Fort Worth — Individual community colleges can’t match the marketing budgets of for-profit institutions that plaster their regions with advertisements. So they’re exploring ways to fight back by going national, pooling their efforts to promote online programs in a new marketing collaboration that was announced Sunday at a distance-education conference here.
The discussions, led by the American Association of Community Colleges, represent a fresh spin on an older strength-in-numbers distance-learning vision called the International Community College, which failed to get off the ground after four years of planning.
The distance-education landscape has changed drastically since that telecourse project. Both for-profits and an increasingly aggressive group of traditional four-year colleges now often recruit by purchasing “leads” on potential students that are parcelled out by online portals – a game community colleges have generally not joined.
The new national collaboration might look at how community colleges could exploit that tactic, perhaps by putting up a lead-generation Web site, said Pamela K. Quinn, an association board member who is provost of the distance-learning arm of the Dallas County Community College District.
Planning is at an early stage, she said, but one outcome could be an online clearinghouse that could showcase programs that train workers for particular jobs – say, veterinary technician. The project would cost “millions,” Ms. Quinn said in an interview Sunday at an e-learning conference put on by the Instructional Technology Council, an affiliate of the national community-college umbrella group.
Institutions participating in the talks include the Dallas district, Foothill-De Anza Community College, Rio Salado College, and Northern Virginia Community College.
For-profit institutions have chased community-college students for years, and the financial power they bring to the competition is daunting. For the three-month period ending November 30, 2009, the Apollo Group, parent of the University of Phoenix, spent $275-million on “selling and promotional” expenses, or about 20 percent of its total net revenue of $1.3-billion for that quarter, according to a report the company submitted to the government. To put that in perspective, the Dallas district’s distance-learning marketing budget is about $150,000.
Ms. Quinn sees how that lopsided competition plays out locally – for example, in the case of her husband’s barber. He got sold on a for-profit college without exploring cheaper local online options.
“He just didn’t even know what was available five miles from him, and yet he knew what’s available on the national scene,” she said. “I don’t think anybody who wants to be active in the future can afford to not pay attention to how successful some of the for-profits are becoming.”
She added, “We want to make sure students understand their options and aren’t going into debt to get a degree. There are probably a lot of people out there that don’t know what their options are, and they’ve been very impressed with some of the very fancy glitzy advertising that’s out there.”
15 Responses to Community Colleges Explore National Collaboration to Fight For-Profit Marketing Machine
selfg - February 22, 2010 at 5:34 pm
That list of community colleges that are “participating in the talks” is pretty impressive. I hope they remember to invite small, rural community colleges to also join this project. However, they will have to permit us to participate at a rate that is relative to our size. My entire annual budget, other than salaries, is only about $15K, I could not possibly put up the same cash as a Rio Salado in order to get in on this effort. If this group does not involve the smaller community colleges, then they are simply setting up yet another national educational organization to compete for my few students.
paievoli - February 22, 2010 at 5:38 pm
As I have told you a bunch in the last couple of months – you wouldn’t have to resort to this if you would simply realize that there are alternative revenue streams available to you that do not compromise the mission of academia. All HE has got to realize this before it is too late and the for-profits take over a large percentage of the marketplace. Pooling together is a good idea but it only works so much. You need to create a self-sustaining model that colleges can use for promotional efforts. patrickaievoli.wordpress.com
11180655 - February 22, 2010 at 6:02 pm
Community colleges aren’t going to win students from private career colleges by marketing better. The CC model of education is mired in inefficiency, waste and an open door policy that allows a good number of students to spend taxpayer funds on programs that they will not succeed in. Look at the numbers of students that complete programs. Many CCs have graduation rates under 10% (take a look at their rates with African-American students!!). Many of the graduates they do have are in liberal arts, not skills training fields. CC Week’s own rankings (see top 100 on their web site) on numbers of graduates in skills fields are dominated by private colleges, whose curriculum is driven by employers, not faculty. How aggressive are CCs in helping the few that graduate get a job? And how long does it take to get into a program, then get all the needed courses?The best marketing is referrals. The reason private career colleges are getting students is because most of their students graduate and get a job, period. Successful students create the demand.
stevefoerster - February 22, 2010 at 6:41 pm
“An open door policy that allows a good number of students to spend taxpayer funds on programs that they will not succeed in” describes many of the for-profits as well. The difference is that community colleges don’t saddle their failed students with forty grand in student loans in the process.
vdolgopolov - February 22, 2010 at 7:55 pm
Yes, of course, community colleges don’t saddle their failed students with forty grand in student loans. They saddle the taxpayers with a lot more, especially given that the community colleges’ cost of educating students tends to be considerably higher than for-profits – and it’s the taxpayers who pick up the cost of these failures. Community colleges’ graduation rates, especially for colleges that serve socioeconomically diverse populations similar to for-profit institutions, tends to be absolutely dismal. For some (see CUNY’s CCs), graduation rates are as low or less than 1%, per data provided to the New York State Education Department. For-profits outperform them by a nifty multiple.
edison - February 23, 2010 at 9:08 am
One of my biggest concerns with the for-profit schools is that they receive enormous amounts of Federal student loan dollars which are part of the funding for these expensive marketing campaigns. It is not right that the Federal government is helping fund schools that are causing fiscal distress among public institutions. I see this as a classic catch 22!
11180655 - February 23, 2010 at 9:26 am
Your fiscal concerns, ‘edison’, should be directed at CCs who build $10mm computer science facilities, then graduate 41 students a year in all computer science programs. CCs are even better at vacuuming up taxpayer dollars to build empires and administrative staff while promising results which are rarely commensurate with the expenditures. At least the marketing dollars spent by career colleges are producing excellent outcomes and changing lives.
jwcarroll - February 23, 2010 at 9:35 am
Edison, the for-profits don’t recieve Federal dollars directly. Consider students who are Pell eligible. They can use that money at any accredited instutition, public, non-profit, or for-profit that best meets their needs. The money goes to the student not the school.
11132507 - February 23, 2010 at 9:57 am
jwcarroll – the Pell Grant and student loan money goes through the student to the school. I remember years ago when there were a lot of for-profits whose tuition just happened to be $6625, because that was the maximum a student could receive in Stafford loans in their first year (counting the unsubsidized portion).Too bad this discussion quickly degenerated into a cc vs. for-profit sector war. Truth is that there are good and bad in both, many students’ lives have been positively changed in both sectors, others have wasted their time and money. But many community colleges have seen a huge increase lately in traditional age students whose parents can’t afford to send them to a 4-year college this year, maybe not next year either. These are college-ready students who want to earn a Bachelor’s Degree, not learn a trade and get a job in a year. Why shouldn’t community colleges be offering liberal arts courses?
intered - February 23, 2010 at 11:55 am
I fail to understand the petty, ill-informed, and illogical vitriol (proffered behind the security of anonymity) with respect to the for-profits as a category. Even so, anyone who feels that way should confront the fact that there would be no for-profits had traditional higher education not become the unaware, self-serving, indolent behemoth it is today.For example, in the aggregate, student loans are a profit center, either for banks or the federal government if direct. This is why the feds want all of them. The only loss (i.e., reduction of gross profit, not net loss) occurs at an individual level with a default. Rolling these defaults back up, we see: (a) that the for-profit universities do not lead the institutional types having the highest default rates, and (b) the strongest correlation is between student SES and default, not between institutional type and default. If one really wants to sharply reduce student loan default rates (they are not bad overall, and they are lower than many other loan types), one needs only to tell the underclass that they should be eating cake rather than trying to better themselves by getting an education that leads to a steady job. The underclass, whom the career schools and community colleges educate because no one else will, have high default rates whether they are attending a community college or a for-profit career school. It is good that student loans be paid back and the vast majority are, even by the underclass. However, from an economic perspective (which seems to underlie some of the bad arguments we see above), the taxpayer benefits when a jobless, state supported young person becomes a taxpaying surgical technologist, even if they end up defaulting on all or part on their student loan.If we don’t like the fact that the for-profits have grown from 1% to 10% market share, the only way to reverse the trend is to do a better job. This means better programs, better service, shorter times to degree, less indifferent and inefficient bumbling, understanding and participating in the marketplace, and much more. It also means measuring and managing real quality, usually for the very first time, instead of using it as the empty shibboleth it is at present. No one should worry. This challenge will not cause the for-profits any concern at present. They know that most institutions on the traditional side are incapable of real change. These complaining institutions still operate with 19th century management structures and generally come in dead last in the rate at which they diffuse innovation. Their efficiency is still declining. Their greatest change-related skill is getting ready to get ready — for decades even! Change this picture and traditional universities have a real chance of competing with the for-profits.This new effort by some community colleges is a wonderful idea. They will benefit from it and should immediately re-invest incremental revenues in additional innovation to regain lost market share.———————-Robert W TuckerPresidentInterEd, Inc.www.InterEd.com
cbohleke - February 23, 2010 at 12:27 pm
Public, private and for-profit institutions exist and are not going away. They all have advantages and disadvantages or we would only have one system. The institutions in the article have decided to think outside the box rather than to accept the status quo and I applaud their efforts to collaborate rather than compete. Perhaps all of us could learn something from their example. We all have enough critics of higher education in general these days to spend time taking shots at one another.
waligowski - February 23, 2010 at 2:36 pm
Great concept of collaboration. I am anxious to watch. If the hurdles can be cleared and “fair” physical dollar contribution to market CCs is done right this will be excellent. I’ve been in other parts of higher ed that tried a marketing ‘war chest’ to compete with the NFL, but you have a hard time in promoting 300+ colleges vs. 30+ NFL teams with so many different brands and agendas.All schools are for profit, it is just the actual for profits that use marketing, advertising, and sales (admissions) they way it should be done. And here, we mock them for being successful.Many CCs have become inefficient feeders to 4-year schools and in my state (SC), they only recently made courses transferrable thus reducing the cost of education.
drwebct - February 23, 2010 at 3:23 pm
I work for both Capella and a public two year college. I started teaching “online” with dialup modems in 1990 (that should tell you how long I’ve been doing distance learning). Take it from me, 20 years after introducing distance learning to my community college, and 8 presidents later, they STILL are clueless on how to do it right. They pay little more than lip service to development of courses and could care less about improving the offering.Capella on the other hand spends big bucks on their course development, hiring faculty as subject-matter experts and teaming them with a great group of developers to make curriculum, multimedia, assessment, etc. At every stage of the development, the results are always referenced back to competencies, etc. Very professional.So the for-profits get the job done and well, while the public schools diddle and daddle with inept administrations and design-by-committee mentality.IMHO
philostitute - February 28, 2010 at 7:21 pm
As someone who also works both sides of the fence, and who has taught on-line for a for-profit, there are many reasons for the gains in market share. The for-profit school has many “brands” and markets its online education systems to non-traditional students who want to credential for the purpose of obtaining promotions or better job opportunities. Non-traditional students tend to have the maturity needed to complete the online courses at the accelerated pace set by the institution. For traditional students the results are mixed and they tend to drop (in both environments) at higher rates. The courses at the for profit are designed as described above, with subject matter experts (PhDs in discipline areas) and content developers who take care of the technical delivery issues. The guidelines and requirements for each class are clear and students have to meet the deadlines or they do not continue.Contrast that with my experience at the community college and the problem becomes obvious. The community college has a mix of traditional and non-traditional students. Courses are considerably larger than at the for-profit and I do not have time to track down non-performers as there is only time to deal with those who want to succeed. The standards for course development basically involve learning how to use the LMS (Blackboard) and figuring out a way to transfer your on-ground course to the online medium. Faculty receive technical support only when they encounter problems and do not have time to design media specifically for online students other than taping on-ground lectures and including videos. The burden for course development, delivery and student success is placed solely on the backs of faculty versus the multi-faceted staff responsible for the various concerns at the for-profit. There are no course developers at their disposal, no large IT budgets and very little opportunity to develop skills necessary to effectively teach online due to huge on-ground course loads and class sizes. The community college runs the race from far, far behind so it is no small wonder they come up short in student success, retention and graduation.
davidvictor - March 18, 2010 at 11:40 pm
With the cost of college going up faster than a rocket launched into space, Congress seriously should look at helping more affordable schools (like community colleges) attract students and educate them on how they can save money on their education.The internet is another great tool that is being used effectively. The internet isn’t just for blogs and social networking. It is a great tool for education and I support any school that is trying to use that power and keep costs down.