Quantitative and Qualitative

In a year when many U.S. higher education institutions have anticipated a decline in new international enrollments, enrollment managers are working overtime to understand either what they are doing right in bucking that projection or what they are doing wrong in succumbing to it. Armchair-based, virtual, and active-recruitment strategies are all under scrutiny.

And certainly, there are many factors that have an impact on international enrollment management (IEM): awareness of student mobility trends and countries that send students abroad in high volume; access (or not) to a customer relationship management (CRM) system; ability to compete with other destination countries for internationally mobile students; and success in distinguishing one’s own institution from others in an uncertain U.S. market. But ultimately, the IEM spotlight points increasingly at one metric: return on investment (ROI). In the current IEM climate, ROI outcomes are vital to making persuasive resource requests and aligning budget expenditures with mission statements or strategic plans.

Two Separate ROI Data Streams

I have been focused on ROI for the past decade. I’d speak with colleagues who said they were throwing money at new, experimental recruitment initiatives while I pinched pennies to cover essential activities; occasionally, I’d request additional resources, but the inevitable response was, “How many new students will enroll next term as a result of this investment?” Of course, the answer to “How many new students?” is hard to gauge given that dollars spent during one academic term in one fiscal year do not necessarily correspond with student enrollment in the