Is Your Community Delivering Value?

Written By Bayley Pierson
College Lecture Hall eGlass

A recent radio ad from a college in the Pacific Northwest proudly announces students can lock in their tuition at a low rate for Fall 2022 – and maintain that low rate until they graduate.

Given the exorbitant fees of higher ed, you’d think this sort of tactic would flood smaller, less expensive community colleges with students. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Here are some sobering facts:

Now the biggest shock. Highly selective colleges (the Ivy League) have seen enrollment gains of up to 3.1%, taking them right back to their pre-pandemic levels.

The result? 62% of higher education leaders say declining tuition revenue is their number one concern!

And it should be. Because across the country, community colleges are closing. Recently, Bloomfield College in New Jersey, founded in 1868, said it may be forced to close after this academic year. Bloomfield is in good company. Judson College in Alabama, Becker College in Massachusetts and Concordia College New York also plan to close, among many others. 

Value, Not Price, is What Matters

Colleges might look to marketers when it comes to the price vs value equation. Simply put, marketers innately understand people (in this case students) aren’t as sensitive to price as they are value. Given two offerings are at relatively the same price, what the student gets is more important to them than what they pay. 

 

Certainly, great instructors provide incredible value. But what if the college can’t compete with the Ivy League when it comes to hiring incredible instructors?  

That’s where thinking out of the box comes in. Innovative technology, for example. 

It’s already happening.

Technology That Drives Value

eGlass is the world’s first transparent lightboard with a built-in camera. 

It enables instructors to literally be in the same frame as their writing, looking directly at their students while they write on their board. The camera flips the image, so the instructor can write normally, and students read the writing normally.

eGlass was developed to drive engagement in remote learning settings. But it has proven itself equally adept at holding student attention in classrooms, with the instructor’s image projected onto the wall or shown on a monitor.

Add features like recording, screen snapshots, and a software system that enables the instructor to pull any lesson right into the eGlass frame and interact with it – even write on it – and you have a tool that is a big technological step forward.

eGlass is a powerful addition in these college settings:

  • Large venue instruction – from classrooms to auditoriums

  • Studios – rooms purpose-built to deliver high quality digital instruction and recordings

  • Streaming and online instruction – live and recorded

  • Virtual office hours – student collaboration or faculty meetings from the instructor’s desk, whether at-home or in-office.

In the past few weeks, we’ve closed quite a few deals with community colleges.

Community college administrators across North America realize eGlass technology enables instructors to engage with their students like never before. All without forcing the instructors through a steep learning curve. Simply put, using eGlass is as easy as writing on a whiteboard.

The reaction from students, from K-12 to college, is universally ‘wow’. Their blink reaction to the technology is wonder. But what holds them is the direct connection they feel to their instructor – a very human ‘giant leap forward’. That’s value!

If your college is experiencing enrollment dropoff, and you’re at a crossroads, remember: cutting fees is the start of a losing battle. Delivering value is the path to a better place, and we can help.

Bayley Pierson
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The (not so obvious) Importance of Engagement in Higher Education