Technology in Higher Education
This article called For-Profit Schools: They Get IT delves into the differences between the adoption of technology at private schools and for-profit schools. The upshot is that For-Profit schools are better with technology. They spend more than 10% of their operating budgets on technology infrastructure where their counterparts in the private sector spend less than 3%. Among the reasons cited for making technology so central to the enterprise with the for-proifts is the desire to provide students with flexibility and to let them have the access to technology at school that they have in the rest of their lives.
There is an interesting section on Page 5 of the article that deals with the role of technology in marketing and student recruitment. It says that “When a student inquires at a for-profit, they’re going to get a response within a couple of hours. But when some of the not-for-profit schools get a similar inquiry, they might not respond for months. The for-profits know that they can’t afford to be that unresponsive-that students are their lifeblood-and they use the available technology to connect fast.”
Responding quickly to student inquiries is indeed critical to the success of the for-profit school. Response times within hours are not uncommon, but it is possible to respond to students within minutes. Using lead management software, students can be provided a nearly immediate a virtual appointment after submitting an online inquiry. Intelligent distribution of inquiries funnels students to the enrollment counselor best suited to help each student. Using lead management is the best way to intelligently distribute inquiries and speed up response times.
