Being a better option doesn’t help you compete for prospective parents’ attention as effectively as positioning yourself as a NEW OPPORTUNITY.
In this quick read, you will learn the two strategies you need to go from trying to be the better college option to becoming the only option (unless everyone reading this implements it).
The Princeton Review - SINCE 2013 - has reported that college debt is the #1 concern of parents and prospective college students alike.
Families are frantically searching for ways to afford college without drowning in debt and hoping to find the perfect college to offer a quality education at an affordable price.
Even with all the searching, current college statistics are unsettling:
If you are thinking: “Not at our school; we don’t have this problem.”...
Try this reframe: “Our students don’t experience this, so how do we attract more students to provide them with the same success?”
Glad you asked. Here are the TWO strategies you need!
The issue with college debt isn’t that families will need to borrow; it is that they realize they will need to borrow more than is responsible. Remember, parents are already convinced that the benefit of college is worth the cost.
Therefore, parents will send their children to a college even if they need to borrow more than they are comfortable borrowing.
This is your opportunity to become the college where they send their teenagers. If you want to increase your enrollment (and impact your retention goals) then you need to:
Responsible student loan borrowing should be dependent on the career a student is pursuing. They should borrow based on the anticipated entry-level salary that career provides.
Our Student Loan Advice: Students shouldn’t borrow more than what they can pay back with 10% of their take-home entry-level salary.
If you structure your financial aid to help families hit this target, you will become one of very few colleges that financially prepares students for their future careers while you educate them on how to do their careers.
Parents ask themselves, “How are we going to afford college?”
What they are really asking is, “How can we afford college THIS year?”
This is because parents assume that college will cost the same every year. But the cost of college typically increases each year and some of their freshman aid may decrease as sophomores.
Don’t hide this fact from them. It doesn’t help them and it won’t help you.
Help them ask a better question, “How can we afford the total cost of this degree?”
If you teach them to ask this question and then show them how your financial aid strategy will help them afford college responsibly, you will earn their trust and keep your students through graduation.
Set the precedent of honesty and transparency and your college will stand out as one of very few colleges that cares enough to do this.
When they see the full cost of the degree it will scare them, but your honesty and solutions (think strategy #1) will empower and impress them.
Then, every other college will be tainted in their mind and you will become the new opportunity and the only option for them to envision a successful college experience.
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