Software

How Can Technology Convince Students of Higher Education’s Value?

Fewer high schoolers are heading to college. Technology can bring students back.

Amy Sanchez is a Salesforce field solutions architect at CDW.

You’re in high school, and you tear home after the final bell to check your mailbox. Inside is what you’ve been waiting for. It’s addressed to you from the college you’ve dreamed about attending, the one that will vault you into a successful career and where you will make friends and memories to last a lifetime.

You open the envelope. “Congratulations,” the letter begins, “we are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted …”

You yelp. You run inside to tell your family. You call your friends. This is it. You’re going to college next year to get a diploma that will open doors for the rest of your life.

Now, fast-forward a couple of decades. Many high school students aren’t looking for letters in the mail. They don’t believe college is the quickest, most affordable or even smartest way to get to where they want to be.

This is the age of competition in higher education: It’s less about which schools students can get into and more about schools convincing students that the investment will be worth it.

Click the banner to learn how one university’s device program is enticing first-year students.

Enrollment Data Shows Students Are Skipping College

There was a time not so long ago when attending college made a person stand out. In 1980, fewer than half (49%) of high school graduates immediately went to two- or four-year colleges, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Less than 30 years later, in 2009, that number had spiked to more than 70% of high school grads.

Since then, however, the trend has been moving in the opposite direction. By 2022, the last year for which data is available, just 62% of high school graduates were heading straight to college.

After years of believing college was the way — maybe the only way — to achieve professional success, that belief is wavering for many.

The shoe is now on the other foot when it comes to those acceptance letters: Students once cheered them, but now the colleges are the ones cheering when students decide to enroll. And the competition will only get stiffer with the enrollment cliff — based on sharp declines in the American birth rate since 2008 — now right around the corner.

Personalization Makes Students Feel Connected to Their Colleges

Twenty years later, “Dear applicant” is only a good opener if you’re hoping your college’s acceptance letter ends up in the trash. Digital-native high schoolers want to feel a connection.

Students are looking for personalization, and in my experience, this approach has been the most effective way to guide students from their initial interest in a particular university all the way through becoming alumni. If students don’t feel like you’re talking to them directly — whether that’s via email, text, phone, video or snail mail — they’re going to tune you out and look elsewhere. Students are the ones making a major commitment, and, in some ways, they better understand their power in the student-school relationship. Universities need students at least as much as students need universities, and engaging students and maintaining their attention can be a challenge.

To create that personalization, student lifecycle management has become a necessity for colleges and universities. ServiceNow, Freshworks and Salesforce have become major players in higher education, offering Software as a Service platforms tailored for just this purpose.

62%

Percentage of American high schoolers who enrolled in a two- or four-year higher education institution immediately after graduation

Source: National Center for Education Statistics, “Number of recent high school completers and percent enrolled by college, by sex and level of institution: 1960 through 2022,” July 2023.

Salesforce’s Education Cloud tracks students and their behavior throughout their academic journeys, gathering data that enables personalized interactions and creates a more connected experience. Thanks to artificial intelligence integrations and years of experience with higher education and in other sectors, the platform creates a connected student journey. It builds a comprehensive profile based on the student’s personal information (especially during the admissions and registration phases), academic performance, social habits, extracurricular interests and more to deliver a tailored appeal to each prospective student. Those can take the form of email messages, scheduled text check-ins and even interactions with parents.

Salesforce and other student lifecycle management platforms offer loads more features, such as those that engage students who may be struggling academically or that manage alumni engagement and fundraising. The CDW Education team has successfully executed such implementations nationwide and can bring crucial projects like these to life to help universities attract and enroll students.

This article is part of EdTech: Focus on Higher Education’s UniversITy blog series.