8 Lessons for Enrollment Strategy

Why Higher Ed Marketing Needs Fresh Thinking to Attract and Enroll Right-Fit Students

The enrollment cliff is here.

WICHE projects a 13% decline in high school graduates by 2041. Thirty-eight states will feel it. And the college-going rate has already dropped from 69% to 62% since 2018. If you're an enrollment VP staring at a shrinking funnel, you already know this in your gut. The question isn't whether it's happening. It's what you're going to do about it.

I sat down recently with Brigid Lawler on Escape Velocity to talk about exactly that. Brigid has spent decades in enrollment management. Small liberal arts colleges, state institutions, specialized programs. She's seen what works and what doesn't across every kind of campus you can imagine.

At adeo, we come at this from a different angle. Our roots are in political campaigns, advocacy, and large-scale digital projects, high-stakes situations where you don't get a second chance to make the case or start over. That urgency and persuasion is exactly what higher ed marketing needs right now.

From our conversation, eight clear lessons emerged.

1. Your Brand Is Probably Stuck in the Past. Fix It.

Many schools are still marketing who they were ten years ago. The world has changed. The student body has changed. The competitive set has changed. The value proposition has changed. But the messaging? Same viewbook language from 2015.

Gallup found that only 39% of parents aged 35 to 54 have high confidence in higher education institutions. Your prospective families are skeptical before they ever visit campus. If your brand doesn't reflect today's reality, if it doesn't show who your students actually are and what outcomes you actually deliver, you're confirming their doubts.

Do this now: Conduct a brand audit. Not the kind where you sit in a room and agree your school is "transformative" and "student-centered" (so is everyone else). Talk to current students. Talk to recent grads. Talk to families who chose you and families who didn't. Find out what's actually resonating and what's just noise. What are three things you can say about your institution that no other school can also say? Find what makes you truly unique, and celebrate that.

2. Stop Chasing Volume. Start Chasing Fit.

A massive top-of-funnel might look good in a report. But if your yield rate is weak, you're spending money to generate interest from students who were never going to enroll.

The numbers are brutal: the average applicant-to-enrollment conversion rate sits around 20%. Four out of five admitted students do not attend. And up to 70% of student inquiries never receive a direct human response because admissions teams are stretched too thin chasing leads that don't convert.

Brigid put it simply: find the students most likely to apply, enroll, and succeed. Then nurture the hell out of them.

Do this now: Map your funnel stage by stage. Where's the biggest drop-off? Inquiry to application? Admit to deposit? Deposit to enrollment? A straighter, more efficient funnel saves budget and reduces that panicked late-cycle scrambling every May.

3. You Need Separate Strategies for Students and Parents.

This one gets overlooked constantly. Today's applicants aren't making this decision alone. Parents are deeply involved. Especially Gen X parents, who carry their own student loan trauma and are passing that cost sensitivity directly to their kids.

EAB's research found that college-going rates have declined most rapidly among students from higher-income families whose parents attended college. These aren't access problems. They're interest problems. Gen X parents remember college as a period of skyrocketing costs, and those monthly loan payments are a "generational higher ed hangover" that shapes every conversation they have with their kids about where to go.

Meanwhile, 85% of Gen Z K-12 students say college is important, and 55% of parents report pressuring their kids "a lot" or "some" to get into a good school. The desire is there. But students and parents are asking fundamentally different questions. Students want to know: Will I belong here? Parents want to know: Will this be worth it?

Do this now: Build parallel communication streams. Student-facing content should speak to aspiration, identity, and belonging. Parent-facing content should answer the hard questions about cost, outcomes, and career pathways. With real data, not vague promises.

4. Talk About Money Early. Like, Now.

Waiting until April to have the affordability conversation is one of the most expensive mistakes schools make. Brigid has seen institutions scrambling in May, making last-minute financial offers to fill seats. By then, you've lost your best-fit students to schools that had that conversation in October.

Only 53% of Gen Z students who want a degree believe they can afford it. For Black students, that drops to 39%. And 29% of Americans now consider the cost of higher education unjustifiable. You can't afford to let these perceptions harden while you wait to talk numbers.

Do this now: Move cost and value discussions into the early recruitment cycle. Be upfront about merit aid, net price, total cost of attendance, and career outcomes for specific programs. Schools that respond to financial questions within five minutes are 21 times more effective at converting inquiries. Speed and transparency win.

5. Make Your Print Materials Worth Keeping.

Digital dominates Gen Z's life, which actually makes physical materials more memorable. When they're done well. "Crappy, dime-a-dozen viewbooks are dead," Brigid said. She's right. Nobody keeps a generic tri-fold.

But a bold, well-designed piece that captures what makes your school different? That sits on a kitchen counter. Gets passed to a parent. Comes back out when it's decision time.

Do this now: Treat print as a premium brand touchpoint. Invest in quality design, distinctive photography (not stock photos of diverse students sitting under a tree on campus), and materials that feel like they came from your school and only your school. If it could belong to any institution, start over.

6. Make Enrollment Everyone's Job.

Brigid's most successful enrollment initiatives happened when the entire campus rallied around shared goals. Faculty, staff, students, trustees. Everyone understood the numbers, and everyone played a role.

This matters more than ever. Gallup found that 39% of students said in-person campus visits were "extremely helpful" in shaping their college plans. Every interaction a prospective student has with anyone on your campus is a recruitment moment. The security guard at the parking lot. The professor they email with a question. The student tour guide. (That last one deserves its own post. How schools select guides, design the tour experience, and think about what happens before and after the visit is a massive untapped opportunity. Stay tuned..)

Do this now: Report enrollment progress to the full campus community regularly. Not just to the admissions team. When faculty and staff understand where things stand, they show up differently in every interaction with a prospective student. Open communication builds trust and accountability.

7. Hire Partners Who'll Tell You the Truth, Not What You Want to Hear.

Too many schools hand their brand to large, template-driven firms and end up looking like every other school in their competitive set. That's how you get the blanding. Every website, every viewbook, every campaign looking interchangeable.

Smaller, more agile agencies often deliver stronger results because they actually dig into what makes you different. They're not running your brand through a template they used for six other schools last quarter.

Do this now: When vetting marketing partners, ask them what they'll do differently for you. If their pitch deck could be swapped in for any other agency with minimal changes, that's your answer. Look for partners who challenge your thinking, not ones who just validate what you already believe.

8. Stop Playing It Safe.

This is the one that's hardest for institutions, and I get it. Committees, approvals, stakeholders. Everyone has an opinion and nobody wants to offend. The result? Campaigns that are so safe they're invisible.

Memorable creative has a point of view. It won't appeal to everyone. That's the point. You're not trying to enroll everyone. You're trying to enroll the right students. The ones who'll thrive at your specific institution, not just any institution.

The schools that stand out right now are the ones willing to say something specific. To show something real. To stop hiding behind stock-ish photography and generic taglines about "transforming futures."

Do this now: Take calculated risks. Run the campaign that makes your committee a little uncomfortable. Test it. Measure it. Bold, truth-based creative attracts right-fit students and builds a stronger brand over time. Safe creative does neither.

The Bottom Line

The demographic cliff is real, but it's not the whole story. Total enrollment actually grew 1% in fall 2025, hitting 19.4 million students. The opportunity is still there. But it's shifting. Toward schools that communicate with clarity, move with urgency, and treat enrollment like the strategic priority it is, rather than something the admissions office handles while everyone else looks the other way.

As Brigid put it, the mission still matters: helping students find the place where they'll thrive, learn, and launch their futures. The schools that stay focused on that and market it with conviction will come out ahead.

Listen to the full conversation with Brigid Lawler on the Escape Velocity podcast.

If your institution is ready to rethink enrollment strategy, marketing, and brand positioning, let's talk.