There is an art and a science to marketing of liberal arts colleges and universities. Let’s review some strategies and tactics first. Strategies and Tactics Strategy Understand your situation. Perform SWOT and benchmark peers. Pick the right strategy lever. Where will you play and how will you win. Address demographic and psychographic segments. Meet and […]
Humanities education is under siege. This is perhaps one of the grand challenges of the twenty first century. In our view, this is more a challenge of marketing imagination and faculty involvement, and less a challenge of enrollment. Ironically, the perceived interest in humanities amongst students and families appears to be dwindling, while demand for […]
Thirty years. That’s how long Elliance has been making the case for liberal arts education with its noble goal of imparting practical idealism. In that time, we’ve fashioned a host of edgy, bullet-proof arguments that speak of the liberal arts in fresh and exciting ways. Using the language of the day, we’ve confronted the shibboleths […]
A familiar Chinese proverb instructs: “To know the road ahead, ask those coming back.” The current situation in higher education defies that enduring wisdom. Change arrived suddenly, with little regard for institutional history or might. In this respect, all colleges stand on relatively common ground. All college presidents, to a degree, have become new college presidents. […]
If the 20th century was the century of specialization, then the 21st century is becoming the century of integrative thinking. In the past century, colleges and universities offered choices of majoring in professional, STEM or liberal arts disciplines. In the first two decades of this century, there is now a discernible movement towards creation of […]
Although the future of work has become increasingly technical and vocational, the future of innovation and leadership remains solidly in the hands of people who majored or minored in liberal arts and humanities. There is a good reason for this paradox: liberal arts teach people how to learn, think, create, communicate, connect the dots, handle […]
In 1990, economist David Breneman published an article, “Are we losing our liberal arts colleges?” and spoke to the decline in the number of liberal arts colleges. Yet in 2012, the U.S. Department of Education data showed that enrollment in private nonprofit colleges and universities increased 1.9%, while total post-secondary enrollment in the U.S. declined […]
In this season of debates, we turn to a higher ed marketing area where debate is endless. What type of college best prepares students for “the real world?” While consumers — students and parents — can find great programs at the extremes of vocational education and classic liberal arts colleges, most of the higher ed […]