Graduate Enrollment Management: Leading the Way to Em's Future

Summary

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In a recent series of articles in College and University, David Kalsbeek clearly describes four ways in which enrollment management has been viewed and implemented, pointing out the strengths and limitations of each of these different "orientations:" * An administrative orientation integrates enrollmentrelated processes for optimal efficiency and effectiveness e.g., university-wide enrollment management units, onestop student service centers, financial aid leveraging. * A student-focused orientation is driven by individual student needs, experiences, satisfaction, and engagement in the learning process, with separate services designed for segmented student populations, such as freshmen, underrepresented minorities, and international students. * A market-centered orientation is focused on the institution's competitive position in the marketplace and seeks to manage enrollments through a differentiated brand identity and promise, pricing strategies, and the institution's perceived quality and value. * An academic orientation fuses enrollment management functions with the academic priorities and strengths of the institution, incorporating faculty participation and emphasizing cocurricular activities. Graduate assis tantship funding, for example, is used to accomplish multiple goals: to attract and support top graduate students; to provide the university with a cost-effective teaching resource; and to further faculty and institutional research efforts. * Because interaction with prospective and current students at the graduate level is primarily disciplinespecific, gem always has been student-centered and focused on distinct groups of students.\n * The one area in which gem has lagged behind has been in incorporating a market orientation.

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Graduate Enrollment Management: Leading the Way to Em's Future

Editor's Note: Aversion of this article appeared in NAGAP Perspectives, Vol. 20(1)

Enrollment management (em) has evolved significantly over the past few decades. Responding to all of higher education's challenges and opportunities - changing student populations, technological advances, fiscal constraints, increased competition - professional practices have become more sophisticated and complex. Nevertheless, the three basic concepts of enrollment management have remained constant:

* The primary function of enrollment management is to recruit and retain an optimal student population...

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