Despite the overrated presence, many B-schools have shut down campuses in recent time. From 2012 to 2015, over 300 B-schools have already shut down, giving strong signals about the end of a phase, which was ruled by the craze for MBA. Is this the end for the overrated management education frenzy which was ruling the minds of the youth all over the country? Only time will tell.

As per management education experts, applications have declined across B-Schools but not all institutes are seeing a decline in their admissions. While the top run schools are also facing admission dilemmas, they are definitely growing. While the brand of such institutes is highly attractive, other institutes offering MBA courses are on a steady decline.

The premier B-schools woes are not too far down the road; even these schools have not been spared from the shadow of challenges affecting some of the other BSchools in the country. As the curriculum of these premier B-schools goes unnoticed, there is a widespread discontent among the students who are aspiring to reach the pinnacles of success. As the economy gets fine tuned to the trends of international affairs, there is immediate need to restructure the curriculum to sync it with what’s happening around the world.

In current scenario, when ROI of management education is questioned globally, and even the premier BSchools are focusing on imparting practical skills which can earn better post-MBA salaries for their students.

With this thought in mind, let’s delve a little deeper into the effectiveness of the MBA program as a whole. A lot of aspiring students are beginning to question the age-old thoughts, provoking the mind to think, “Is the MBA degree finally obsolete?” This is not all, for many academicians are beginning to think if the ROI associated with the high fee, the course structure, and the brand value is on a steady decline. When you graduate from a premier institute, you don’t know for sure if you will be able to secure a desired job within the next few months. Companies look for skills you bring to the table and the way you are able to use them, given the fast paced economy you will be working in. Will you be able to handle the competition in the long run? What career progression you will chart out for yourself as you move up the corporate ladder? These are some of the questions which should be at the top level in your mind while choosing a higher degree for yourself.

With so many questions in mind, the younger Indian population is beginning to doubt the veracity of the two year long programs. Instead, the trends are beginning to tilt in favor of specialized courses, which help people hone their existing skills versus some of the general skills which are taught in a general MBA program. As this is being said, the pertinent question which pops into the mind is, “Is Analytics going to be the next boom?” This thought definitely gets the mind racing, as loads of queries, statistical programs, and open sourced languages come gushing into the mind.

Is data mining the next generation’s secret mantra to success? Business analytics has emerged as an upcoming stream, catching the attention of many students who are in love with their IT proficient side. As more and more companies are looking at developing strategies to fine tune their policies, there is an exorbitant demand for the mind work involved in Analytical courses. If numbers are believed, over 2.5 lakhs analytical jobs will be up for grabs in the year 2015. This will come as a surprise, since jobs in other related fields, like IT, retail and IT enabled jobs are anticipated to dry up drastically.

For example, if there is a firm with 10000 employees in India, it would have around 700-800 employees in its analytical vertical, depending upon the amount of data being generated on a monthly basis. However, this translates to a total number of 1.25 lakhs employees who are already working in the analytical fields all over the country. There are a wide number of domains which are recruiting people proficient in analytics. Companies located in the following domains are likely to be the top recruiters:

• Healthcare,
• Pharmaceuticals
• Financial Services
• Banking
• Telecom

There are tons and tons of institutes offering customized courses to teach courses related to these fields. Some prominent names which come to the mind are Jigsaw Academy, IIM Lucknow, Myra School of Business, Bridge School of Management etc. But this comes with a word of caution! If you have an analytical side, love number crunching, are gifted with a taste for programming languages and love to do root cause analysis, only then you should consider moving into the analytical side. If all these factors get your mind thinking, then you’re definitely moving in the right direction, for the world will be your oyster and there is nothing which can stop you from exploiting it to the fullest.

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While many of these changes have been positive, these changes are often not easy for many institutions as far as enrollment and admission dynamics are concerned. For all the ways in which higher education has propelled us forward, we sometimes resist and even fear the changes brought on by ensuing generations of college students.

However, if there is a lesson I have learned from my own campus experiences as well as consulting with higher education, it is that adaptation is not an option in enrollment management. Change and succeed, or resist and perish.

While every institution is different, the following 9 strategies have helped many campuses not just to stay ahead of these changes, but use these changes for their advantage in improving student enrollment and admissions.

1. Set realistic admission goals and not just projections:

Think about the enrollment goals at your own institution. Do you know what they are? Do other key stakeholders at your institution know them? Does everyone support them? and most importantly Are You Certain? Every admission manager should answer yes to those these three questions, yet many cannot.

Why? Because goal-setting is often an abstract exercise free from relevant data inputs and market analysis. It is crucial to look at how you have been enrolling and how your competition enrolls before you set future goals. What is your balance between quality and quantity of student enrollments?

Enrollment goals should be strategically planned and assessed. they need to be sub-divided into subpopulations — courses, geography, application channels, and so on.

2. Identify and secure sufficient resources to achieve admission goals:

As part of a realistic goal-setting exercise, you have to know what resources you will require to achieve your goals. Much like asking what your goals are, do you know what is in your annual enrollment plan? Is it visible from your desk, or tucked away like a library book? Successful enrollment plans are living enrollment plans. They are working action documents that should be referred to regularly, and routinely modified. They should also include daily tasks, monthly objectives, and last 90-day action plans.

In addition, it’s important to have a working, realistic enrollment plan that looks three to five years ahead. That plan should chart a course for your campus from what it is now to what it will become.

3. Build your database and inquiry pool by design, not by chance:

To achieve admission goals you have to begin with a plan to build and manage a database not, including an inquiry pool of the right size and shape. You also need to set specific conversion ratios and goals so that you can manage your inquiry pool more strategically. It shouldn’t be a rule of thumb.

Note, that different types of applications will convert at different yield rates. Either Online, or the on Paper applications should be track differently — be sure to monitor these rates and plan accordingly.

4. Implement a strategic communication flow:

With the seemingly chaotic mix of prints, mails, and social media, there may not seem to be a “flow” with admission inquiry. As with prospective student identification, though, building a communications flow remains a bountiful enrollment strategy if it is handled strategically.

First, you ought to think about the communications at various enrollment stages — inquiries, applications, admission acceptances, fees deposits. Progressing them to the next enrollment stage remains the goal.

Second, focus your electronic communications wisely. Having a website that engages students is paramount. You want to invite communication in addition to delivering information. Give students opportunities to provide their email addresses or contact information. Do the same with social media, but be careful not to go overboard. You are better covering fewer social media outlets well rather than spreading yourself too thin.

5. Track your marketing and it’s impact on inquiry generation to final admission:

Michael Porter famously said, “What gets measured gets done”. In an era of abundant resources for an institution’s marketing, you cannot afford to put time and money into activities with no measurable return on investment.

This process can be boiled into four main components:
i).   Identify which metrics to track.
ii).   Know how to track the metrics you identified.
iii). Guide your decisions with the data you collect.
iv). Monitor the effect of your efforts and adjusting accordingly.

Having a solid set of marketing and enrollment conversion metrics you can track your efforts from year to year and make crucial decisions on allocating resources and find opportunities in the education sector.

6. Identify admission channels and its performance measurement mechanism:

As institutions choose to utilise multiple admission channels, from newspaper ads to admission consultants and online marketing to admission fairs, it is important for the institution to identify suitable admission channels. Track admission conversion ratio for each channel and evaluate return on investment of resources for each of the channels. Based on these inputs, the institution can establish a performance measurement mechanism for every channel.

It is important to evaluate performance of your admission channels and set a separate target for each channel.

7. Devote as much attention to student retention as to enrollment:

Post enrollment dropout ratio is on the rise. Let’s say you want to increase your enrollment by 5 per cent. To achieve it, you could increase applications by 5 per cent. Or you could increase new students by 2 per cent while focusing on retention and reduce student retention by 3 per cent. The latter approach tends to be much more cost effective.

However, retention requires attention to detail. Your institution has to be committed to providing all possible admission assistance, and must develop a system for identifying which students need and want assistance, so you can focus on better engagement with those students.

8. Mention fee details clearly and Award scholarships:

The increasing cost of higher education has emerged as the biggest roadblock to attracting bright students. Perhaps nothing will turn away a prospective student faster than a feeling that they cannot afford your institution. You have to address this concern immediately and accurately.

Mentioning fee details clearly on your website is a great first step to address the affordability of education by for prospective students and their families. Further, it is important to mention about all the available scholarships, student bank loans and other financials aids aid available to for your prospective students.

In addition, you have to identify scholarship awarding strategies that address need, and willingness to pay. Doing this successfully means that you have understood the price sensitivity of the various student populations you hope to attract. Awarding scholarship just for the initial phase of the study could put students at risk of dropping out, which hurts both the student and your institution. It’s advisable to spread the scholarship throughout the enrolled years.

Education is a business of brands, so avoid overdoing in awarding scholarships it to make sure prospective students don’t get confused between scholarship and discount.

9. Make the best use of technology for achieving enrollment goals:

Technology has transformed education as a whole and enrollment is not an exception. Most of the institutions limit the use of technology in enrollment management using social media marketing and search engine optimization only. However, integration of technology solutions in admission process can help your institution in identifying and targeting the right set of student applicant pool, providing them personalised assistance, tracking of student applications and application funnel management. In the era of technology, right use of technology can give your institution a distinctive advantage for building an Education ERP.

I hope you find these strategies prolific. It is important to adopt a systematic, forward-thinking way to approach enrollment management. With so many changes in the Indian higher education and economy, you must take a data-informed approach to every aspect of student admissions, so that you focus on the types of students you want to admit and don’t waste your limited resources on an irrelevant student pool. Explore every avenue and then chose the right management strategy for a successful new session.

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 In order to create a competent and best-in-class higher education website, the following four website design trends are projected to play a crucial role in the year 2015. We will also have a look at our very own and internally nurtured institutes, which have successfully adopted these trends.

1.  Responsive for Multi-device Accessibility

The web is being surfed on multiple devices, each with different screen sizes, requiring a different display size and content layout. With Google announcing algorithm changes to generate responsive results wef April 2015, each page search now will be assessed on how mobile friendly a website is. It is only imperative that the educational websites now focus primarily on Responsive Web Design (RWD), that is, to be accessible effortlessly across desktops, mobiles, tablets, TVs, phablets or any other web based device.

 Manipal University (www.manipal.edu) has an excellent cross-platform adaptability that comforts every single visitor to gather sufficient information on their handheld devices.

  2.  Virtual Experience to Impress

Campus tours, are of course, one way to take the students through the look and feel of the institutions. But these days, students are rather more interested in a virtual tour, and save time to enhance their productivity. A website, that offers, factual knowledge along with a visual and engating presentation can help a potential candidate in a quicker decision making.

 AMITY university is a fine exponent of a ‘show and tell’ website (www.amity.edu). It boasts of 360 degree virtual campus tour, video gallery and photo gallery, creating a sensory experience in the mind of the prospect and ensuring a maximum optimal conversion rate.

3.  Lead Generation to Increase the Footfall

An enviable website design essentially may not guarantee the increased footfall from the target audience. But the one with a powerful content and widespread presence across various virtual podiums can bridge the said gap. Social media platforms like facebook, twitter and pinterest have been instrumental for the institutes in reaching a farther and wider target base. This further results in an easy flow of communication and dissemination of information, attracting more students to visit the website.

 The website www.lpu.in of Lovely Professional University (LPU) is present on every electronic platform, that has even a slightest possibility of garnering the attention of prospective students. It provides an easy accessibility to its knowledge centre through all major social media networks, live chat, whatsapp, a toll free number and a call back number.

 4.  Easy Navigation for Uninteruppted Information

A website should not only render information, but also enable the ease of use and constructed information flow. No matter how grandiose or flamboyant a website may be, the first thing that future students look for is the information. The navigation bars, sliders or ‘call to action’ tabs are a few elements to highlight the primary content of the website. Frequent site testings and Google analytics tools, would give you a fair idea on how easy your website is to navigate and what changes are required.

 A classic example to cite here would be the website of Ashoka University. www.ashoka.edu.in. It has such compatible webpages that serve the exact purpose with a relative ease.

 The advance technology in higher education sector is evolving at a phenomenal speed, aligning the needs of prospective candidates to the goals of an institute. There are more trends on the horizon, but all of them aim to foster a better experience for the users. Ultimately, what matters is to build an intuitive website that can capture the students’ demands effectively and respond to their search queries promptly.

Disclaimer: Images shown above are Intellactual Property of respective institutions.

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