This doesn’t mean that learners and parents think that higher education is dead. Rather, they want an education system that works for them. Younger and older learners will be looking for programs that are tailored to their needs.
High school students who follow the “traditional” four-year college track want to be exposed to possibilities that prepare them for their future work. Adult learners who are in career mode may recognize the skills they need to advance in their careers and want an education system where they can pick and choose the courses that will help them move ahead in their current careers or shift to a new profession.
These career learners want programs that are tailored to their needs, for example reskilling or programs that have partnerships with local large enterprises. Some of these learners are looking for certificate programs that they can add to their resumes.
Educators feel the pressure
Many institutions realize that the demographics of their student base are changing. They are experimenting with new plans and new strategies to meet the needs of those changing demographics. Some schools are partnering with local businesses to teach in-demand job skills and others are expanding their course offerings to meet other business trends.
For educators, the difficulty of bringing new programs to market is positively frightening. It can cost as much as $500,000 to bring one program to market and 63 percent of new programs produced 10 or fewer graduates in 2018. Speculating on what students want can be as difficult as speculating on the stock market. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.
Equally worrisome for educators is that the competition for students will increase as more students realize they can attend universities across the country. The pandemic has taught students that they no longer need to be physically present in a classroom to learn the skills that they need to move along in their careers. Colleges will need to finetune their offerings to compete against a wider set of similar institutions and nontraditional learning options.
Reevaluating options
Enrollment, which had been on a steady decline for several years, accelerated during the pandemic. There is real concern that the $183 billion financial loss for higher education due to COVID-19 may induce a shake-up in the higher education landscape. Many of the students who left college or did classwork remotely during the pandemic are reevaluating their options.
Those students are starting to place an increasing emphasis on ROI. As consumers, they are looking at a wider choice of institutions and offerings. And they’re looking for an education system and institutions that meet their needs. This changing trendline will alter how institutions meet the needs of the students, their customers.
Jeremy Walsh is a vice president at Jenzabar.
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