You've Recruited Them; Now How Do You Retain Them?
Your student recruitment efforts have been successful, and your new freshman class is enrolled. But how do you ensure that you can retain these hard-won students through graduation?
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, approximatley 57% of first-time students who sought a bachelor's degree or equivalent and enrolled at a 4-year institution full-time in fall 2002 completed their degree or its equivalent within 6 years. How does your institution rank?
This is certainly an acknowledged issue for colleges and universities. What they are doing about it is another discussion. Have you updated your retention strategies lately? Simply holding freshman orientation or seminars is probably not going to cut it these days. While these are "social" events, and it is generally acknowledged that social integration into the university environment is critical to student retention success, today's students have an entirely different definition of "social," and that is usually spelled F-A-C-E-B-O-O-K.
Sure, you have a Facebook page for your institiution, but have you set up a Facebook environment specifically designed to help new students better integrate into your social and academic structure? Let's face it, Facebook is where these students are hanging out, where they are comfortable, and to the extent you can integrate into their Facebook experience, you have a greater opportunity to engage them, from the beginning of your student recruitment efforts, through enrollment and on to graduation.
Not only can you keep the dialog going, but it is a place for them to go to get questions answered, keep updated on what's new, and generally tighten their relationship with your college or university. It is also very likely that post-graduation, they will still be using Facebook, or something similar, and the dialog continues as you keep alumni engaged.
Make sure you engage student ambassadors in this process as well. While students like the feeling of having a close relationship with their school administration, they also want to turn to their peers for advice, guidance and insight. Student ambassadors are a great way to address that need.
As we begin 2012, it is a good time to review your social media strategy, from student search, through enrollment and retention. Can yours benefit from an update?