A Student-Centered Approach, From Applicants to Alumni

The Student Perspective

“A student-centered approach” is more than a catchphrase, it’s a strategic imperative in higher education today. Institutions wishing to do more than just survive in an increasingly competitive marketplace must rethink the entire collegiate experience from the student perspective. This is no small undertaking, given the varying needs of a diverse candidate pool.

Further, applicants are applying a consumer mindset to the college selection process, scrutinizing each institution’s academic offerings, enrollment options, pricing and placement rates. Simply put, students expect a return on their investment and hold colleges accountable for delivering it.

It’s through this lens that Huron is helping institutions transform the student experience of today while laying the groundwork for the campus of tomorrow.

An institution’s unique value proposition doesn’t happen by chance — it’s the culmination of a series of strategic choices. It involves identifying the institution’s competitive advantages, uncovering new opportunities, developing a plan to attract the “best-fit” students and developing academic offerings that meet the needs of tomorrow’s labor market.

The best path forward can be charted by contrasting your institution’s current state of affairs against its future ideals. Huron’s team of education experts work side by side with you to view the student lifecycle as an interconnected, dynamic entity, offering actionable insights that can help in achieving your vision. We will benchmark your institution’s marketing and engagement strategies, student profile and curricular offerings against peer institutions, as well as recommend a technology infrastructure that will increase transparency, encourage student engagement and enable you to scale.

Ensuring that the voices of all stakeholders — faculty, administrators, students and alumni — are incorporated into a holistic plan will best position your institution to support students throughout their collegiate experience, from applicants to alumni. A successful onboarding process weaves the recruitment, admissions, financial aid and student-support functions together into a seamless experience, integrating analytical tools with academic and financial planning. Students benefit by being able to focus on their studies rather than dealing with administrative hurdles; institutions benefit from increased operational efficiencies and business intelligence.

Many factors affect a student’s ability to thrive academically and graduate: preparation and learning; connectedness and engagement; affordability and value; health and wellness. Huron’s unique approach uncovers opportunities to support students across these four key dimensions of success, helping them to achieve professional success, find satisfaction and become more engaged alumni. Our comprehensive approach unifies the student experience by focusing on technology, data and the four key dimensions of student success:

When done well, technology is more than a tool to automate and extend educational resources. It can be used both to promote and measure engagement, identify at-risk students and provide the insights needed to help students succeed in both their personal and professional lives beyond graduation. Doing this successfully calls for a more integrated approach to strategic enrollment planning, from implementation to execution. Technology is used to stand up the newly redesigned student journey, and therefore, plays a critical role in the overall strategic approach.

A single cloud-based framework unifies the campus instead of dividing it, aligning technology with the institution’s strategic goals. Through Huron’s comprehensive cloud planning and implementation services, we will prepare your institution to meet changing student and administrative demands. Along with our technology partners — Oracle, Workday and Salesforce — we will collaborate with you to design and implement a technology infrastructure that provides the seamless and interactive experience today’s students expect.

Higher education is part of our DNA. Our team of seasoned leaders brings an unmatched depth of experience to drive lasting change and measurable results. For more than twenty years, Huron has worked with institutions to dig deeper into core issues, uncover opportunities and work across silos to get things done. We understand the unique culture of higher education and know that a handoff between strategy and implementation shouldn’t require a changing of the guard — our team stays with you every step of the way.

Huron can help your institution successfully reposition itself today while laying the groundwork to own its future tomorrow.