Audience: Undergraduate

The higher education landscape is shifting. Shrinking student populations, evolving expectations, and intense competition are forcing institutions to rethink their approach to attracting and enrolling students. The traditional methods of outreach and engagement are no longer enough.

As marketers, we’re used to abbreviations like CRM, CMS, CRO, and CTA; some of these are the bread and butter of what we do and how we do it. However, it’s easy to fall into a pattern with these concepts—to distance ourselves with abbreviations and routine, forgetting the true impact of their work.

The higher education landscape is shifting. Shrinking student populations, evolving expectations, and intense competition are forcing institutions to rethink their approach to attracting and enrolling students. The traditional methods of outreach and engagement are no longer enough.

We know what drives student success: belonging, mentoring, problem-based learning, and timely support. But on too many campuses, these practices remain isolated rather than systemic. Presidents play a vital role in aligning strategy, resources, and accountability around this core outcome. When students thrive, institutions thrive. Our challenge is to scale how we achieve student success with intention.

Carnegie, a leader in higher education marketing and enrollment strategy, is partnering with Foundation Marketing, a digital marketing agency that helps organizations tell great stories through content. The two companies are excited to bring large-scale content marketing solutions to the higher education space.

Carnegie, a leader in higher education marketing and enrollment strategy, is partnering with Foundation Marketing, a digital marketing agency that helps organizations tell great stories through content. The two companies are excited to bring large-scale content marketing solutions to the higher education space.

Five years ago, higher education leaders everywhere were navigating the personal implications of a newly-minted global pandemic while also working overtime to support their teams, constituents, and communities through a fundamental destabilization of not only the higher ed sector but every aspect of our daily lives. We all emerged from that year never wanting to hear the word “unprecedented” again. But what higher education is facing at this moment is, once more, unprecedented, representing a significant degree of challenge to foundational assumptions about our sector.

Higher education should play a more central role in addressing the complex partisan divides in our country, but doing so will require us to examine our own actions and institutional strategies. Academia has long operated in an insular bubble. Now, more than ever, we must engage locally, bridging the gap between our institutions and the communities they serve, all while strengthening our commitment to educating students about and for democracy.

Higher education news outlet University Business published a new op-ed written by Shankar Prasad, Carnegie’s chief strategy officer. The piece proposes five questions for college presidents to consider as they navigate the current political environment and the resulting challenges to higher education.