Marketing Higher Education

hm, wouldn´t "gold standard" be more like Regional AND Professional accreditation together, and not ONLY RA ???

in my sense of academic understanding, RA should be M

 

Thinking of the undergraduate level for a moment, I am old enough to recall when Enrollment Management was once called Admissions and when Recruiters were called Admissions Officers. With the ever increasing plethora of options within academe, much empahsis (except at the rarified world of the Ivy League) has shifted from screening out to screening in. Revenue is boss and that means business, e.g., marketing. This phenomenon was mentioned by Adam Smith in Wealth of Nations in the 1700s. I think he termed it... er, competition.

 

You stated that there was such a thing as a RA degree mill. I asked you to name one. Just one. I'm still waiting.


Bruce

 

Liberty University used to send me coupons, too. They were for a percentage off of tuition for one or two classes if I enrolled for the next semester.

LU is RA, and I believe it is non-profit. It is certainly not a degree mill. LU requires its students to earn thier degrees. (Sorry, Walter. No smoking gun here.)

I don't criticize them for offering discounts, either. LU and others know that DL students have a choice of many different schools and programs. Offering discounts is one way of getting attention. When you open the envelope and a coupon falls out, you tend to look at the other information in the envelope too. I believe that some schools realize that they are (in a sense)competing against non-RA schools and degree mills as well. Since degree mills have low overhead (such as the cost for paper, ink, deposit on a P.O. box, and bad legal advice), they could concievably undercut the price of any real school, since the real schools have real expenses.

From my perspective, giving students a break on tuition (even if it's a small one for limited time) helps the students financially. If it also helps the school, then I guess it's a win-win situation.

Tracy <><

 

On the other hand, Ratchford claims that the privacy of their organization is its selling point. Is this supposed to be marketing by not marketing?

Tracy<><