9.3 per cent, the University of Cambridge will lose just 2.69 per cent (on 7,315 students). The practical impact of the proposal will be that providers that are more likely to be drawing substantial parts of their operating income from international fees (and those more likely to be enrolling students with disadvantaged backgrounds) will be hit hardest. The charts in this article will help you compare this outcome with proportional models like the initial 6 per cent proposal.

    We are not given a rationale for this change of approach, but it is fair to assume an active policy decision – to minimise the impact on those that make the most from international fees – based on soft power and international standing. It is a form of specialisation, perhaps.

    Maintenance grants

    Pretty much confirming that the policy on maintenance loans was back-of-a-fag-packet for Conference stuff, the documents collectively hide how much of the levy will be spent on the new maintenance grants. What we do know is that they’re coming in 2028-29, will be available to both new students and those already studying, and will be paid on top of maintenance loans.

    The amounts will be means-tested – students from households earning at or below £25,000 will get the maximum (£1,000 in years one and two, £750 from year three onwards), tapering to £500/£375 for those with household incomes up to £30,000. The higher amounts in early years are designed to help with “access and initial progression”, but in reality it’s a cliff edge that hits students from care-experienced backgrounds particularly hard.

    That doesn’t give us a total – grants will only be available for certain subjects aligned with the government’s economic priorities and Industrial Strategy. How many students there are left on a residual household income of 25k or less by 2018 is also not outlined. The eligible subject list hasn’t been confirmed – it’ll be informed by Skills England’s work on skills needs and may align with LLE priority funding categories. And students will need to be studying at least 120 credits per year (or full-time under current arrangements) to be eligible.

    Maintenance loans

    As (maximum) UG fees rise by projected inflation, so does maximum maintenance (and the PG loan schemes) by the OBR projection for Q1 2027 of 2.7 per cent. Of course the OBR has been wrong before, and may be wrong again – this year’s 3.1 per cent increase (based on Q1 2026) now shows up as 4.1 per cent in revised OBR forecasts, an error that nobody goes on to fix and so compounds in its impact over time.

    In addition, there’s no sign of that parental (residual household) income threshold for parents chipping in changing either – and now that the minimum wage is firmly over £25,000, will almost certainly mean a collapse off a cliff in the number of students able to access the maximum. This year DfE’s own estimates reckon that a maximum loan increase of 3.1 per cent will only result in an average loan increase of 2.6 per cent – expect (much) more of that by the end of the Parliament.

    While we’re on parental contributions, buried in the documents is another nasty sting. Right now, if you have two kids at university at the same time, the system recognises that your money has to stretch, and works out a “parental contribution” based on your household income, then splits that between the two students. So if the calculation says “this family can afford to put in £2,000”, and you have two undergrads, the system assumes roughly £1,000 per child – and each student’s maintenance loan is a bit higher to reflect that you are not magically doubling your contribution.

    It turns out that the LLE change will mean the SLC stops doing that split for people on the new LLE-style maintenance – each young person’s maintenance will be worked out on the household income as if they were the only one studying. So using the same example, the system would effectively assume you can contribute £2,000 to Child A and £2,000 to Child B. It’s “simpler” because in a modular, on-off, part-time LLE world the SLC will no longer have to track who else in the family is studying and constantly recalculate the split.

    But for a “traditional” family with two young full-time undergrads at the same time, it quietly removes a small protection you currently get when more than one child is in higher education.

    Plan 2 threshold freeze

    You might remember, back in the Summer of 2023, when Bridget Phillipson was touring the studios to declare that graduates will pay less under a Labour government:

    Reworking the present system gives scope for a month-on-month tax cut for graduates, putting money back in people’s pockets when they most need it. For young graduates this will give them breathing space at the start of their working lives and as they bring up families. This is a choice that the Tories could be making now to deliver a better, fairer system for our graduates and for our universities…. Labour will not be increasing government spending on this.

    There was never a detailed explanation of how that magic trick would be pulled off – although it was likely to have been based on London Economics’ stepped repayment modelling, which depended in part on the reintroduction of real interest rates post-graduation (between 0 per cent and 2 per cent) for graduates with earnings between £27,571 and £57,570.

    Either way – at least for Plan 2 borrowers – the budget very much breaks that pledge. For anyone who started a degree between 2012 and 2022, the repayment threshold will be frozen at £29,385 in cash terms for three years from April 2027. Instead of that threshold rising with prices or earnings, it just sits there while wages (hopefully) go up – which means more graduates crossing the line into repayment sooner, and those already repaying handing over a bigger slice of their real income than they would have done otherwise.

    It’s very much a stealth extra tax on graduates layered on top of already frozen income tax and National Insurance thresholds, and it shifts (even) more of the cost of the system away from the state and onto a cohort who have already endured one round of threshold suppression under Michelle Donelan’s “fairer sharing of the burden” reforms, have watched the “deal” they signed up to being repeatedly tweaked after the fact, and had been led to expect a “month-on-month tax cut” rather than another quiet squeeze.

    The Treasury’s justification consciously echoes Donelan’s line about graduate earnings premiums and fairness to non-graduates, but in practice this looks less like a principled reset of student finance and more like a return to the same playbook – using Plan 2 borrowers as a handy, captive tax base until the reality shows up on their payslips. For Reeves, it generates £285m in 2025-26, a big £5,915m “gain” in 2026-27 (that’s mainly the accounting revaluation of the loan book, not cash), then £255m in 2027-28, £290m in 2028-29, £355m in 2029-30 and £380m in 2030-31.

    Wider measures for students

    Rising National Living Wage and youth rates mean a substantial chunk of full-time students working in hospitality, retail and care will see higher hourly pay, although given the volume of jobs lost in these sectors in recent years (with similar warnings from those industries overnight), they’ll need to find a job first.

    The creation of a “Fair Work Agency” with explicit focus on enforcement in “high-risk” sectors is also, if successful, is likely to impact on international student incomes in a way that few like to talk about, but pretty much everybody knows (working more than 20 hours a week, cash in hand, with no rights).

    Extending the £3 bus fare cap will help, holding prescription charges steady all keep day-to-day pressure in shared student houses and commuter budgets a little lower than it would otherwise be, and taking around £150 off the average energy bill by shifting decarbonisation costs off bills and onto general spending won’t matter much given “all-inclusive” bills in halls and HMOs.

    Free emergency contraception in pharmacies closes an obvious gap in sexual health provision for a very student-heavy age group, while the cap on ticket resale prices cuts straight across the live events market some students use.

    Add all the measures up, and you might expect student poverty to show up in the annual release of the distributional impact on households analysis that gets produced to accompany budget day – but alas it remains the case that tuition fee loans show up as household income in the DWP’s Households below average income (HBAI) statistics, which means that the increase in maximum fees will see an HMO with 5 students in it looking 50k better off than they really are.

    Other bits

    The chancellor capped national insurance contribution exemptions for salary sacrifice into pensions at £2,000 – employees who pay more than this amount each year into pensions will need to account for employer national insurance contributions on additional amounts. A note from sector employers association UCEA before the budget reminded the Treasury that this approach is widely used by universities, and calculated that a cap could cost individual USS institutions an additional £1-3m each year with a total cost to the sector north of £50m – and there are going to be impacts relating to other pension schemes too.

    One of the biggest current issues with the wider education budget, and one that has pushed many local councils towards bankruptcy, is the rapidly rising cost of school provision and other support for pupils with special educational needs (SEND). Currently the costs of this provision are nominally covered by local councils, but are subject to a statutory override which means that the sums involved are not included within council deficit calculations. The budget confirms the June announcement that this arrangement will end from 2027-28, with costs (due to hit around £5bn) covered from that point within departmental expenditure limits.

    This has a clear impact on other areas of government spending, and if the Department for Education is to be made responsible it is likely that at least some of this funding will have to be found via cuts to other budgets, including for tertiary education.

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  • The Last Step Toward the First Step – Teaching in Higher Ed

    The Last Step Toward the First Step – Teaching in Higher Ed

    This final PKMastery workshop post is what I’m referring to as the last step toward the first step, meaning that while I’m through with the formal/structured activities and curated lessons from Harold Jarche, there’s such tremendous potential for even deeper learning, with a renewed commitment toward PKM.

    Jarche shares a report from many years ago about the most valued Future Work Skills. He writes of how: “The report identified six drivers of change.

    1. Longevity, in terms of the age of the workforce and customers
    2. Smart machines, to augment and extend human abilities (quite obvious since 2023)
    3. A computational world, as computer networks connect
    4. New media, that pervade every aspect of life
    5. Superstructed organizations, that scale below or beyond what was previously possible
    6. A globally connected world, with a multitude of local cultures and competition from all directions

    Ten future [present] work skills were derived from these drivers and these were seen to be critical for success in the emerging network era workplace. In 2014 a relatively simple infographic was published to show the relationship between these drivers and skills. Of these 10 skills, four compose the essence of personal knowledge mastery:

    1. sense-making
    2. social intelligence
    3. new media literacy
    4. cognitive load management

    Participants in the workshop are then invited to focus on which competency we would most like to develop in, as part of our overall PKM practice. I’m torn between sense-making and cognitive load management. While further understanding of systems thinking and sense-making practices would certainly help me in my ongoing learning, I recognize my lack of sufficient discipline for what a focus on cognitive load management might bring me.

    Throughout this process of blogging my way through Harold Jarche’s Harold Jarche’s Personal Knowledge Mastery workshop, I essentially wrote the equivalent of half of a book. When I tell myself that I don’t have time for certain pursuits in my life, these past six weeks would seem to counter those self-limiting beliefs. While I’m not actually interested, necessarily, in writing a book for other people at this exact moment, my shift in focus to a more reflective and open writing style for all these posts has felt liberating. As Ronald Burt shares:

    It is not being in the know, but rather having to translate between different groups so that you develop gifts of analogy, metaphor, and communicating between people who have difficulty communicating to each other.

    Having no idea who will ever read these words, but knowing that the writing practice this workshop has instilled in me has been tremendously helpful in my own sense-making. James Lang would say I’m getting lots of practice writing to an imaginary audience and that has felt good. By Jarche asking us to engage on Mastodon and to use the #PKMastery hashtag, I’ve been able to share my work with a niche audience, reconnecting with people I hadn’t been in regular touch with for a long while, in addition to meeting a couple of new people along the way.

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  • Convert More Inquiries Into Enrollments in 2025

    Convert More Inquiries Into Enrollments in 2025

    Reading Time: 14 minutes

    Turning inquiries into enrollments is where real growth happens. In today’s competitive education market, generating leads is just the beginning. The bigger challenge? Guiding prospective students through the decision-making journey thoughtfully, strategically, and at scale.

    That’s where lead nurturing in education comes in.

    Done right, lead nurturing builds trust over time. It moves beyond one-off follow-ups or generic emails, instead delivering timely and relevant touchpoints that support prospects at each stage of their journey. For schools and universities, it’s one of the most powerful levers for boosting application and enrollment rates.

    This post breaks down how educational institutions worldwide are evolving their lead nurturing strategies for 2025. We’ll cover actionable techniques like segmenting by intent, building automation that feels personal, and aligning communication with what Gen Alpha expects. Along the way, we’ll share real-life examples to illustrate how schools are implementing this in practice.

    Are you looking for education marketing services?

    Our expert digital marketing services can help you attract and enroll more students!

    Changing Student Expectations in 2025 (Gen Z and Gen Alpha)

    Why is fast response time so important in student lead nurturing? Today’s prospective students, spanning late Gen Z and the emerging Generation Alpha, expect immediacy and personalization. These digital natives grew up with instant streaming, smart devices, and AI assistants. When they reach out to schools, they expect the same level of responsiveness. In fact, most prospective students enroll at the first institution that replies. That first-touch speed is no longer a bonus; it’s the baseline.

    This shift has raised the bar for student engagement. When a teen submits an inquiry at 8 p.m. or a parent messages on Sunday morning, they want a prompt reply. Waiting days for an email or being stuck in a voicemail loop is a fast track to lost leads. Live chat, chatbots, text messaging, and fast email responses have become expected, not exceptional.

    Example: To meet these expectations, the University of Johannesburg implemented MoUJi, an AI-powered chatbot on their website and messaging platforms to provide instant 24/7 answers to prospective student inquiries. This chatbot handles common admissions questions (e.g. application status, program info) and syncs with student records, significantly improving first-response times for Gen Z/Gen Alpha prospects. UJ’s always-on approach has led to faster conversions, as more than half of students now enroll at the first institution to reply, making immediacy the new baseline.

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    Source: UJ News

    Of course, speed alone isn’t enough. Students also expect relevance. A student asking about health sciences should not receive a generic welcome packet. Provide tailored content, whether it’s a program-specific brochure, alumni video, or next steps based on where they are in the enrollment process.

    Tone and channel matter too. Younger Gen Alpha students may prefer casual WhatsApp or Instagram DMs. Adult learners might gravitate toward email or phone. The goal is to meet students where they are, with the right message, at the right time.

    Actionable insight: Audit your current inquiry process. Are you responding within the first hour? Are you using the same platforms where students made contact? If not, explore adding a chatbot, setting up automated SMS/email alerts, or staggering staff shifts to cover peak hours. In 2025, responsiveness is no longer a luxury; it’s the difference between a lead and a lost opportunity.

    Segmenting Leads for Targeted Nurturing

    To nurture leads effectively, one size cannot fit all, because not all leads are equal. A key early step is lead segmentation: categorizing and organizing your inquiries into meaningful groups. 

    How can segmenting leads improve enrollment outcomes for schools? Segmentation helps you focus your energy where it pays off, ensuring each prospective student gets information and attention tailored to their needs. You can segment leads on multiple dimensions: source of the lead, program interest, timeline to enrollment, and engagement behavior. Breaking your giant inquiry list into smaller segments lets you craft follow-up strategies that resonate with each group, rather than blasting generic messages to everyone.

    What are useful segmentation categories for schools? Consider these four core dimensions from HEM’s lead nurturing in education framework:

    • Source: How did the lead find you (e.g., organic website form, paid ad, education fair)? A student from a high-intent channel, like an agent referral, may need a different approach than someone from a broad awareness campaign.
    • Program or Interest Area: What are they interested in studying? Target content accordingly.
    • Enrollment Timeline: Are they looking to enroll now or years from now? Your follow-up cadence should reflect that.
    • Engagement Behavior: Have they interacted with your emails, attended a webinar, or ignored follow-ups? Hot leads deserve more attention.

    By tagging leads across these criteria, you can prioritize and personalize your outreach, automate smarter, and increase conversion efficiency. For example, “Fall 2025 Business Masters prospects from Facebook” who opened three emails might get invited to an alumni panel, while “2026 boarding school parents” could receive nurturing newsletters and event invites over a longer cycle.

    Example: International House Dublin, a prominent English-language school, effectively segments its wide-ranging audience, which includes everyone from teenagers to corporate professionals, to ensure personalized lead nurturing. The school uses its CRM and marketing automation to group inquiries by age, course interest, and language level. A 15-year-old exploring summer camps receives youth-oriented content like social media snippets or student testimonials, while a 40-year-old business English prospect might get LinkedIn-style resources or an invite to a professional language webinar. This segmentation strategy ensures tailored, relevant communication for each lead, improving both engagement and conversion.

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    Source: Higher Education Marketing

    Actionable Insight: If you’re just starting, begin by tagging leads by program and temperature (“hot,” “warm,” “cold”). Even a simple domestic vs. international distinction helps tailor outreach. Segmentation is the essential first step in treating leads as individuals, not numbers. And in 2025, that personal touch is now expected.

    Prioritizing and Scoring Your Leads

    Once you’ve segmented your inquiries, the next step is to determine lead quality. Which inquiries are most likely to turn into enrollments? Ideally, your admissions team would personally follow up with every lead. But limited time and resources mean you need to focus on the best opportunities. Lead prioritization and lead scoring allow you to rank leads by their likelihood to enroll, guiding where to devote personalized outreach versus automated nurturing.

    Start by identifying signals that suggest high intent. Did the lead schedule a tour? Attend a webinar? Engage with multiple emails? Our HEM webinar series advises schools to “identify each online source that delivers leads, and rank which sources tend to deliver the highest-intent prospects.” Historical data can help here; perhaps students from referral programs convert more often than those from general ads.

    Lead scoring formalizes this process. Assign points to meaningful actions and attributes: +10 for a virtual event, +5 for local applicants, +5 for a relevant test score, -5 for vague interest in a distant intake. The result is a numeric ranking that helps you target high-potential leads with fast, personal follow-up while keeping lower-interest leads on longer nurturing paths.

    Example: Business School Lausanne (Switzerland) uses a data-driven lead scoring model to prioritize inquiries most likely to enroll. BSL assigns points for behaviors and attributes (e.g., +10 for attending a webinar, +5 if local, -5 if long timeline) and tracks this in their CRM. This scoring helped BSL’s small admissions team focus on quality over quantity. “Each program has its own logic… and season,” notes BSL’s dean, so they leverage data to target high-intent leads by region and timing. By concentrating outreach on top-scoring international prospects, the school not only improved efficiency but also enhanced global diversity in its intakes (since they could devote more time to engaged candidates from various countries rather than chasing every cold lead).

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    Source: Higher Education Marketing

    Actionable Insight: Define a few high-priority criteria for your school and flag those leads. Build tiered workflows, personal outreach for top scorers, automated flows for the rest, and refine your model over time using enrollment results.

    Ensuring CRM Hygiene and Integration

    A sophisticated CRM is only as effective as the data it holds. Without regular maintenance, even the best platforms can become cluttered, inconsistent, and fragmented, undermining your lead nurturing efforts. CRM hygiene means keeping your database clean, updated, and fully integrated with all your lead capture channels.

    First, ensure every lead source flows directly into your CRM. Whether it’s your website inquiry forms, live chat, student fairs, or Facebook messages, all data should be centralized. Avoid manual transfers whenever possible to reduce errors and response delays. Forms, event sign-ups, and chatbots should automatically populate fields and trigger workflows in real time.

    Next, standardize how data is entered and tagged. Use predefined categories and consistent naming conventions. If one lead source is labeled “HS Fair” and another “High School Event,” your reporting will be skewed. CRM hygiene also means merging duplicate entries, correcting missing data, and regularly reviewing fields for accuracy.

    Compliance is another core aspect. Be sure your CRM tracks communication consent in accordance with regional laws like GDPR, CASL, and CAN-SPAM. Respecting privacy builds trust and protects your institution legally.

    Example: Griffith College (Ireland): Undertook a comprehensive CRM cleanup and integration initiative that paid off in enrollment gains. As Ireland’s largest private college, Griffith had amassed a large inquiry database in HubSpot over the years. In 2022, they partnered with consultants to audit this CRM data, merge duplicates, update missing fields, and standardize lead sources. They also integrated all lead capture points – website forms, event sign-ups, Facebook lead ads – so that every prospect flows directly into HubSpot in real time (eliminating error-prone manual imports). After these hygiene improvements and streamlining of workflows, Griffith saw a 20% year-over-year increase in registered learners for Spring 2023. Clean data also enabled better segmentation; “dedicated workflows” now target specific audiences in their market with relevant content automatically.

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    Source: Higher Education Marketing

    Actionable Insight: Schedule monthly data checks and quarterly audits to ensure consistency, eliminate duplicates, and verify integration across all lead sources. Clean data enables smarter, faster, and more personalized outreach.

    Automating Lead Nurturing Workflows

    With segmented, prioritized, and clean data in place, automation becomes the engine that powers scalable, personalized communication. Lead nurturing in education workflows ensures that no inquiry is overlooked and that each prospective student receives timely, relevant touchpoints guiding them toward enrollment.

    What role does automation play in modern lead nurturing strategies? Automation enables schools to nurture large numbers of leads while maintaining personalization. Automated workflows deliver timely touchpoints, such as welcome emails, event reminders, application prompts, and follow-up messages, based on a lead’s actions or profile. With branching logic and program-specific workflows, automation ensures no inquiry is overlooked and frees staff to focus on high-value, high-intent leads.

    Workflows are automated sequences of communications and tasks triggered by specific actions or characteristics. For instance, a lead who submits an inquiry form might automatically receive a welcome email, followed by a testimonial video, and later an invitation to apply. Use branching logic that adjusts messaging based on behavior. If a lead clicks a financial aid link, they receive scholarship information. If they remain inactive, they’re routed into a slower, long-term campaign.

    This systematized approach enables your team to engage thousands of prospects without manual effort. It also supports tiered nurturing: high-priority leads can trigger alerts for personal outreach, while low-priority leads receive regular updates through drip campaigns.

    Automation by program type and lead score further refines communication. Undergraduate prospects might get campus life content and application deadlines, while MBA leads receive career stats and admissions webinars.

    Example: Michael Vincent Academy (USA): This Los Angeles beauty academy uses marketing automation to nurture leads at scale. As a small, private school (~350 students/year) without state funding, MVA needed to work “smarter, not harder,” says its CEO. They implemented HEM’s Mautic CRM to automate repetitive recruitment tasks: inquiry form submissions trigger immediate personalized emails, and scheduled drip campaigns send course info and alumni success stories over time. The CRM also tracks each lead’s progress and alerts staff when a high-value prospect engages (so they can personally reach out). The result is that “key elements of the academy’s workflow are now automated, allowing staff to spend more time connecting with prospective students,” rather than manual data entry.

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    Source: Higher Education Marketing

    Actionable Insight: Start with a “welcome series” automation. Then build event follow-ups and dormant lead workflows. Use branching logic to scale personalization and free your team for high-touch moments.

    Engaging Leads Across Multiple Channels

    In 2025, engaging prospective students effectively means communicating across the full range of channels they use every day. Relying on email alone is no longer enough. Students and their families expect institutions to be present and responsive on email, text, social media, messaging apps, and even video calls. By orchestrating conversations across these platforms, schools can deliver a seamless and personalized lead-nurturing experience.

    Email remains foundational for many schools because it’s scalable and direct. But augmenting email with SMS or text messaging can increase visibility and response, particularly for time-sensitive communications like deadline reminders or event invitations. A friendly text from an admissions counselor often prompts a faster reply than an email alone.

    Messaging platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and WeChat are essential for reaching international audiences. Schools that integrate their CRM with these apps can ensure students receive real-time support in their preferred environments. Meanwhile, chatbots and live chat widgets on institutional websites offer 24/7 responsiveness, capturing leads and answering questions immediately, even outside business hours.

    Social media content also plays a subtle but powerful role in nurturing. Students often monitor a school’s Instagram or TikTok after inquiring, using it to assess campus life, student experiences, and the overall vibe. Frequent, engaging posts, such as student takeovers, Q&A videos, and highlight reels from events, build trust and connection. Private groups on Facebook or Discord can further nurture admitted students by creating a sense of belonging before they even arrive.

    Finally, video calls and phone consultations remain invaluable for more complex or personal conversations, especially with parents or mature learners. Scheduling one-on-one chats after a lead shows interest helps deepen the relationship and guide the student toward enrollment.

    Example: Queen Anne’s School exemplifies coordinated multi-channel engagement. They ran dual campaigns that targeted both parents and students: engaging Facebook and Instagram ads were tailored for parents, while vibrant Snapchat ads focused on student interests. This approach ensured the entire decision-making unit received relevant messaging on their preferred platforms. By tailoring content and channel per audience, Queen Anne’s created a connected, multi-touch nurturing experience that contributed to better recruitment outcomes.

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    Source: Higher Education Marketing

    Actionable Insight: Review your communication strategy and expand beyond your primary channel. Add one new platform, whether a texting tool, chatbot, or social campaign, and measure its impact. Prioritize consistency and responsiveness, not volume, and always align messaging with where each prospect is in their decision journey.

    Personalizing the Nurture Journey

    Today’s students are used to hyper-customized experiences from the apps and services they use daily. If your school sends generic emails or one-size-fits-all messages, you risk losing the attention and trust of prospective students. Personalization helps you build real connections, and it can significantly increase your chances of converting an inquiry into an enrollment.

    Start with the basics: use the student’s first name and program of interest in every message. “Hi, Sam, we saw you’re exploring our Biology program…” is far more effective than a bland greeting. Most CRMs and email tools allow this kind of dynamic personalization with ease.

    Next, tailor content to fit the student’s interest and where they are in their journey. Someone researching a business degree should receive content about business-related careers, program features, or a student success story from that faculty – not generic school-wide information. Similarly, if a lead has already applied, they should be receiving reminders about next steps, not introductory program brochures.

    Behavioral personalization adds another layer. If a student lingers on your financial aid page, follow up with a scholarship guide. If they start but don’t finish an application, trigger a helpful reminder email or call.

    Finally, consider personalization at scale through tools like personalized video. A student who receives a message like “Hi, Jordan – congrats on your acceptance to our engineering program!” is more likely to feel recognized and valued.

    Example: West Texas A&M delivered an extraordinary level of personalization in admissions by having its president record 3,000 individual welcome videos for newly admitted students. In Spring 2021, President Walter Wendler spent nearly 200 hours personally addressing each admitted student by name, congratulating them, and mentioning their intended major in a short video clip. The videos helped incoming freshmen feel a human connection to the university before ever setting foot on campus. Indeed, WTAMU officials believed this effort would tip the scales for students deciding where to enroll, by showing that WTAMU sees them as individuals, not numbers.

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    Source: West Texas A&M

    Measuring Results and Continuously Improving

    Effective lead nurturing starts with emails and running campaigns, but it’s also about tracking what works and refining your strategy over time. Without measurement, you’re flying blind. Schools that succeed in converting inquiries into enrollments are those that monitor their funnel closely: from inquiry to application, admission, and enrollment. Every stage can offer insight if you’re capturing the right data.

    At the core, this means using your CRM to track where leads come from, how they interact with your communications, and what ultimately drives them to enroll. Schools should “measure leads and enrolled students by source”. Knowing, for instance, that webinar attendees convert at a higher rate than paid ad clicks allows you to double down on that tactic.

    Equally important is monitoring engagement: Are students opening your emails? Clicking links? Attending virtual sessions? These are early signals of effectiveness. If email open rates drop off midway through a sequence, your messaging or timing may need adjustment.

    It’s also critical to examine conversion rates between funnel stages. If your inquiry-to-application rate is stuck at 10%, targeted nurturing improvements, like faster replies or more tailored messaging, might lift it to 15%, a meaningful jump.

    Actionable Insight: Create a monthly report that tracks each stage of your funnel, including lead source and engagement metrics. Pick one weak spot each quarter, run a small experiment, and measure the impact. Optimization is ongoing, and the key to sustained enrollment growth.

    Embracing a Digital-First, Student-Centric Approach

    Mastering lead nurturing in education today means more than adopting new tools, it requires a student-first mindset. In 2025, prospective students expect fast responses, personalized communication, and authentic engagement. Schools that align their outreach with these expectations, supported by data and automation, are seeing stronger results across the board.

    The institutions highlighted in this article show that consistent, relevant nurturing works. It builds trust, improves yield, and creates better-fit incoming classes.

    But nurturing is not just about conversions. It’s about respect. When a student receives helpful, well-timed guidance tailored to their interests, it signals that your school sees them as more than a number. That personal attention can tip the scales when it’s time to choose.

    As you refine your student recruitment strategies, ask: Are we showing up where students are? Are we engaging quickly and meaningfully? Are we using our data wisely and ethically? With each improvement, you move closer to a recruitment process that feels less like marketing and more like service.

    In short: every inquiry is the start of a journey. With thoughtful, digital-first nurturing, your school can guide more students to a confident, well-informed “yes.”

    Are you looking for education marketing services?

    Our expert digital marketing services can help you attract and enroll more students!

    Frequently Asked Questions

    Question: Why is fast response time so important in student lead nurturing? 

    Answer: Today’s prospective students, spanning late Gen Z and the emerging Generation Alpha, expect immediacy and personalization. These digital natives grew up with instant streaming, smart devices, and AI assistants. When they reach out to schools, they expect the same level of responsiveness.

    Question: How can segmenting leads improve enrollment outcomes for schools? 

    Answer: Segmentation helps you focus your energy where it pays off, ensuring each prospective student gets information and attention tailored to their needs.

    Question: What role does automation play in modern lead nurturing strategies?

    Answer: Automation enables schools to nurture large numbers of leads while maintaining personalization. Automated workflows deliver timely touchpoints, such as welcome emails, event reminders, application prompts, and follow-up messages, based on a lead’s actions or profile.

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  • A topic modelling analysis of higher education research published between 2000 and 2021

    A topic modelling analysis of higher education research published between 2000 and 2021

    by Yusuf Oldac and Francisco Olivas

    We recently embarked upon a project to explore the development of higher education research topics over the last decades. The results were published in Review of Education. Our aim was to thematically map the field of research on higher education and to analyse how the field has evolved over time between 2000 and 2021. This blog post summarises our findings and reflects on the implications for HE research.

    HE research continues to grow. HE researchers are located in globally diverse geographical locations and publish on diversifying topics. Studies focusing on the development of HE with a global-level analysis are increasingly emerging. However, most of these studies are limited to scientometric network analyses that do not include a content-related focus. In addition, they are deductive, indicating that they tried to fit their new findings into existing categories. Recently, Daenekindt and Huisman (2020) were able to capture the scholarly literature on higher education through an analysis of latent themes by utilising topic modelling. This approach got attention in the literature, and the study’s contribution was highlighted in an earlier SRHE blog post. We also found their study useful and built on it in our novel analysis. However, their analysis focused only on generating topics from a wide range of higher education journals and did not identify explanatory factors, such as change over the years or the location of publication. After identifying this gap, we worked towards moving one step further.

    A central contribution of our study is the inclusion of a set of research content explanatory factors, namely: time, region, funding, collaboration type, and journals, to investigate the topics of HE research. In methodological terms, our study moves ahead of the description of the topic prevalence to the explanation of the prevalence utilizing structural topic modelling (Roberts et al, 2013).

    Structural topic modelling is a machine learning technique that examines the content of provided text to learn patterns in word usage without human supervision in a replicable and transparent way (Mohr & Bogdanov, 2013). This powerful technique expands the methodological repertoire of higher education research. On one hand, computational methods make it possible to extract meaning from large datasets; on the other, they allow the prediction of emerging topics by integrating the strengths of both quantitative and qualitative approaches. Nevertheless, many scholars in HE remain reluctant to engage with such methods, reflecting a degree of methodological conservatism or tunnel vision (see Huisman and Daenekindt’s SRHE blog post).

    In this blog post, our intention is not to go deep into the minute details of this methodological technique, but to share a glimpse of our main findings through the use of such a technique. With the corpus of all papers published between 2000 and 2021 in the top six generalist journals of higher education, as listed by Cantwell et al (2022) and Kwiek (2021) both, we analysed a dataset of 6,562 papers. As a result, we identified 15 emergent research topics and several major patterns that highlight the thematic changes over the last decades. Below, we share some of our findings, accompanied by relevant visualisations.

    Glimpse at the main findings with relevant visuals

    The emergent 15 higher education topics and three visibly rising ones

    Our topic modelling analysis revealed 15 distinct topics, which are largely in line with the topics discussed in previous studies on this line (eg Teichler, 1996; Tight, 2003; Horta & Jung, 2014). However, there are added nuances in our analysis. For example, the most prevalent topics are policy and teaching/learning, which are widely acknowledged in the field, but new themes have emerged and strengthened over time. These themes include identity politics and discrimination, access, and employability. These areas, conceptually linked to social justice, have become central to higher education research, especially in US-based journals but not limited to them. The visual below demonstrates the changes over the years for all 15 topics.

    • The Influence of funding on higher education research topics

    Research funding plays a crucial role in shaping certain topics, particularly gender inequality, access, and doctoral education. Studies that received funding exhibited a higher prevalence of these socially significant topics, underscoring the importance of targeted funding to support research with social impact. The data visualisation below summarises the influence of reported funding for each topic. The novelty of this pattern needs to be highlighted because we have not come across a previous study looking into the influence of funding existence on research topics in the higher education field.

    • The impact of collaboration on higher education research topics

    Collaborative publications are more prevalent in topics such as teaching and learning, and diversity and social relations. By contrast, theoretical discussions, identity politics, policy, employability, and institutional management are more common in solo-authored papers. This pattern aligns with the nature of these topics and the data requirements for research. Please see the visualised data below.

    We highlight that although the relationship between collaboration and citation impact or researcher productivity is well studied, we are not aware of any evidence of the effect of collaboration patterns on topic prevalence, particularly in studies focusing on higher education. So, this finding is a novel contribution to higher education research.

    • Higher education journals’ topic preferences

    Although the six leading journals claim to be generalist, our analysis shows they have differing publication preferences. For example, Higher Education focuses on policy and university governance, while Higher Education Research and Development stands out for teaching/learning and indigenous knowledge. Journal of Higher Education and Review of Higher Education, two US-based journals, have the highest prevalence of identity politics and discrimination topics. Last, Studies in Higher Education has a significantly higher prevalence in teaching and learning, theoretical discussions, doctoral education, and emotions, burnout and coping than most of the journals.

    • Regional differences in higher education research topics

    Topic focus varies significantly by the region of the first author. First, studies from Asia exhibit the highest prevalence of academic work and institutional management. Studies from Africa show a higher prevalence of identity politics and discrimination. Moreover, studies published by first authors from Eastern European countries stand out with the higher prevalence of employability. Lastly, the policy topic has a high prevalence across all regions. However, studies with first authors from Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean showed a higher prevalence of policy research in higher education than those from North America and Western Europe. By contrast, indigenous knowledge is most prominent in Western Europe (including Australia and New Zealand). The figure below demonstrates these in visual format.

    Concluding remarks

    Higher education research has grown and diversified dramatically over the past two decades. The field is now established globally, with an ever-expanding array of topics and contributors. In this blog post, we shared the results of our analysis in relation to the influence of targeted funding, collaborative practices, regional differences, and journal preferences on higher education research topics. We have also indicated that certain topics have risen in prevalence in the last two decades. More patterns are included in the main research study published in Review of Education.

    It is important to note that we could only include the higher education papers published up to 2021, the latest available data year when we started the analyses. The impact of generative artificial intelligence and recent major shifts in the global geopolitics, including the new DEI policies in the US and overall securitisation of science tendencies, may not be reflected fully in this dataset. These themes are very recent, and future studies, including replications with similar approaches, may help provide newly emerging patterns.

    Dr Yusuf Oldac is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Education Policy and Leadership at The Education University of Hong Kong. He holds a PhD degree from the University of Oxford, where he received a full scholarship. Dr Oldac’s research spans international and comparative higher education, with a current focus on global science and knowledge production in university settings.

    Dr Francisco Olivas obtained his PhD in Sociology from The Chinese University of Hong Kong. He joined Lingnan University in August 2021. His research lies in the intersections between cultural sociology, social stratification, and subjective well-being, using quantitative and computational methods.

    Author: SRHE News Blog

    An international learned society, concerned with supporting research and researchers into Higher Education

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  • Schools grapple with whooping cough as 2025 outpaces last year’s peak numbers

    Schools grapple with whooping cough as 2025 outpaces last year’s peak numbers

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    Dive Brief:

    Dive Insight:

    The Texas Department of State Health Services reported on Nov. 3 that it was tracking a significant increase in pertussis cases in 2025. According to provisional data, the agency said, “Texas has had more than 3,500 reported pertussis cases through October this year, roughly four times the number reported for the same period last year.”

    The number of cases is also reportedly the highest for the state in 11 years.

    Texas schools, among other entities like hospitals, are required to report individuals who are suspected of having pertussis within one work day, according to the state health agency.

    This is the second consecutive year that Texas has experienced high year-over-year increases in reported pertussis cases, and it’s also the second consecutive year the state’s Department of State Health Services has issued a health alert, according to a news release.

    The CDC said reported cases of pertussis are currently trending down in 2025 since a peak in November 2024, when more than six times as many cases were reported, compared to 2023. The agency added that case counts will likely change as it finalizes the data.

    In September, Colorado-based healthcare system UCHealth reported that cases of whooping cough “are on track to be even worse this year than in 2024,” adding that health officials in parts of the state have warned of “a noticeable jump” in pertussis cases as kids have returned to school.

    In many states across the U.S. — including Florida, Oregon and Washington — cases of pertussis as of Sept. 20 were already outpacing total year-to-date cases reported by the CDC in 2025. UCHealth’s September report noted that the worst U.S. pertussis outbreaks so far in 2025 were on the West Coast, with high numbers also reported in Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota, North Carolina and Arizona.

    Other childhood diseases are also on the rise as a result of shifting attitudes toward vaccines and vaccine mandates. According to the CDC, the best defense against pertussis is a vaccination.

    In March, measles infections spread across several U.S. states, a quarter-century after the potentially fatal disease had been declared eradicated in the U.S. in 2000.

    In addition to the impact on student health, an uptick in acute and chronic illnesses can also increase chronic absenteeism issues for schools and school districts. A CDC study published last year found that in 2022, 5.8% of children experienced chronic school absenteeism for health-related reasons.

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  • 3 reasons to switch to virtual set design

    3 reasons to switch to virtual set design

    Key points:

    If you’ve attended a professional show or musical recently, chances are you’ve seen virtual set design in action. This approach to stage production has gained so much traction it’s now a staple in the industry. After gaining momentum in professional theater, it has made its way into collegiate performing arts programs and is now emerging in K-12 productions as well.

    Virtual set design offers a modern alternative to traditional physical stage sets, using technology and software to create immersive backdrops and environments. This approach unlocks endless creative possibilities for schools while also providing practical advantages.

    Here, I’ll delve into three key benefits: increasing student engagement and participation, improving efficiency and flexibility in productions, and expanding educational opportunities.

    Increasing student engagement and participation

    Incorporating virtual set design into productions gets students excited about learning new skills while enhancing the storytelling of a show. When I first joined Churchill High School in Livonia, Michigan as the performing arts manager, the first show we did was Shrek the Musical, and I knew it would require an elaborate set. While students usually work together to paint the various backdrops that bring the show to life, I wanted to introduce them to collaborating on virtual set design.

    We set up Epson projectors on the fly rail and used them to project images as the show’s backdrops. Positioned at a short angle, the projectors avoided any shadowing on stage. To create a seamless image with both projectors, we utilized edge-blending and projection mapping techniques using just a Mac® laptop and QLab software. Throughout the performance, the projectors transformed the stage with a dozen dynamic backdrops, shifting from a swamp to a castle to a dungeon.

    Students were amazed by the technology and very excited to learn how to integrate it into the set design process. Their enthusiasm created a real buzz around the production, and the community’s feedback on the final results were overwhelmingly positive.

    Improving efficiency and flexibility

    During Shrek the Musical, there were immediate benefits that made it so much easier to put together a show. To start, we saved money by eliminating the need to build multiple physical sets. While we were cutting costs on lumber and materials, we were also solving design challenges and expanding what was possible on stage.

    This approach also saved us valuable time. Preparing the sets in the weeks leading up to the show was faster, and transitions during performances became seamless. Instead of moving bulky scenery between scenes or acts, the stage crew simply switched out projected images making it much more efficient.

    We saw even more advantages in our spring production of She Kills Monsters. Some battle scenes called for 20 or 30 actors to be on stage at once, which would have been difficult to manage with a traditional set. By using virtual production, we broke the stage up with different panels spaced apart and projected designs, creating more space for performers. We were able to save physical space, as well as create a design that helped with stage blocking and made it easier for students to find their spots.

    Since using virtual sets, our productions have become smoother, more efficient, and more creative.

    Expanding educational opportunities

    Beyond the practical benefits, virtual set design also creates valuable learning opportunities for students. Students involved in productions gain exposure to industry-level technology and learn about careers in the arts, audio, and video technology fields. Introducing students to these opportunities before graduating high school can really help prepare them for future success.

    Additionally, in our school’s technical theater courses, students are learning lessons on virtual design and gaining hands-on experiences. As they are learning about potential career paths, they are developing collaboration skills and building transferable skills that directly connect to college and career readiness.

    Looking ahead with virtual set design

    Whether students are interested in graphic design, sound engineering, or visual technology, virtual production brings countless opportunities to them to explore. It allows them to experiment with tools and concepts that connect directly to potential college majors or future careers.

    For schools, incorporating virtual production into high school theater offers more than just impressive shows. It provides a cost-effective, flexible, and innovative approach to storytelling. It is a powerful tool that benefits productions, enriches student learning, and prepares the next generation of artists and innovators.

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  • New international enrollment dipped this fall, NAFSA survey finds

    New international enrollment dipped this fall, NAFSA survey finds

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    Dive Brief:

    • Many U.S. colleges are experiencing declines in undergraduate and graduate enrollment amid tightening visa policies, according to a new study released by NAFSA: Association of International Educators and other groups. 
    • U.S. colleges reported a 6% average drop in new international bachelor’s enrollment and a 19% drop in new international master’s enrollment for the fall. Of some 200 surveyed U.S. institutions, 48% saw declines in their international bachelor’s students, and 63% experienced a drop-off in international graduate enrollment. 
    • Canada suffered even more dramatic declines, while international student enrollment rose in Asian and European countries, according to the NAFSA study. Both U.S. and Canadian institutions primarily blamed restrictive government policies for the decline.

    Dive Insight:

    Since taking office, the Trump administration has launched a suite of aggressive policies that have made it difficult for many international students to study in the U.S. 

    Among other moves, dramatically slowed visa processing raised concerns this summer that tens of thousands of students might be stymied from coming to the U.S. for college. On top of that, the administration has revoked thousands of visas for international students already studying here and proposed a four-year cap on student visas, which could hit doctoral students particularly hard. 

    In the U.S., restrictive government policies were by far the No. 1 obstacle to international enrollment, with 85% of surveyed colleges citing them in the NAFSA study. That’s up from 58% of colleges that said the same in 2024. 

    “We are navigating one of the most dynamic moments in international education, driven in no small part by shifts in U.S. visa and immigration policy,” NAFSA Executive Director and CEO Fanta Aw said in a statement. “The ripple effects of these policy changes are being felt across campuses and communities around the world.”

    The distant No. 2 concern was tuition and living costs, with 47% of U.S. respondents citing them as an obstacle this year. 

    As international enrollment declines take a toll on college finances, 36% of colleges surveyed by NAFSA said they plan to expand into new markets to adapt. Another 28% are planning budget cuts, and 26% intend to expand online programming to gin up enrollment. 

    To be sure, the U.S. isn’t the only country where government restrictions weigh on foreign enrollment. In Canada — where new international bachelor’s and master’s enrollment fell by 36% and 35%, respectively — 90% of polled colleges listed restrictive policies as the top obstacle to enrollment. European colleges, excluding those in the U.K., also listed restrictions as the primary obstacle. 

    The survey was conducted in October and drew on responses from 461 institutions across 63 countries, including 201 U.S. colleges. 

    The NAFSA study adds to mounting evidence of international enrollment drop-offs this fall. A survey of more than 800 colleges found that their international enrollment declined overall by 1% in fall 2025, with their graduate student enrollment plummeting by 12%, per the annual Open Doors report from the Institute of International Education and the U.S. Department of State released earlier this month.

    New international enrollment fell even more overall — by 17% — this fall, according to the Open Doors survey.

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  • Are young college graduates losing an edge in the job market?

    Are young college graduates losing an edge in the job market?

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    Dive Brief:

    • Young college graduates are now spending more time unemployed than job hunters with only a high school diploma, according to an analysis published Monday.
    • Researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland found that, from June 2024 to June 2025, 37.1% of unemployed workers between the ages of 22 and 27 with at least a bachelor’s degree either found work or stopped looking for work each month. That’s compared to 41.5% of their peers who only completed high school.
    • Their report comes amid other signs of a tough job market for recent graduates. The most recent unemployment data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, released Thursday, shows 9.7% of bachelor’s degree holders ages 20 to 24 were unemployed in September — up from 6.8% a year prior.

    Dive Insight:

    A college degree still provides young workers with economic and professional advantages, the Cleveland Fed analysis found. Once employed, college graduates earn more than their degreeless counterparts and experience increased job stability, it said.

    However, researchers pointed to signs that some of the job market advantages of a college degree are eroding. 

    For decades, workers with a high school degree typically saw unemployment rates about 5 percentage points higher than college graduates did, according to the analysis. 

    That gap temporarily widened during the 2008 financial crisis, when high school graduates had a particularly difficult time finding work. 

    But the Great Recession obscured that the gap in job-finding rates between high school graduates and those with four-year college degrees had been slowly closing since the turn of the century, according to the Cleveland Fed researchers.

    With brief exception during the pandemic, the unemployment rate gap between the two groups has slowly shrunk since 2008.

    In July, the 12-month average unemployment rate for young college graduates stood only 2.5 percentage points lower than that of their peers without a postsecondary degree. That’s the smallest gap since the record low of 2.4 percentage points in March 2024.

    That slim difference, combined with the delay in degree-holders getting hired, indicates “that a long period of relatively easier job-finding prospects for college grads has ended,” researchers said Monday.

    “The labor market advantages conferred by a college degree have historically justified individual investment in higher education and expanding support for college access,” they said. “If the job-finding rate of college graduates continues to decline relative to the rate for high school graduates, we may see a reversal of these trends.”

    The pandemic resulted in a tight labor market, but the Cleveland Fed researchers said their findings can’t solely be attributed to the long-lasting disruptions of COVID-19.

    “If historically tight labor markets drove narrowing, the high school job-finding rate should have risen to match college rates rather than a decline in the college job-finding rate,” they said. 

    The decades-long trend also predates the influence of artificial intelligence on the job market.

    Instead, the researchers noted that the timing correlates with a broader market shift from “college-biased to education-neutral growth in labor demand.”

    “Declining job prospects among young college graduates may reflect the continued growth in college attainment, adding ever larger cohorts of college graduates to the ranks of job seekers, even though technology no longer favors college-educated workers,” they said.

    However, older degree-holders are not seeing the same stark unemployment numbers.

    In September, 3.6% of bachelor’s degree-holders ages 25 to 34 were unemployed, according to BLS data. That’s well under the overall unemployment rate of 4.4%, which is the highest it’s been in four years.

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