Collegis empowers data-driven admissions and streamlines prospective student support.
Buffalo, NY (May 20, 2025) — Trocaire College, a private, career-oriented Catholic college, today announced a multi-year partnership with Collegis Education to advance its enrollment strategy and elevate the student experience. Through this collaboration, Trocaire will leverage Collegis’ Enrollment Support Services and its Connected Core® platform to guide prospective students from inquiry to enrollment.
The partnership comes as Trocaire begins implementing its new three-year strategic plan, with a sharpened focus on increasing enrollment and creating a seamless, student-centered admissions process.
“Trocaire College is looking forward to working with Collegis to help grow our enrollment in alignment with our mission. Collegis has a proven track record of achieving results in higher education including revenue-growth, enrollment expertise and optimization of student experiences while having an ‘edu-preneurial’ mindset,” stated Jason Konesco, executive vice president at Trocaire. “We chose Collegis for their ability to be a true partner working collaboratively with our team to create a tailored solution that will best reflect the needs of our institution.”
Collegis will serve as an extension of the Trocaire admissions team, providing personalized support and helping prospective students navigate their journey from initial inquiry to first contact to the first day of class. With just over 1,000 students across its South Buffalo location and Transit Achievement Center in Lancaster, Trocaire empowers students to achieve personal enrichment, dignity, and self-worth through education in various career-focused degree programs including healthcare, business, technology, veterinary sciences and the liberal arts.
Earlier this year, Trocaire first connected with Collegis at the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities (ACCU) Annual Meeting. Additional follow-up meetings, including a site visit from the Collegis team, solidified a shared vision for a collaborative, student-first approach.
At the core of this partnership is Connected Core, Collegis’ integrated technology and analytics platform that empowers institutions to make data-informed decisions while extending operational capacity. Recently named a “cool tool” by EdTech Digest, with Connected Core, Trocaire College will gain actionable insights into prospective student behavior, streamlined admissions workflows, and access to enrollment specialists trained to deliver high-quality student engagement.
“This partnership reflects what we do best: supporting institutions like Trocaire to help them grow in ways that honor their mission,” said Pat Green, vice president of enrollment solutions at Collegis Education. “We’re proud to bring data, tech, and talent to Trocaire’s team and we are passionate about supporting the next generation of students preparing for careers of purpose and lives of service.”
About Trocaire College
Founded in 1958 in Buffalo, NY by the Sisters of Mercy, Trocaire College is a private, career-oriented Catholic college that empowers students with the resources and supportive environment needed to achieve their academic goals. The core mission is to allow each person to be a valuable contributor to the workforce needs of the community. Trocaire offers bachelor’s degrees, associate degrees, certificates and workforce development programs in healthcare, veterinary sciences, business, and technology. Trocaire ranks in the top one-quarter of colleges and universities for return on investment by Georgetown University and is designated as an Opportunity College and University by the Carnegie Classifications with a Higher Access, Higher Earnings classification. Visit trocaire.edu for more information and follow Trocaire on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.
About Collegis Education
As a mission-oriented, tech-enabled services provider, Collegis Education partners with higher education institutions to help align operations to drive transformative impact across the entire student lifecycle. With over 25 years as an industry pioneer, Collegis has proven how to leverage data, technology, and talent to optimize institutions’ business processes that enhance the student experience. With the strategic expertise that rivals the leading consultancies, a full suite of proven service lines, including marketing, enrollment, retention, IT, and its world-class Connected Core® data platform, Collegis helps its partners enable impact and drive revenue, growth, and innovation. Learn more at CollegisEducation.com or via LinkedIn.
When the developers of Canvas, the world’s leading web-based learning management system (LMS) software, invite you to a party—July 22-24 this year in Spokane, WA—you might consider the offer. Expected to draw 3,000 attendees across various roles from individual educators to IT leadership, the event promises product reveals, professional development, and collaborative opportunities like Hack Night, designed to help educators and administrators demonstrate tangible value when they return to their institutions. I was able to grab Ryan Lufkin, Vice President of Global Academic Strategy at Instructure, for some pre-show scuttle butt. Have a listen and scroll down for some highlights:
➜InstructureCon 2025 is evolving its AI strategy beyond basic features to an “agentic approach,” leveraging partnerships with Anthropic, Microsoft, and Google to create integrated AI experiences across campus environments. Says Ryan: “That’s because our open architecture is the most well-positioned learning platform in the world to really pull in, not just those AI-powered features that we’ve developed, but we also leverage those from our partners.”
➜Instructure is responding to educational institutions’ budget constraints by focusing on helping customers maximize their technology investments through better data usage, adoption metrics, and optimization strategies. Says Ryan: “We really want educators and administrators to walk away with just a toolkit of how to use these products better, how to use them more deeply and tangibly show that value because we know the budgets are tight.”
A few session highlights:
Transforming Student Success with Mastery Connect: A Proven Approach to Data-Driven Instruction in Richland One School District
Get ready to discover how Richland One (R1) School District in South Carolina has been transforming student success with Mastery Connect since 2015! This digital assessment platform has empowered R1 teachers to seamlessly administer standards-based formative and summative assessments, dive into score reports, and collaborate with colleagues. MC has unlocked deeper insights into student mastery, giving teachers and teams the tools they need to drive data-driven instruction. Join us for an exciting session where R1 will share its curriculum map structure and district approach to formative assessments. Discover how to save time on data collection and analysis—whether you’re a teacher or an admin. Learn how newer features like Quick Reassess and Assessment Compare can help you work smarter, not harder! You’ll also explore how to harness real-time data to fuel impactful discussions in your Professional Learning Communities (PLCs), driving focused, results-oriented collaboration.
Cracking the Code: Turning Data into Action with Mastery Connect
Drowning in data but struggling to make it meaningful? Join us on a journey to transform numbers into actionable insights using Mastery Connect! In this session, we’ll share how we built educator buy-in, shifted mindsets, and empowered teachers to use data in meaningful ways. Discover practical strategies for making data analysis approachable, actionable, and impactful—without overwhelming teachers. We’ll explore real-world examples, time-saving tips, and effective ways to connect assessment data to instructional decisions. Whether you’re just getting started or looking to refine your approach, this session will equip you with insights and strategies to turn data into a catalyst for student success.
Beyond the Classroom: Maximizing Canvas for Non-Academic Programs in Resource-Limited Environments.
As institutions face financial and regulatory challenges, maximizing existing technology investments is essential. While Canvas is primarily used for academic courses, its capabilities extend beyond the classroom. This session explores how a small liberal arts institution has successfully repurposed Canvas for faculty onboarding, professional development, syllabus archiving, student organizations, and institutional assessment—all without additional costs. A key focus will be the development of a syllabus submission portal designed to streamline syllabus collection, ensure compliance with learning outcomes, and create a structured faculty repository. Attendees will gain practical insights into overcoming adoption challenges, achieving measurable ROI, and applying these strategies to institutions of varying sizes.
Kevin is a forward-thinking media executive with more than 25 years of experience building brands and audiences online, in print, and face to face. He is an acclaimed writer, editor, and commentator covering the intersection of society and technology, especially education technology. You can reach Kevin at KevinHogan@eschoolnews.com
The strategic partnership will strengthen the University’s student-centered mission through agile technology, operational innovation, and a shared commitment to community.
St. Paul, Minn. – (May 5, 2025) — St. Catherine University (St. Kate’s) and Collegis Education announced today that they have entered into a strategic partnership to enhance the University’s delivery of IT services.
The decision to seek external IT support was driven by the University’s growing need to accelerate progress on strategic technology initiatives that had slowed within the existing tech infrastructure. The University recognized the need for a partner with the expertise, agility, and shared mission to help build a more responsive, future-ready infrastructure.
“We realized that the pace of change in technology—and the expectations of our students—were outpacing what our internal systems and structures could support,” said Latisha Dawson, Vice President of Human Resources and Project Lead. “Our institution is centered around student connection and academic excellence. But to uphold that mission, we needed a partner with the technical expertise and scalability to move faster, innovate more nimbly, and help us deliver a modern student experience. Collegis allows us to do just that, so we can spend less time managing systems and more time serving our students.”
In this partnership, Collegis will provide day-to-day IT operational support, a dedicated Chief Information Officer (CIO), and technological infrastructure that supports the university’s forward progress on strategic projects, while upholding strong data governance and enabling real-time responsiveness.
As part of the deal, St. Kate will gain access to Collegis Education’s Connected Core®, a secure, composable data platform powered by Google Cloud. As a tech-agnostic solution, Connected Core unifies siloed systems and data sets, enables real-time and actionable institutional intelligence, produces AI-powered data strategies, and delivers proven solutions that enhance recruitment, retention, operations, and student experiences — driving measurable impact across the entire student lifecycle.
St. Kate’s selected Collegis following a thorough evaluation of potential partners. “A lot of vendors can fill a gap, but that’s not what we were looking for,” said Dawson. “We were looking for someone to meet us where we are, grow with us, and truly enable us to excel. The real differentiator with Collegis was the spirit of partnership, and beyond that, community. From the beginning, they didn’t feel like an outsider. The team has become part of our community, and a part of helping us advance our mission.”
“Collegis is honored to join the St. Kate’s community in a shared commitment to the future of higher education,” said Kim Fahey, President and CEO of Collegis Education. “We see technology not as an end but as an enabler, an extension of the institution’s mission to educate women to lead and influence. This partnership is about building agile systems that empower faculty, enrich the student experience, and keep the University ahead of what’s next.”
The partnership also reflects St. Kate’s strategic priority to build a more nimble technology foundation that shortens the timeline between priority-setting and implementation. The transition enables the university to move away from legacy systems and toward a model that supports real-time innovation, strategic flexibility, and long-term sustainability.
“Our partnership with Collegis is rooted in our values,” said Marcheta Evans, PhD, President of St. Catherine University. “It allows us to remain focused on our mission while bringing in trusted expertise to support the evolving needs of our students, faculty, and staff.”
Dawson concludes, “We’ve always been guided by the principle of meeting the needs of the time. Embracing this next level of technology ensures we can continue nurturing the powerful, personal connection between our faculty and students, which is what makes us uniquely St. Kate’s.”
About Collegis Education
As a mission-oriented, tech-enabled services provider, Collegis Education partners with higher education institutions to help align operations to drive transformative impact across the entire student lifecycle. With over 25 years as an industry pioneer, Collegis has proven how to leverage data, technology, and talent to optimize institutions’ business processes that enhance the student experience. With the strategic expertise that rivals the leading consultancies, a full suite of proven service lines, including marketing, enrollment, retention, IT, and its world-class Connected Core® data platform, Collegis helps its partners enable impact and drive revenue, growth, and innovation. Learn more at CollegisEducation.com or via LinkedIn.
About St. Catherine University
Sustained by a legacy of visionary women, St. Catherine University educates women to lead and influence. We are a diverse community of learners dedicated to academic rigor, core Catholic values, and a heartfelt commitment to social justice. St. Kate’s offers degrees at all levels in the humanities, arts, sciences, healthcare, and business fields that engage women in uncovering positive ways of transforming the world. St. Kate’s students learn and discern wisely, and live and lead justly — all to power lives of meaning. Discover more at stkate.edu.
Denizens of public service reform former Shadow Chancellor, Ed Balls, and former Universities Minister, David Willetts, have reignited the debates of 00s with new arguments on when government should intervene in the economy.
In two recent papers, one authored by Willetts alone, and one by Dan Turner, Huw Spencer, Julia Pamilih, Vidit Doshi, and Ed Balls, two different versions of industrial strategies emerge. For Willetts, taking on the industrial strategy directly, there is a world of gently incentivising universities to align their fundamentals with an industrial strategy which picks some good areas to invest in if not winners . For Balls, addressing the industrial strategy via Bidenomics, there is a bazooka of more funding, support, and investment, to break the economy from its malaise, with far more far-reaching consequences for universities.
Survivor
Balls and Willetts are interesting messengers for new industrial policy. Back in 2014 Balls delivered a speech to London Business School entitled Beyond the Third Way. In it he argued that
After the debacle of British Leyland in the 1970s, ‘industrial policy’ have been dirty words in Britain. Some remain cautious about the politics of ‘picking winners’ – but that misses the lesson of the 1970s. Back then, it was the industrial losers who did the picking and good money was poured after bad.
His argument, albeit oddly worded, was that industrial strategies had focussed on the industries that were already in terminal decline. For him, industrial strategies had not been maps to the future but buckets to bailout the important but failing industries of the past.
Willetts was even more pugnacious still. Back in 2013 he was not willing to cede that the government should back winners, that would be too much like the economic blunders of the 1980s, but that
Focusing on R&D and on particular technologies is not the same as picking winners, which notoriously became losers picking the pockets of tax payers. It is not backing particular businesses. Instead we are focusing on big general purpose technologies. Each one has implications potentially so significant that they stretch way beyond any one particular industrial sector. Information Technology has transformed retailing for example. Satellite services could deliver precision agriculture.
At the time, Balls gave barely a mention to universities beyond noting that the UK’s educated workforce struggled to find jobs to meet their qualifications. Willetts, in a style familiar to anyone following industrial policy, mentioned universities mostly (albeit not exclusively) as tools to promote wider policy objectives not instruments in their own right.
Fast forward a decade or so and a lot has changed.
Frosted tips
In his latest piece for the Resolution Foundation, How to do industrial strategy, Willetts has a clear view of what an industrial strategy is. It’s not about picking winners but about picking some obvious areas of strength for investment while freeing up some capacity to allow industries to strike their own sector deals. The strategy should not necessarily be about new money but about marshalling resources around industries for example opening up supply chains, easing procurement routes, and management training.
It is in Willetts’ views of the relationships between industrial strategy and higher education where things get really interesting. He is cognisant of the sometime disconnect between university education and skills needs and writes that
The University of Sunderland runs automotive engineering course directly serving the automotive facilities nearby. Some universities include in their degree programmes elements specifically designed with local business requirements in mind. The Government’s new entity, Skills England, should help promote these.
The Vice Chancellor of the University of Sunderland is now of course the Vice Chair of Skills England. However, it is interesting that for all of the fanfare of skills England the level of intervention he proposes is to promote these industrial links. He does not advocate for greater interventions by government nor employers. He promotes the idea of kitemarks for programmes aligned to industrial priorities, more funding competitions for business schools, and Centres for Doctoral Training co-funded with business.
It is not surprising that the man who invented much of the current higher education architecture does not call for its complete reform but his proposals seem modest given the ongoing economic collapse the country is enduring.
However, Willetts is perturbed by absence of universities from the industrial strategy green paper which he describes as “very odd”. His advice here is to encourage greater incubation of university start-ups, remove the numbers of spin-outs as a measure of success to discourage their premature release, and get universities to reduce their stakes in spin-outs. Again, all entirely sensible but not very large for the enormous challenges ahead. His more radical idea, innovation vouchers to support businesses to use university expertise, is a rehash of ideas that have been used across the UK including in Dundee to bring together businesses and academics around gaming. The trick is not to issue these vouchers generally but to target them at businesses with latent potential, where there are regional strengths, and commensurate university expertise.
Destiny’s Child
And this opens up a fundamental tension which Balls’ paper tries to address. Whether an industrial strategy is primarily about economic growth of the country or regions, investment in leading or latent assets, and how far the government should intervene. In a co authored paper, What should the UK learn from Bidenomics, Balls et al imagine the forthcoming industrial strategy as an opportunity to ruthlessly focus on the things that are strategic for the future of the UK’s economy. As they conclude in their paper
With clear goals in place, the toolkit of the Industrial Strategy should then seek to minimise the risk of capture by incumbent firms. That means using rules-based mechanisms like tax credits to realise clear growth objectives, crowding in private investment through public incentives, while resisting the pressure to reduce competition or favour incumbents.
Their view is the goal is not to ease the path for winners but to pick a few priority areas and support them with general levers of support that would benefit a range of firms. One of the lessons from Bidenomics is that their industrial policy succeeded on the basis that it was massive with $108bn of investment in energy deals alone. Balls and his co-authors highlight the need to support and expand areas of existing economic strength, this includes universities and spending outside of the golden triangle.
On the face of it the Balls proposition is more appealing. The basis of his argument would seem to be that if the government simultaneously invests in its leading assets while encouraging competition it can grab the best of both worlds. A more dynamic economy with more funding for the leading assets. The challenge is, as the paper acknowledges, the economic success of Bidenomics was also predicated on an appetite to allow creative destruction. Allowing zombie firms to die and workers to be made redundant and moved to more productive parts of the economy in order for the economy to grow. The paper refers to labour market churn and new business formation as the secret sauce “which appears to have contributed to higher productivity, stronger job creation, and faster growth.”
Blockbuster
Any decision ever to make any public investment implies winners and losers. The real debate is the extent to which the government should back those winners.
The Willetts view of the world would see universities broadly fulfilling the same role they do now with a bit of new funding for collaboration. The more challenging view by Balls and his colleagues is that economic dynamism is inherently linked to creating and destroying more business and labour market churn. This would not only mean that universities would have to adapt more rapidly in their kinds of labour market work, skills training, CPD, KTPs and so on. It would also mean that they may also find themselves in urgent need of yet another political narrative, levelling up, securonomics, whatever next, in an ever changing policy landscape.
The challenge that has yet to be fixed in any industrial strategy is regional inequality. Even America with all of its economic levers to pull still has many places that have been “hollowed out” with a mixed record of turning things round through public investment. Any university that can play a distinct role in this puzzle is likely not only to win the favour of the government but solve one of the biggest impediments to the UK’s productivity, and by proxy the quality of life of its people.
The Balls view of industrial strategy as a tool for economic dynamism, the Willetts view of industrial strategy as a tool for reorientating government and reorganising bits of the economy, may both lose out to a Chancellor who may feel she has little fiscal headroom to make dramatic economic interventions. For universities, the opportunity is to define their role in the government’s central economic policy, if they do not their role will be defined for them.
If you have a job at the intersection of learning, organizational change and technology that you are recruiting for, please get in touch!
Q: What is the university’s mandate behind this role? How does it help align with and advance the university’s strategic priorities?
A: The University of Michigan has long staked its reputation on research excellence and public purpose. Now we’re doubling down on scale, access and impact—transforming how learning reaches people across every stage of life, across the globe. Life-changing education is one of four core impact areas within the University of Michigan’s Vision 2034, and the person in the director of content and product strategy role will support this strategic work.
As Michigan accelerates its investment in digital learning, this person leads the charge: shaping and guiding a dynamic portfolio of educational products—online courses, certificates, degree programs, short-form learning experiences and beyond—that don’t merely mirror the classroom, but reimagine what learning can be. This role calls for both vision and precision, bringing together academic imagination, bold experimentation and the ability to turn ideas into action. The director will steer faculty ideas and institutional goals into cohesive, high-impact offerings that reflect the university’s boldest ambitions for learning at scale.
Q: Where does the role sit within the university structure? How will the person in this role engage with other units and leaders across campus?
A: This director role sits within the Center for Academic Innovation, operating at the intersection of ideas and implementation. The individual will collaborate closely with experts in learning design, media production, marketing, operations and research. But the real action is in the connections across campus.
Michigan’s schools and colleges host a vast breadth and depth of faculty expertise, and this role thrives on cross-campus collaboration—partnering with academic unit leaders, faculty and staff to co-create offerings that extend U-M’s mission far beyond Ann Arbor. Drawing on insights about learner demand and market opportunity, the director will guide faculty in selecting content areas and product types with the greatest potential, translating an idea sketched on a whiteboard into a course reaching learners across the globe.
Q: What would success look like in one year? Three years? Beyond?
A: In one year, the new director has helped identify and launch a diverse set of online learning offerings that reflect Michigan’s distinctive strengths. Relationships are strong, internal workflows are humming and early results show promising reach and impact.
In three years, the content portfolio resembles a greatest hits playlist for lifelong learners—diverse, well-balanced and deeply mission-aligned. It’s something learners want to come back and engage with, time and time again. Offerings address workforce needs, social challenges and global opportunity. Faculty are eager to collaborate. Partners are eager to invest.
Beyond that, success means transformation. The University of Michigan is recognized not just for what it teaches, but for how it reimagines teaching. Our educational offerings reach far beyond campus, connecting with learners across industries, geographies and life stages. This individual has played a key part in turning a world-class university into a truly global learning institution.
Q: What kinds of future roles would someone who took this position be prepared for?
A: We’re looking for someone who wants to shape what’s next—not just for learners, but for institutions. The director of content and product strategy will develop a rare blend of skills: the ability to lead across academic and operational contexts, to translate vision into scalable experiences, and to steward innovation with both purpose and precision.
From here, a person might go on to lead teaching and learning strategy at an institutional level, head up a center for innovation or lifelong learning, or take on an executive role at an organization working to expand access to education globally. Alternatively, one might pivot toward product leadership in mission-driven companies or foundations, applying their experience to broader systems change.
This role builds expertise and a portfolio not just of educational content—but of influence, insight and lasting impact.
As cyber threats against educational institutions continue to rise, the need to protect sensitive data and maintain secure, accessible learning environments is more crucial than ever. Authentication has always been a cornerstone of cybersecurity, but traditional methods are proving insufficient. For educational institutions facing unique challenges, deviceless authentication (which doesn’t require a cell phone) is emerging as an innovative solution, allowing schools to secure their networks without requiring users to have access to physical devices. Identity Automation’s RapidIdentity platform offers versatile deviceless options, including WebAuthn and Pictograph, which deliver robust, device-free authentication tailored to the needs of schools.
Why Authentication Matters in Education Today
With sensitive student data, health records, and other critical information at stake, cybersecurity in schools is a priority. Federal agencies like the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Department of Education (ED) have increasingly emphasized the need for multi-factor authentication (MFA) as an essential security measure. They urge schools to strengthen their defenses with MFA, advocating for security standards that go beyond passwords. Guidance from federal government’s K-12 Cybersecurity Act and the Department of Education’s resources on protecting student privacy provide best practices guidelines, but implementing MFA in education brings its own challenges.
Access to physical devices isn’t universal in education, and institutions are increasingly adopting device restrictions. Many students do not own personal devices, while others may be prohibited from using them on campus. Teacher unions often object to districts requiring teachers to use their personal phones for school activities. This is where deviceless authentication becomes critical: it enables every user to securely access school systems without needing an additional device, creating a seamless, secure experience for students and staff alike.
Trends in Deviceless Authentication
Across sectors, authentication methods are evolving to increase security while minimizing reliance on devices, passwords, and other traditional methods. Here are a few key trends:
WebAuthn for Passwordless Security: WebAuthn is a leading technology enabling secure, passwordless authentication across platforms. By using biometric sensors or hardware keys, WebAuthn eliminates the need for passwords entirely. For schools, WebAuthn provides a versatile deviceless solution by allowing users to authenticate through built-in or connected hardware options on any device available in the school setting, such as a laptop or desktop computer.
Pictograph Authentication for Visual Simplicity: Pictograph offers a unique, highly accessible way to authenticate by allowing users to choose and memorize a series of images rather than passwords or device-based codes. This method is ideal for students of all ages, as it does not require any device ownership and is easy for younger users to remember. Pictograph aligns well with educational environments, where students can log in quickly without needing a phone or other hardware.
Adaptive and Contextual MFA: Adaptive authentication adjusts security requirements based on factors like user location or behavior, providing extra layers of security without requiring a device. Schools benefit from these dynamic adjustments, allowing students and teachers to access resources with minimal friction while ensuring that the security adapts to higher-risk scenarios.
Zero-Trust Frameworks: Educational institutions increasingly adopt Zero Trust models, which prioritize strict identity verification at every access point. Deviceless options like WebAuthn and Pictograph fit seamlessly into this framework, making it possible for schools to implement Zero-Trust principles even in challenging environments where users may not have access to dedicated devices.
At Identity Automation, we understand the unique security needs in education and the critical importance of balancing secure access with usability. Our RapidIdentity platform is designed to provide flexible, deviceless authentication options, including WebAuthn and Pictograph, that address the specific challenges of school districts.
WebAuthn Integration: WebAuthn allows users to authenticate with cryptographic keys generated by their devices, such as biometric sensors or security keys. RapidIdentity’s support for WebAuthn enables schools to offer passwordless, device-independent security that fits naturally within classroom settings. Whether a student is using a computer lab or a shared school device, WebAuthn provides a frictionless and secure way to log in without needing to rely on personal devices.
Pictograph for Visual Authentication: Designed with younger students and device-limited environments in mind, RapidIdentity’s Pictograph feature offers a user-friendly alternative to traditional authentication methods. Instead of entering a password or using an SMS code, students can select a personalized sequence of images. This solution is particularly useful for younger students who may struggle with text-based passwords or who lack access to personal devices, providing an easy-to-remember and device-free way to log in securely.
Role-Based Access and Adaptability: With thousands of students, teachers, and staff accessing systems daily, RapidIdentity’s platform provides adaptable, role-based access specifically designed for educational institutions. Users are only prompted for higher levels of authentication when necessary, reducing friction while enhancing security. Deviceless options like WebAuthn and Pictograph make this process even smoother by offering flexible solutions that require no additional hardware for authentication.
Compliance and Federal Mandates: RapidIdentity’s solutions are built to help schools align with federal guidelines, offering a secure yet flexible way to implement MFA without compromising accessibility. With deviceless options, schools can protect student data and meet cybersecurity mandates without requiring users to carry devices, making compliance achievable for districts of all sizes and means.
Scalability and Cost-Effectiveness: Schools can avoid the high costs of purchasing, deploying, and managing hardware tokens or mobile-based authentication solutions by using RapidIdentity’s deviceless authentication. For cash-strapped districts, the ability to secure their environments without extensive device investments is a game-changer, offering schools a highly scalable and economically feasible solution.
Partnering with Identity Automation for a Safer Future
In a landscape where cyber threats are increasingly sophisticated, RapidIdentity’s deviceless authentication options, including WebAuthn and Pictograph, stand as versatile and powerful tools in an educational institution’s security arsenal. With Identity Automation, school districts can confidently adopt robust, compliant, and user-friendly authentication solutions designed specifically for the education sector.
To explore how RapidIdentity can strengthen your school’s cybersecurity posture, reach out to Identity Automation today. Our team is ready to help you navigate these challenges and implement solutions that keep your data secure while making authentication easy for every user. Contact us to learn more about deviceless authentication and other ways RapidIdentity can empower your school with comprehensive, modern security.
In today’s digital-first world, higher education institutions are increasingly turning to digital marketing to educate, engage, enroll, and retain students. However, one of the key challenges that the campus decision-makers face is understanding the potential costs associated with digital marketing and how to effectively budget for growth.
As someone deeply immersed in the world of digital strategy, I often find myself having the same conversation with campus leaders: how do we set realistic expectations about what it really costs to do effective digital marketing? And more importantly, how do we directly link those costs with your institution’s growth objectives? In this blog, I will highlight the key data-driven strategies for assessing ROI and how these strategies inform a strategic budget plan that strengthens your institution’s overall portfolio and drives sustainable growth.
The importance of setting realistic expectations
Success in higher education landscape, particularly when managing a large portfolio, is driven by a disciplined, metrics-oriented approach. From my experience, the institutions that excel are those that rely on crisp numbers, rigorously evaluate their plans ahead of time, and understand the value of projections and estimations. By leveraging detailed forecasts and aligning resources accordingly, we can navigate the complexities of enrollment growth with precision and confidence, always mindful that incremental progress, evaluated at every stage, is key to achieving long-term goals.
Setting expectations means recognizing that significant results take time and careful planning. This translates to setting realistic growth expectations based on an understanding that reaching your enrollment goals will take multiple academic terms. When I am collaborating with our partners, we adopt a structured five year growth trajectory where Year 1 serves as the “foundational” phase, establishing the core infrastructure and strategic alignment. Year 2 is focused on “scaling,” optimizing initial investments to drive measurable growth. Years 3 and beyond are dedicated to “sustained value creation,” with a continuous focus on refining processes and maximizing returns through ongoing optimization and strategic enhancements. This phased approach allows for calculated risk-taking and ensures a clear path to long-term, scalable success.
Once we’ve set realistic expectations for our digital strategy, it’s crucial to ensure that every tactic -whether paid digital marketing, SEO, or creative content, all work together seamlessly to achieve your goals. These elements don’t function in isolation; rather, they complement each other to drive greater visibility, engagement, and, ultimately, enrollments. A well-rounded strategy that integrates SEO to boost discoverability, paid digital marketing for targeted reach, and compelling content to engage prospective students will create a strong foundation for success. By understanding how these components interrelate, you’ll be better equipped to assess their effectiveness and make data-driven adjustments as needed.
From here, let’s dive into how digital strategy translates into budget planning and ROI. Understanding the interconnectedness of these key elements will help you allocate resources more efficiently and set a clear path for measuring the success of your investments.
Connecting strategy to ROI and crafting a strategic budget plan for growth
The connection between strategy and ROI is grounded in the ability to align your digital marketing efforts with measurable outcomes, and it all starts with the establishment of clear and precise enrollment goals. Prioritizing top programs ensures that marketing resources are directed toward the areas with the highest demand or growth potential, improving overall program performance. The right channel mix is crucial to reaching the right audience, maximizing visibility, and efficiently converting interest into applications. Monitoring data and optimizing it in real-time ensures that marketing efforts are continuously adjusted for maximum effectiveness, enhancing the likelihood of meeting targets and improving ROI. Finally, effective allocation based on application timing, seasonality projections, and market revisions allows for strategic adjustments in campaigns to account for fluctuating demands, ensuring marketing spend is optimized throughout the enrollment cycle. Collectively, these elements create a robust framework for maximizing ROI, ensuring that marketing investments lead to increased applications, conversions, and, ultimately, student enrollment.
How do you craft a budget that supports your growth goals? Whether you are the decision-making authority or a decision influencer, here are the essential steps to craft a budget plan that aligns with your institution’s growth objectives and maximizes your enrollments:
1. Define your enrollment goals in detail
When you think of marketing costs, what comes to mind first? How much will it cost to meet your enrollment goals, right? So, your first step in planning a budget is to have your overall Enrollment goal (and, for graduate or online programs, a goal for every program) in front of you. With the goal (or program-level goals) in hand, determine what that means in terms of percentage growth from the current state. You may also have subsidiary goals like enhancing brand awareness, building more brand equity, or engaging alumni. If these are going to be part of your plan, they should also have tangible goals for what you are trying to do. Defining your enrollment goals helps you allocate your budget accordingly and measure ROI effectively.
STRATEGY TIP
Develop a “Goal Mapping” Scenario or you can say a Reverse Funnel (for each program). After you set enrollment goals (for the year or the term) you then need to understand the lead to enroll ratio. This will help you work backwards to determine how many accepted apps/admits will be needed, how many completed apps, how many submitted apps, and finally how many qualified leads will be needed. Based on the program category, dig deeper into what the Cost per Leads (CPL’s) are, based on industry benchmarks. That will help you calculate the estimated ad spend needed to generate those qualified leads.
A note on program-level goals: If you don’t have program-level enrollment goals for your online and graduate programs, finalize those as soon as possible. Until then, focus marketing on building brand awareness. It is likely that people in your own backyard could be less familiar with your program than you may think they are. Brand advertising will ensure that awareness rises so that when you have your program goals, you can build your campaigns on a higher level of familiarity with your institution. However, given that Google reports that 75 percent of graduate and online program searches don’t include an institution name, remember that branding alone will not be enough to fill your classes.
Institutional example: When we began work with one of our partners nearly two years ago, they had not established program-level goals. So, in year one, we focused the largest portion of the budget on institutional awareness, with mini-campaigns focused on specific programs of importance to the institution. By the beginning of the second year, the institution had set program-level goals based on a greater understanding of market conditions. At that point, we began transitioning our campaigns to focus (ultimately 80 percent of the budget) on the programs with the “mini campaign” focused on continuing the brand equity efforts.
2. Prioritize your programs
It is highly unlikely that most institutions can spend marketing dollars on every program they offer. This means that in order to maximize the ROI of your marketing budget, you must prioritize your programs. But how? Take a data-driven approach, prioritizing programs for which you a) know there is market demand both among students and employers, and b) understand the competitor environment. These are the “cash cows” that will demonstrate the best ROI on your marketing spend and support the programs that, while not demonstrating significant market demand, are critical to the institutional mission.
STRATEGY TIP
Spreading a $100K marketing budget across 15 -20 programs will only dilute the ad spend, by spreading it too thin. Instead, identify the top 5-7 programs that have the greatest market demand and focus on them. Note that sometimes, the programs that seem most in need of a “marketing boost”, really aren’t. They are struggling because their market demand situation is not what it once was.
Institutional example: A partner institution recently commissioned RNL to conduct a Program Prioritization and Positioning study focused on their current program mix. The goal was to take a data-driven deep dive into 12 programs vying for marketing dollars, with a focus on understanding student demand and employer needs in the region. The results indicated that while one of the programs they had planned to prioritize came out on top, two others that they hadn’t been planning to focus on also demonstrated strong demand, and one of the programs that they had questioned was confirmed as having weak local market demand.
3. Determine your channel strategy
Once you have prioritized your programs for marketing ROI, setting your channel strategy is pivotal. Personas (at the graduate and online levels developed for each program) dictate the channels on which you should focus. You don’t want (or need) to be present on every single channel just for the sake of “eyeballs.” Be mindful of the budget and how best to use it in order to maximize return, which can only be accomplished if you apply the personas that will inform you where your target student spend their “digital time.” So, for example, not every program may benefit from marketing on LinkedIn. Since it is expensive with a $10 minimum ad spend, a persona-based approach may indicate that other platforms are a much better match. But you can only do this if you know the characteristics of your audience, and that comes from the program personas.
STRATEGY TIP
The critical element in increasing marketing ROI is to engage the right students at the right time on the right channel, without spreading your budget too thin. In contrast, being too invested in any single channel exclusively or too long is also almost always the wrong strategy. There is always a point of diminishing returns as students cycle to different platforms, and you want to be sure to know where to go next before you approach that point by being able to tap into the next new thing.
Institutional example: One of our prestigious campus partners was struggling with recent market shifts that resulted in an overall decline in applications. We dug into market and performance data to help them prioritize programs that had the highest lead-to-enroll ratios, lowest cost per acquisition, and good search volume with an eye to increasing marketing ROI and overall success. This approach not only helped regain their momentum at the top of the funnel but also generated strong conversion volume that exceeded goals and sustainably reduced cost per conversion. These changes benefited not only the marketing operation but were also felt by the call center, and further down the funnel where we saw an increase in applications.
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4. Analyze data regularly and optimize with agility
If (quality) content is king, data is queen! Sustained growth can only occur when data and insights are continuously incorporated into strategy. Analyzing performance data is crucial to understanding which programs and channels are yielding the largest numbers of applications and enrollments and, hence, generating the best return on ad spend (ROAS). This type of analysis allows for a data-driven approach to strategic pivots on how the marketing budget is allocated to ensure the highest ROI (or ROAS) across channels and the program portfolio. As the cost of marketing has risen, so has the need for marketers to make an effective case to senior leadership for additional marketing dollars. You can only do this if you can demonstrate that you are the best possible stewards of current resources.
STRATEGY TIP
As you continue to increase your campaign efficiency and success with the focus on ROI, your cost per lead will gradually start to go down – on average by 5 – 10 percent in year 2 and beyond. So, campaigns can generate more qualified leads efficiently over the years (for the same cost), thereby maximizing the return on your ad spend (ROAS). This helps you not just grow but also helps in building forecasts and projections for growth compounded over several years – and it also provides a strong ROI-driven basis for any requests you may need to make for additional funds elsewhere.
A note on analytics platforms: The fact that resources have become increasingly scarce at the same time as marketing costs have skyrocketed has resulted, out of necessity, in more sophisticated tracking of ROI. If your internal systems are set up in the correct manner (or if you are working with a strategic partner like RNL) every lead can be tracked to its source, thereby allowing for the assessment of just how effectively each marketing dollar has been used.
Institutional example: A prestigious campus partner was having challenges with converting leads to applications and enrollments. We reviewed their full-funnel data (compete with attribution percentages) and realized something wasn’t working. The top of the funnel was healthy, with good lead volume. However, down the funnel we saw that a disproportionate number of leads were not converting to apps and enrollments. As a result of the review and data analysis, we made a bold strategic pivot to shift significant budget allocations to the channel (Google search) that we could see was producing the greatest numbers of applications and enrollments. Without the data, solving the challenge would have been impossible. With the data, it was easy. Since we made this change, applications, and enrollments have consistently increased each academic period.
Making sure that the top of the funnel strategy is guided by down funnel numbers is the KEY! Effective strategy must evolve through ongoing optimizations with thoughtful placements across diverse media platforms that are informed by performance data. Remember that the path to enrollment is rarely linear and an integrated media strategy allows you to provide a personalized message in the right place at the right time.
5. Understand and account for seasonality/application timings/expansion
Another aspect of the dynamic nature of the marketing process relates to the seasonality of lead flow – and subsequent enrollment. This requires flexibility to adjust your strategies based on real-time performance data collected throughout the year. For any program or institution, there are times of the year during which more or fewer leads are generated. Fully understanding these trends takes time; you can make preliminary judgments on when the lead volume is highest and lowest within one year, but multiple years will allow for greater certainty. As you build your capacity to track lead generation – and conversion throughout the funnel – by program and source – you can create visualizations that map these factors by month. They can be used to build monthly budget allocations like those presented below.
Institutional example: For one campus partner we used the annual performance data in an innovative way. Our data insights indicated that there was more market share to capture, by having the program leverage low cost per conversion at the top of the funnel at certain points in the year, and low cost per acquisition at the bottom at other points of the year. There was time to scale up both applications and enrollments. We developed a forecast plan to address the potential areas of opportunity, calculated the cost, and pitched it to the partner. Once approved, we moved with agility, and implemented additional ad spend on the top champion programs and frontloaded the budgets for the academic periods yielding the highest number of applicants and enrollments. With this, we were not only able to meet the qualified lead goal but also exceeded the enrollments by 19% for the following academic period.
The lifetime value of the student
As you budget for growth, it’s crucial to consider the lifetime value (LTV) of a student. LTV refers to the total revenue a student generates throughout their academic journey and beyond. This value encompasses tuition fees, ancillary revenues (like housing and meal plans), alumni donations, and increasingly in our era lifelong learning opportunities.
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We’re to help you find the right digital marketing and recruitment strategies. Let’s set up a time to talk.
Developing New Year’s resolutions for personal growth is something many of us do. Unfortunately, it is often a set-it and forget-it process that is simply reupped the following year. When done correctly, however, creating a resolution that is developed as a sustained, long-term strategy—and that is regularly returned to and adjusted as needed—seems to be the best way to meet our personal goals.
As enrollment managers, we all have pursued the first approach in our professional lives by evaluating last year’s successes and failures annually, making a few tweaks, and then seeing how it all works out again the following year. The truth of the matter is that this approach was relatively sustainable for a time. Simply buying more names, adjusting the aid-leveraging model annually, or a developing a wider marketing plan often could drive greater enrollments—mostly because those tactics generally were designed to “add more fuel to the fire.” As long as the applications continued to grow, annual tweaks could help to maintain the core enrollments as well as improve on the margins for many institutions.
The Need for More Effective Strategic Enrollment Strategies
Unfortunately, outside of key private and public flagship institutions, headwinds have developed over the past decade that are affecting higher education enrollments in significant ways. Ultimately, they may lead to campus closures for some, and to campus financial distress for many. As outlined in a paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, “Predicting College Closures and Financial Distress,”those pressures include:
Post-pandemic enrollment challenges from traditional students (decreasing 15% from 2010-2021).
Changes among adult learners (“The number of adult students over the age of 25 has fallen by nearly half since the Great Recession”).
Growing competition.
A lack of public support for higher education nationally.
The combination of all these factors has brought about the need for enrollment managers to develop a wider multi-year strategy that includes tools with the ability to enable deeper, more highly data-informed fine tuning throughout any given cycle. A one-size-fits-all approach to creating a nuanced strategy can no longer work in an environment of shrinking applications and increased competition.
Liaison’s Partnership Philosophy
Liaison is uniquely positioned to assist with higher education institutions in a true partnership. With the technology, services, and consultative approach that we provide our partners throughout the nation, we can assist in developing a comprehensive enrollment approach unique to your campus—ranging from single-point to full-enrollment planning solutions that are uniquely tailored to your unique needs. Liaison’s partnership philosophy, technology solutions, and industry knowledge and insights can not only help strengthen your enrollment planning and goals for this year but also set you up for long-term enrollment success.
Craig Cornell is the Vice President for Enrollment Strategy at Liaison. In that capacity, he oversees a team of enrollment strategists and brings best practices, consultation, and data trends to campuses across the country in all things enrollment management. Craig also serves as the dedicated resource to NASH (National Association of Higher Education Systems) and works closely with the higher education system that Liaison supports. Before joining Liaison in 2023, Craig served for over 30 years in multiple higher education executive enrollment management positions. During his tenure, the campuses he served often received national recognition for enrollment growth, effective financial aid leveraging, marketing enhancements, and innovative enrollment strategies.
How to Strategically Expand Your Online Adult Degree Programs
So you’ve built a successful online adult degree program. No small feat. Now you need to keep your foot on the gas to keep the momentum going.
Your first instinct might be to “go wide” with your program expansion strategy by launching a variety of new, unrelated programs to pair with your successful offering. While this diversification strategy might reap great rewards for consumer packaged goods giants like Unilever and Procter & Gamble, higher education is different. Your institution is different.
I find myself making the following recommendation over and over again when it comes to expanding online degree programs: Go deep, not wide.
This means building upon the success of your existing program by developing specialized offerings within the same field. The “go deep” method might not be the most popular, but in my experience, it’s often the most effective. Let’s break it down further — or should I say, dig deeper — to see if this approach is right for your school.
What Does Going Wide Mean for Your Online Adult Degree Programs?
Let’s start with a hypothetical example: You have established a successful online Master of Business Administration (MBA) program with a positive reputation in the region.
Recently, you’ve heard cybersecurity and nursing degree programs are experiencing industry growth, so you decide to pursue programs in those areas next to build out a wider range of offerings.
Unfortunately, this strategic path can be a mistake. Here’s why:
Lack of synergy among programs: When universities add new, unrelated programs, they often fail to create synergistic relationships among all their programs. Each program operates in isolation without benefiting from the shared resources, expertise, or cross-promotional opportunities that could exist if the programs were more aligned.
Missed opportunities to leverage existing brand equity: Diversifying into new areas causes institutions to overlook the strength of their existing brand. A well-established program, like a thriving online MBA program, comes with significant brand recognition and trust that new programs lack.
However, expanding within the existing framework of business administration can allow for the amplification of this established brand equity, rather than starting from scratch with each new offering.
Why Going Deep Is More Effective
In higher education, the smart, strategic allocation of resources is crucial. You could put your institution’s limited resources toward a whole new program, such as a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) program or a Master of Science in Cybersecurity program. Or, you could just attach a new or adjacent offering to your successful online MBA program to channel your resources into an established program realm.
Forget efficacy for a moment. Which strategy sounds more efficient?
The good news is that going deep in one area of program offerings is often more effective and efficient. Instead of developing an entirely new adult degree program from scratch, you can simply add value to your existing online business program.
This might come in the form of added concentration options, such as MBA concentrations in entrepreneurship, accounting, finance, marketing, management, or strategic communications.
It could also involve adding another relevant degree program within the same area of study. For example, since you’re seeing a lot of success with your MBA program, you could add a finance or accounting degree program to build on the success and reputation of the established program.
Key Benefits of Going Deep With Your Online Adult Degree Programs
I’ve had experiences both ways: some institutions go wide, others go deep. For those that go wide, I’ve often seen siloed marketing efforts, inefficient allocations of resources, and sporadic and unpredictable enrollment. For those that go deep, I see the following benefits:
More Students Attracted
Broadened appeal for students already interested in the primary program: By offering more concentrations within a well-established program, or adjacent degrees within the same field, your institution can appeal to a broader range of interests and career goals within your current student audience base.
More options for prospective students due to increased specialization: Specialized degrees and concentrations allow students to tailor their education to their specific interests and career paths, making the program more attractive to applicants seeking focused expertise.
Increased Marketing Efficiency
Ability to leverage existing web pages and SEO for the main program: Concentration pages can be added as subpages to the main program’s page, which likely already has a strong search engine optimization (SEO) presence. This setup benefits from the existing search engine rankings and requires less effort than starting marketing from scratch for a new program.
Faster path to high search rankings for new concentrations, creating a marketing loop: The SEO efforts for the main program boost the visibility of the new concentrations, which in turn contribute to the overall authority and ranking of the main program’s page. This synergy creates a self-reinforcing cycle that enhances the visibility of all offerings.
Enhanced paid marketing efficiencies: Adding concentrations in areas where significant traffic already exists for broad terms — like “MBA,” “business degree,” or “finance degree” for an MBA program — allows institutions to more effectively utilize their paid advertising budgets. Expanding the program options for your existing traffic allows you to improve your click-to-lead conversion rates, increase your number of leads, and enhance your downstream successes in areas such as enrollments and completions. This approach allows for a more efficient use of marketing investments, providing more options for prospective students within the same budget.
Faster Accreditation Process
Streamlined accreditation process by expanding within an already accredited program: Adding concentrations within an existing program simplifies the accreditation process. Because the core program is already accredited, expanding it with concentrations requires fewer approvals and less bureaucracy than launching an entirely new program.
Ready to Go Deep With One of Your Online Adult Degree Programs?
If you’ve seen success with an online adult degree program offering, you’ve already taken a momentous step toward growth — which is something to be proud of. It also creates massive opportunity, and Archer Education is poised to help you capitalize on it.
Archer is different from other agencies. We work as your online growth enablement partner, helping you to foster self-sufficiency over the long haul through collaboration, storytelling, and cutting-edge student engagement technology.
We’ve helped dozens of institutions increase enrollment and retention through a going deep approach, and your institution could be next. And once you’ve solidified the reputation and success of your core online offering by going deep, we’ll be ready to help you pivot to a wider approach to expand your position in online learning.
Contact us today to learn more about what Archer can do for you.
