Audience: Undergraduate

This all makes an increasingly complex environment fraught with risk for executives and board members — political hazards, competing needs, strategic opportunities, and outright personal exhaustion. As turnover in the upper ranks menaces institutional stability, it’s a prime moment for leaders to pause and refocus.

Evaluating their own effectiveness, resilience, and consistency with institutional goals can be an invaluable reset in this hectic spring season. Here are some best practices for executives and board members to avoid pitfalls in this political and regulatory environment.

Your higher education institution is creating great organic LinkedIn content, but is it reaching the right audience? Despite investing time and resources into crafting compelling posts—including faculty research, student success stories, and program highlights—limited organic reach means even the best content may not get the visibility it deserves.

It was little more than a decade ago when institutions were arguing about whether a Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) was needed. Today, the role is essential at nearly every institution, given the complexity of recruiting and fundraising. Today’s best practice is to assemble a highly data-driven and strategic marketing operation that performs critical functions for enrollment, strategic communications, and fundraising to deliver true return on investment in all areas. Marketing is a key performance engine, not a service organization.

In considering the headlines of the past few months and in working with colleges and universities as they enroll new student cohorts and build pipelines of future prospective students, there is one feature of our new environment that is particularly unsettling. Higher education institutions know they must assess and respond, but—particularly when it comes to enrollment—it’s not exactly clear what they’re responding to.

With new leadership at the helm, Georgia Southern University needed a comprehensive strategic partner to lift their brand and reputation to match the caliber of the research and offerings they provide, meeting the growing industry in their region. After previous brand exercises did not recognize their true voice and direction, Georgia Southern partnered with Carnegie to execute an inspirational, authentic brand elevation that permeated throughout a website redesign, digital marketing campaigns, and comprehensive Student Search communications to elevate their reputation, grow enrollment, and gain footholds in their secondary and tertiary markets.

We are excited to announce Personalized Digital Experiences as part of our Digital Marketing services—helping institutions turn interest into action through interactive, high-conversion tools. This solution delivers dynamic, student-driven experiences that generate more leads, capture valuable data, and drive deeper engagement across your digital channels.

Higher education institutions are no strangers to controversy, but the range of crises we have to plan for has evolved. Instead of handling internal challenges like recruiting students or balancing the budget, colleges and universities are finding themselves in the crosshairs of politically motivated scrutiny, investigations, and funding threats.

We are excited to integrate Organic Social Media into our Digital Marketing services to bring strategic and engaging unpaid social strategies to our partners. These new services bring strategic, data-informed, and expert-led organic social strategies to our partners—helping strengthen your brand, boost engagement, and stay relevant across platforms.

The admissions decision is a huge moment for students and admissions offices alike, but it’s not the conclusion of the enrollment journey. Yield, student success, and retention are also incredibly important to your institutional goals. A smooth transition from admissions to other departments on campus to ensure students thrive is crucial to meeting those other goals.

York College of Pennsylvania wanted a holistic approach to increase their enrollment while aligning their Student Search strategy with their digital work. Working with a single partner would ensure efficiency across the full student journey.