A lot has changed at the Ed. Dept this year. Some for the better, some perhaps, for the worse. However, one change in particular is most certainly being viewed as a positive by short-term career-based schools: Changes in Pell Grants. You see, this past summer, Congress passed the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (OBBBA) which...Read More

Although well down from the peak in 2010, college enrollments seem to have finally turned the corner; with undergrad enrollments now creeping up, dare we say rising up, from 2021-2022 lows. This fall, in fact, some institutions have reported good-to-excellent enrollment growth year-over-year.[1] With a number of them even breaking freshmen enrollment records. “Fall 2025...Read More

It’s Halloween season. And ghosts are beginning to appear everywhere… including ghost students. No, not college co-eds dressed up in their scariest outfits for a night out with friends, but scammers who enroll in college just to defraud your institution (and the student loan system) out of millions. Yes, millions. It’s a problem that’s been...Read More

Ask any high school student (or adult for that matter) if there’s a shortage of skilled tradespeople, and they’ll say yes, there is. And they’re right. As evidenced by the incredible “booming jobs market for skilled tradespersons”, noted by Forbes[1], and the rising pay for people who have those skills… there has indeed become a...Read More

Back in March, we, Conversion Media Group wrote you a piece titled, “What does the Education Department layoffs mean for higher Ed?” In it, we said, “For the past two or so months now, DOGE (or the department of government efficiency) has been trimming some fat from the federal government. “It’s been Elon Musk’s goal...Read More

Jim Delligatti was doing what everyone else was doing… and he was getting the pants beat off him as a result. You see, back in 1967, Delligatti, a Pittsburgh-based McDonald’s franchise owner had to stick to the corporate script. Make small hamburgers, sell small hamburgers. But he was losing customers to a sandwich shop down...Read More

For years, traditional higher education (colleges/universities) have enjoyed a massive “early investment” advantage over trade and career-based schools. Namely, the 529 savings plan. These plans, created decades ago by Section 529 of the IRS code, are “tax-advantaged” savings accounts that allow parents to contribute money to their kids’ college funds, beginning on the day of...Read More

Demographic cliff be darned. Data from the Education Data Initiative is projecting the Fall 2025 semester, which is about to begin, to show enrollment growth! Get this, for Fall 2025, college undergrad enrollment is projected to increase to 19.57 million students: up 290,000 undergrads over Fall 2024. Although Bachelors and Associate program enrollments are still below the...Read More

The ultimate goal of educators is to give students the knowledge base they need to land a good paying job. And in today’s jobs market, that knowledge base is changing. You see, it wasn’t that long ago that employers, nearly every good employer, demanded their job candidates have a four-year college degree to even be...Read More

We recently shared some statistics on Spring 2025 college enrollment with you in an article titled “Spring 2025 College Enrollment Stats… The Bad, The Good, The Great, and The Opportunity.” In it, we noted how total secondary enrollments actually grew by 3.2% this spring over spring 2024, with community colleges seeing the largest growth (5.4%)....Read More