A Radical Rethink: The Future of Admissions, Recruitment, and Marketing

Executive Summary

We’ve heard how you’re feeling: attracting, engaging, and retaining students seems to be getting harder.

69% of higher ed admissions and recruitment professionals feel more stretched than at any other time in their careers, and nearly one in five of you are on the brink of burnout.

It makes sense to feel this way. Competition for enrollment is greater than ever before. In traditional higher education, the number of institutions is growing globally while the number of prospective students is falling. Those who might have chosen higher education in the past are considering and applying to up to and beyond 10 different places. But even outside of those immediate competitors, our survey shows that the vast majority of students are seriously considering an alternative path to higher ed, and they simply don’t see college as being “essential.”

Student expectations are greater than ever before. These students know what they want – and they’re demanding. They expect to see that return on their educational investments. From the very start of their journey, our data shows they expect total personalization. Some students will go so far as to cross an institution off their list if they feel the marketing is “cringey.”

Tech stacks that promise to save the day offer limited or no visibility, leaving you with piles of invoices but little return.

It’s no wonder things feel impossible. That’s why we’ve titled this report “A Radical Rethink,” because that is what will be required to stand out in an increasingly competitive market; meet individual student expectations; and deliver authenticity and personalization at scale.

This report is underpinned by a survey of more than 1,000 higher ed students drawing on their experience of applying to and enrolling in college. 

We’ve supplemented that data with a survey of 200 higher education enrollment professionals, working across recruitment, marketing, and admissions, from 23 different countries.

Three main themes are discussed in this guide

01 – A hyper-competitive landscape

Higher education is becoming an increasingly crowded landscape. Globally, there are more providers than ever before; students are more mobile, with options across the world. And perhaps most pertinently than ever – the value and credibility of higher education is waning, and students are seriously looking at alternatives. 

02 – Tech is failing institutions

Higher education institutions are faced with clunky tech stacks and outdated CRMs, giving limited insight into students. How are you supposed to compete with the multi-billion dollar marketing strategies from consumer companies that students have come to expect as the norm in 2023?

03 – Authenticity gets left behind

Prospective students don’t want to buy from faceless corporations. They want to hear from humans, and feel like they can trust the information they have access to. But authenticity and human-to-human connection aren’t enough of a focus, and even when it is – can it be scalable?

It calls for a radical rethink

Competition is fierce, demands are sky-high, and those on the ground in higher ed admissions, recruitment, and marketing are trying to do much more with a lot less: less time, less money, clunky and outdated tech. For students to feel truly engaged by the marketing or recruitment strategies they see, we propose a radical rethink.

Navigating a hyper-competitive higher ed landscape

Higher education was once considered the best way to a well-paid, fulfilling career. But that’s changed. Post-COVID, alternative paths are a deliberate part of the decision-making process. Students and their families are no longer tied to a linear path from high school to college. The perception of value has decidedly changed.

Even for those that do decide to go the traditional higher ed route, there are more choices and programs than ever before. And students are more mobile – they can consider options across the world.

Students are keeping their options open 

Students keep their options open right from the beginning: and the majority (59%) will consider between two and four different institutions. 

Around 50% will submit applications to between two and four institutions. In fact, only a quarter of students will apply to just one college. Unbelievably, 4% will apply to ten or more colleges!

Most surprisingly of all, a significant number of students are now paying deposits at multiple institutions: 44% of those that needed to pay a deposit said they paid more than one.

Students are looking beyond college

But it isn’t just the competition from other higher ed institutions that admissions professionals are contending with.

Just 28% of students said they felt it was “essential” to go on to higher education, and almost a third of students said going to college is not important.

For those working in higher education, this pinch is evident: 39% say competing with a growing number of alternatives is the biggest challenge

Why having options matters to students

Just like you, students have targets to hit. For many, it’s their earnings or future employability, and they’re looking to find the “solution” that best helps them meet those targets.

Last year, when we asked students this same question, career outcomes were the fourth most important factor. This year it has shot up to first.

Higher ed admissions, recruitment, and marketing teams need to show the return on investment (ROI) and they need to show the impact, both short-term and long-term.

Standing out from the competition

With other providers and alternatives competing for students’ attention and applications, you need to stand out from the crowd.

Tech is failing higher ed institutions

All of us are accosted with marketing every single day. Your target audience – prospective students – can see straight through the glossy brochures and posed photographs. They judge quickly and harshly, not just on the hard facts like employability, but also on how an institution aligns with their own values.

So when multibillion-dollar brands are vying for their attention, and wallets, and they’re used to a high standard of content and marketing, can higher ed admissions, recruitment, and marketing teams keep up?

Generation Z students have high tech standards

Today’s savvy students are inundated with ads in their daily lives. So they are choosy about which brands they do business with. 

They have high expectations for the sorts of engagement and nurture experiences they expect to have: values-aligned, authentic and high-quality.

More tech isn’t necessarily helping higher ed schools

Institutions are spending a fortune on tech to try and solve these challenges, but our research suggests it simply isn’t working.

Unbelievably 39% of institutions use more than five tech tools throughout the student journey (that’s a lot of log-ins, and a lot of invoices).

And it doesn’t seem to be helping. 68% say this tech offers limited or no insight into how prospective students are feeling or what they’re thinking. 66% say it gives limited or no help in predicting student enrollment. 

And students can tell: nearly half of students said most institutions they spoke to didn’t keep them engaged, and 41% were unimpressed by the outreach and nurture efforts of institutions they did engage with.

Higher ed teams are spread thin

Higher ed admissions, recruitment, and marketing teams are currently engaging with students through just about every channel available. Undoubtedly, this is partly due to a lack of visibility.

76% of those surveyed had limited or no visibility about the student journey.

55% would not feel confident knowing why an individual student has dropped out of the funnel.

Delivering seamless digital marketing on a small budgets

Students expect a seamless, digital-first experience. Tech has been seen as the answer to all problems, but many institutions feel that they’ve been left with unusable, confusing, and expensive tech stacks that are creating barriers.

Authenticity is getting left behind in higher ed messaging

Prospective students don’t want to buy from faceless corporations. And the decision about where to study – perhaps the most expensive and most critical purchase of their lives so far – is no exception. They want to hear from humans, feel like they can trust the information they have access to, and truly connect with an institution and its people.

Why personalized messaging is key to student engagement

Almost half of students expect every single piece of outreach they see to be personalized to them and their interests. They have zero tolerance for mass mails or generic messages. 

But how do you deliver that personalization at scale?

Using AI in student conversations is a delicate balance

49% of enrollment professionals expect AI to be a central feature of their future strategy, and for 9% it already is. 

While students find chatbots helpful for engaging with institutions, there are certain types of guidance that require a greater level of trust – like learning about the actual student experience. It’s worth noting that students’ trust in chatbots, then, is low.

51% said they would not trust a chatbot whatsoever, and 25% would be somewhat distrustful. 

72% of enrollment professionals share the concern that AI would reduce authenticity, while 68% worry it might replace the human components.

The power of human connection in higher ed

More and more institutions now offer their prospective students a chance to connect with current students before they enroll – and it’s working. 

65% of students spoke to a current student during their higher ed enrollment journey; 78% of students reported that speaking to a current student was helpful.

More prospective students would trust current students than parents or family; only school teachers were more trusted than current students. Students were 3.5 times more likely to find a current student helpful to chat with compared to a chatbot.

And it’s not just current students: prospective students also want to connect with their peers. 77% of students said connecting with fellow incoming students was helpful. 64% of students wish they had a chance to meet fellow prospective students or current students before they enrolled.

Ensuring authenticity in the age of AI 

It’s inevitable that AI will transform every sector, and student recruitment and higher ed admissions is no exception. Enrollment professionals are hopeful about the impact it will have on workflow. The key is figuring out how AI can enhance human-to-human connection, not disintermediate it.

A radical rethink to admissions, recruitment, and marketing

Competition is fierce, demands are sky-high, and those on the ground in higher ed admissions, recruitment, and marketing are trying to do much more with a lot less: less time, less money, clunky and outdated tech. For students to feel truly engaged by the marketing or recruitment strategies they see, we propose a radical rethink.

Targets are higher. Competition is fiercer. Budgets are lower. Students are more demanding. Teams are smaller. CRMs are clunky and unhelpful. Tech stacks are getting out of hand.

Something’s gotta give. 

The old ways of working need to change if your higher ed admissions, recruitment, or marketing team is to keep up with the spiraling demands placed on it. That’s why we propose a radical rethink. 

We propose a new way – one that enables hyper-personalization. That focuses on communicating only what matters to students, on the channels that they’re on. That scales authenticity so you can bring the most valuable, human-to-human connection to every prospective student. And a way that gives you insight, in a way that tech stacks have failed to do. 

Understanding your students, then personalizing their journey, requires you to collect signals and insights on an individual basis. Then, tailor your outreach, guidance and recommendations to match their unique needs. Unibuddy enables this, with scalable personalization, CRM integration, and insights to tailor both your individual outreach and your marketing messaging. 

We know that authenticity needs to come from a human place, a human experience. Institutions can use their greatest asset across all marketing efforts – the student voice. The vast majority of prospective students want to hear from your current students. With Unibuddy, real students, staff, faculty, and alumni can connect across one-to-one chat, events and community tools to give students the answers and the insight on experiences they need to make informed decisions.

And finally, all of this only works if it can scale. You need to market, recruit, and onboard efficiently so you can save your team time that can be spent on other value-add activities. That’s why Unibuddy enables you to automate time-intensive tasks of connecting students to the right person and lets the student choose themselves the ambassadors they want to speak with. 

We’ve heard how, in a bid to keep up with growing demands and competition, you’ve been spread thin and are close to burnout. For too long, the way of keeping up has been adding more: another new bit of software, or a new marketing channel, or a new event. But these piecemeal changes to the status quo are failing institutions, students and you – enrollment professionals.

Getting the message across to students about what makes your institutions unique and wonderful shouldn’t be so cumbersome. That’s why we’re calling on higher ed teams to think, not about what you can add, but what you can change: how you can radically rethink your approach to recruitment, admissions and marketing to achieve scalability, authenticity, ultimately connection at its heart.

About Unibuddy

Unibuddy is the leading platform to help institutions boost enrollment by scaling human-to-human connections throughout the student journey. Our suite of products enables prospective students to easily connect with peers, faculty, staff, and alumni to better inform their decision-making journey. Currently, Unibuddy partners with 600+ institutions worldwide to drive enrollment, and has supported more than two million students in making crucial decisions about their future. Learn more about Unibuddy here.

Sources

1 Alex Usher and Johnathan Williams. “Higher Education Institutions Worldwide.” Higher Education Strategy Associates, March 2022.

2 Kristen Sterba. “Reflecting on the State of Graduate Enrollment.” NAGAP, October 2023.

3 Rebecca Mathews, Bijan Warner, and Peter Stokes. “Managing the Demand Cliff.” Inside Higher Ed, October 2023.

4 Collin Binkley and The Associated Press. “The labor shortage is pushing American colleges into crisis, with the plunge in enrollment the worst ever recorded.” Fortune, March 2023.