If the demographic cliff we’re experiencing is teaching us anything, it’s this: to truly increase enrollment, higher education should be targeting adult learners, those who are already in the workforce, rather than targeting the dwindling pool of recent and upcoming high school grads.
There are tens of millions of adult Americans – including 36.8 million Americans with some college, no credentials (SCNC) – that should be on your enrollment radar…[1]
While only 3.8 to 3.9 million students will graduate high school this year. The numbers simply don’t lie.
Now, a recent poll from the Lumina Foundation and Gallop has reinforced Conversion Media Group’s long-standing enrollment initiative models (and methods) …
It showed that, “Nearly all adults without a college degree say at least one type of credential is “extremely” or “very” valuable…
“And 59% of unenrolled adults have considered enrolling in additional education in the past two years, an increase of 15 percentage points from the 44% who said the same in 2021.”[2]
Even more impressive, 51% said they are “very likely” to enroll within the next five years; the highest rate ever recorded by the Lumina-Gallop poll.
Simply put, more non-credentialed adults are interested in earning a degree or post-secondary certification than at any point in recent history. With millions more adult learners than high school students potentially interested in enrolling, the pool of new students is nothing short of enormous…
Which translates into fantastic news for online degree programs and the schools that offer them. More on this in a minute.
Now, the main reason unenrolled adults are wanting to earn a degree is remarkably similar to the reasons new high school grads want to earn a degree…
Potential career outcomes.
84% of those unenrolled adults surveyed said earning a degree (or credentials) could lead to a raise, promotion or better paying job. And they’re right. As seen in Bureau of Labor Statistics data, compared to people with only a high school degree, bachelor’s degree holders earn a wage averaging 66% higher.[3]
Yet, while these potential career outcomes are all very possible once a degree is earned, there remain several major barriers that institutions must overcome to get them enrolled.
As shown in the Lumina-Gallop poll, the top two “barriers to entry” are the costs of earning a degree and conflicts with work or the need to work.
This, as you may know, is where online colleges have a big advantage over traditional brick-and-mortar colleges: cost and flexibility.
However, while the advantages are well known by the institutions themselves, adult learners may be largely unaware. You see, far too many adult learners simply do not know online colleges and online degree programs offer cost competitiveness and incredible flexibility. It’s true.
And that’s where Conversion Media Group comes in. Every week, we speak with sometimes hundreds of adult learners, on the phone, who are interested (often at a higher rate than the Lumin-Gallop poll) in enrolling in college…
And we explain to them the cost and flexibility benefits of enrolling online vs in-person…
They just want to hear directly from you, before they do enroll!
How can they hear directly from you? By partnering with Conversion Media Group. See, we can transfer our phone calls with adult learners directly to your enrollment department, live.
Now, we’ll only transfer the prospective students who show genuine interest in enrolling…
We won’t waste your time, or theirs.
Simply give us a quick call on 1-800-419-3201 and we’ll explain our methodologies.
[1] Some College, No Credential | National Student Clearinghouse Research Center