Dive Brief:
- Cincinnati State Technical and Community College in Ohio, which is dealing with enrollment declines and a state-mandated tuition freeze, signed a 10-year contract with Pearson for help with mostly-regional recruitment and retention.
- Inside Higher Ed reports the deal allocates $550,000 from the college’s marketing budget to Pearson, and the company gets up to 20% of tuition revenue from new students, based on a performance-based, tiered system tied to retention and new student recruitment.
- Though there is some distrust of a long-term contract with a for-profit company, faculty members have remained largely supportive of the new partnership, but there are concerns Pearson’s future retention plans for Cincinnati State could infringe upon institutional freedom.
Dive Insight:
The University of Florida signed an 11-year deal with Pearson to run UF Online, which the state legislature allowed just seven months to design and launch. This past fall, two years into the contract, the university ended the partnership.
Community colleges often do not spend much money on recruitment — though Green River College in Washington is a notable exception, aggressively recruiting international students to pad its tuition revenue stream. Retention efforts, on the other hand, are becoming more targeted as institutions use data analytics to develop predictive models for success and greater context for intrusive advising.