Episode 86

The Enrollment Rebound That’s Misleading Higher Ed

Guest name: Phil Hill
Guest title: Educational Technology Consultant & Industry Analyst
Guest company: Phil Hill & Associates
Host: David Brunner

Brief description of the episode

Enrollment may be improving, but acting on that signal could lock you into the wrong strategy for the next decade. Phil Hill joins David Brunner to unpack why the underlying challenges haven’t changed and how that shows up in decisions around AI, modality, and EdTech. Find out what’s driving these shifts and how making long-term bets on these wrong assumptions can affect higher ed.

Key Takeaways:

- Invest in redesigning assessments to measure applied skills along with content recall.
- Replace over-reliance on multiple-choice testing with more authentic evaluation methods.
- Use AI as a trigger to accelerate changes in how learning is assessed.
- Avoid spreading investment thin across too many tools without a clear academic impact.
- Focus funding on academic transformation efforts rather than on adding more layers of technology.
- Track short-term enrollment rebounds carefully. Community college recovery may look promising, but much of it is driven by dual enrollment, which operates on a fundamentally different business model.
- Plan for the long game. The demographic cliff is still coming, and when combined with inflation, rising Fed funds rates, and operational costs, institutions cannot afford to treat a two-year uptick as a solved problem.
- Benchmark against institutions that are already restructuring strategically. Look at what their systems are doing to realign around what today’s students need, and use that to pressure-test your own roadmap.
- Lead every program decision with student needs, not a delivery format. Flexibility and connectivity are both non-negotiable for today’s learners.
- Design programs that combine asynchronous access with hybrid engagement so students can manage work, family, and coursework without sacrificing connection to faculty and peers.
- Over 50% of online students choose institutions within 100 miles of home; lean into your local presence. Don’t compete on national reach.
- Treat modality as a toolkit. Mix and match formats based on what each program and student population requires, rather than defaulting to a single delivery model.
- Audit the financial health of your technology partners based on their debt levels, private equity ownership, and leveraged buyout history.
- Monitor mission alignment over time. When financial pressure shifts a vendor’s direction, institutions must ask whether it still aligns with their academic goals.
- Move procurement towards ecosystem thinking, roadmap evaluation, and vendor financial transparency.
- Choose partners based on future performance signals and institutional fit, and not just their current functionality list of features.

The Enrollment Rebound That’s Misleading Higher Ed

Brief description of the episode

Key Takeaways:

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