The 2024 Mirror (aka ADV Wrapped)
I’ve often felt that our work at ADV provides a unique perspective on current issues in higher education. Through the questions we receive and the conversations that follow, we gain insight into the issues of the day, the concerns at cabinet meetings, and the ideas at faculty townhalls.
As the year draws to a close, I looked back to the themes of our work to see the currents that connected seemingly disparate projects from vastly different institutions. In doing so, I’ve found that while the higher ed ecosystem is vast and fragmented, the issues it faces and the questions institutions ask are often remarkably similar.
I’ve shared those themes in this post with the twin goals of informing and affirming - the former to share what we saw in the past year, the latter to validate what you yourself may have seen. In this way, I see this as a metaphorical mirror reflecting back what we learned through our work with you, our clients and partners. And, as is our style, we accompany these themes with data whenever possible.
Theme 1: These are not unprecedented times for college student demographics
A lot of time and attention has been devoted to the topic of demographic changes, including as recently as last week as WICHE released its quadrennial update to high school graduate projections. There is serious concern about the decline in high school graduates and what it means for college enrollments. I don’t take these concerns lightly as I believe the declines may close a small number of colleges in the years ahead.
Lost in the chatter is the fact that high school graduates have risen dramatically in the past few decades with sharp increases so far in the 2020s. The result is that there will be more high school graduates in 2025 than there have ever been in the United States.
Therefore, when you look at declines that follow all-time peaks, the drop-off appears dramatic. More important than the rate of decline, however, is what these projections mean in terms of actual numbers of high school graduates. For instance, the number of graduates projected for 2030 and 2035 (3.64M and 3.63M) is very similar to the output in 2017 (3.66M). Thinking back just 7 years, I don’t recall much hand-wringing because there were only 3.66 million students graduating from high school. When viewed in this way, the projections are still worrisome, but not as dire as is often portrayed.
Institutions will need to consider their size, budgets, and operations from comparable points in time. If the future for prospective students looks like the past, universities should study the past to set appropriate expectations and set themselves up for stability in the years ahead.
Theme 2: Academic programs are on the chopping block…and that’s not necessarily a bad thing
Academic realignment, sunsetting, consolidation, reduction - whatever it’s called, there was a lot of it in 2024. You can read about it here, here, here, here, or here. Or I could save you the time and summarize them in one statement: colleges and universities are struggling to support and financially justify programs with low enrollments.
One’s perspective on this depends on who you are. My viewpoint is informed by the data, which, as we shared earlier this year, shows that 80% of undergraduate students can be found in just 40% of their college’s majors. Put differently, most programs are competing for just 20% of students. When that happens, you must ask if all those programs are viable.
Higher education adapts to meet the needs of the day. It always has. If it didn’t, we’d see a lot more Greek and Latin majors around campus. Adjusting a college’s offerings is not always a sad reflection of higher ed capitulating to the whims of industry; it can be an appropriate response to remaining relevant while serving students and society at large.
We will see more program realignments/consolidations/reductions in the years ahead. We will see new programs emerge as well. This is the academic program lifecycle. It’s not new, it’s always a little difficult, and it’s necessary.
Theme 3: Most students do not want politics to be part of their college experience
Contrary to how college students are often portrayed in the news , most are not politically active and, furthermore, don’t want politics to be part of their college experience. Earlier this year, we conducted a survey in partnership with Echo Delta that explored the role of politics in students’ college decisions.
We found that nearly 1 in 5 students would not consider a college that either (a) has a political orientation that differs from their own views or (b) is located in a state with a political leaning that differs from their own views.
While that is significant, we also found that many more students are apolitical and don’t want politics to have a leading role in their college experience. Consider the following:
66% of prospective students did not engage in political activity in the past year
73% of prospective students wish colleges would remain neutral on political issues
84% of prospective students don’t want their college experience to be impacted by political activity
Politics certainly matters for some (see above). At the same time, most prospective students simply want to be college students with all of the lectures, labs, traditions, clubs, athletics, dorms, and parties that entails. Most do not want politics to predominate the experience they’ve been looking forward to.
Theme 3a: Some alumni think their institutions have gone too woke
In our experience surveying alumni, it is common to find alums who believe their alma mater has drifted too far to the left. While this has always been true to some extent, it has been amplified in the past year as institutions have responded to political news and current events. Consider, for instance, these results of a survey of students and alumni:
The concern is that the wealthiest potential donors tend to lean conservative and therefore could be less likely to give if they disagree with the college’s political direction. Whether this is borne out in donor data or not, the feeling alone is enough to raise fears among several of the institutions we’ve worked with. Looking ahead, this is more likely to be an enduring issue than an artifact of the moment. Universities will increasingly be pressed to walk the line between what their students expect of them and what their donors are willing to give to.
Theme 4: Brands being high on relevance but low on awareness
Strong higher ed brands have both awareness and relevance. Awareness means people know of you. Relevance ensures that when they learn of you, they care. Our experience with colleges throughout the past year has shown that many institutions are highly relevant for their market but don’t have sufficient awareness.
This was one of the topics at the heart of our research on brand clarity. The results of that research showed that having a compelling brand identity is only half the battle. The other half is making sure people know who you are.
Thank you for reading and for your partnership in 2024! We look forward to all that’s to come in the New Year.
And one last note…
As the title of this post suggests, we love a good Spotify Wrapped. Our late partner and co-founder, Chuck Reed, was a huge music fan with a particular fondness for film scores. He inspired a similar love in me and over time I have compiled a playlist of my favorite film and TV scores that now totals 9.5 hours of content. If you also enjoy a good film score, I hope you’ll enjoy this playlist that includes a little bit of Chuck and a little bit of me.
Thank you and Happy Holidays!