Presently, continuing and online learning has never been more crucial in higher education and professional settings. The demands of the current and future workforce, coupled with an increasingly digital economy, create a strong nexus with higher education. Additionally, declining state funding and significant enrollment drops due to demographic shifts, lingering Covid impacts, and growing skepticism of the value of a college degree highlight the urgent need for new revenue sources to ensure the viability of most colleges and universities– many of which lack robust endowments to help buffer these losses.
Opportunities for Engagement and Revenue
Despite these challenges, opportunities exist to engage and re-enroll adult learners and stopped-out students. Continuing and online education units are uniquely positioned to generate new enrollments and critical revenue streams. Their extensive outreach in the private sector and local communities plays a significant role in alumni engagement and institutional growth. As these units continue to gain importance, they are expected to achieve greater equality with other campus units, driving both enrollment and revenue.
Building Strong Relationships
To successfully navigate the pressures on traditional university and college enrollments, strong relationships between traditional enrollment departments and continuing education units are essential. Continuing education units have a long history of serving non-traditional learners who face barriers to full-time education, such as family obligations, work commitments, and financial constraints. Without a strong alliance with these units, enrollment departments risk further challenges. Proper collaboration can unlock opportunities for co-marketing programs, targeted recruiting events, and leveraging resources to attract new learners and reengage stopped-out students.
Adapting and Innovating
Continuing education units have consistently excelled, even with limited resources and suboptimal institutional support. Recent enrollment headwinds and state funding declines have, in many cases, bolstered continuing education units and forced university leadership to focus resources and tap into the entrepreneurial nature of these units. Moreover, the market has driven the continuing education space to develop and promote more unique and creative offerings to different audiences, and expand their reach through partnerships with local businesses, active duty military, veterans, and community organizations.
Leveraging Unique Strengths
These units are uniquely positioned to address the enrollment, access, and affordability challenges faced by higher education. This is an ideal time for colleges and universities to leverage continuing education units, breaking down silos and fostering collaboration across their campuses. Listening to the needs of diverse audiences, being nimble, market-driven, and maintaining a strong entrepreneurial culture are key to meeting the needs of non-traditional learners. These units can quickly develop, market, and manage non-credit certificates, trainings, and events, adapting to the evolving needs of their audiences.
Looking ahead
Moving forward, as demographic impacts reduce traditional undergraduate enrollments, institutions must adapt to reach more diverse and nontraditional student populations who cannot attend full-time in-person. University leadership will need to foster stronger collaborations, develop integrated and targeted marketing strategies, and provide flexible online learning modalities. Policies and resources must be refined to minimize duplicate functions and adjust business models to accommodate the shift towards nontraditional enrollments. Furthermore, the meteoric rise of artificial intelligence offers new opportunities for innovation, complementing current tools like chatbots and predictive analytics in student enrollment strategies. Although many headwinds exist, the future holds bright prospects for continuing and online education units, as they continue to play a vital role in shaping the future of higher education.
Written by: Michael Huffman, Ph.D.
