Author: Dwyer Education Strategies

Carmen Afghani Consultant Financial Aid Services ? Webster defines consultant as ?to seek the opinion or advice of another person for making a decision.? Many people are randomly using the moniker ?Consultant,? but hiring one to assist with financial aid processing should be approached with as much caution, prudence and research as selecting an attorney or even surgeon. Selecting the right consultant can add untold value to your Financial Aid Office and yield a substantial return on your investment. For the purposes of this article, ?Consultant? can refer to either an individual consultant or a consulting firm. Determining Your Needs […]

John Hall Chief Executive Officer Greenwood & Hall The National Center for Education Statistics predicts that there will be just under 7 million adult learners by 2013. The growth of programs that cater to non-traditional students has been no less than explosive. Despite the vast financial resources that both institutions and the federal government have invested in continuing education programs, graduation rates have remained alarmingly low. As the number of adult learners continues to grow and Washington calls for increased accountability in terms of the outcomes institutions provide for their students, schools must take a fresh look at creative approaches […]

Micharl O’Grady Overture Technologies There has been much discussion over the last two years about financial aid offices maintaining a ?preferred lender list? for their students and families. Back in the 1980?s when many colleges and universities did not recommend specific lenders, schools would get student loan checks from credit unions, community banks and some large regional lenders. The processes were painfully slow and the cash flow was spread out over months. With the advent of better technology and sweeping standardization, schools in the mid 1980?s could start transmitting student loan data electronically and receive the funds through electronic fund […]

John W. Dysart President The Dysart Group, Inc. The economic downturn has had a direct impact at colleges and universities. In many cases, enrollments are stagnant or have declined. Financial aid costs have risen as increased unemployment and market drops have fueled growth in aggregate financial need for both new and returning students. Colleges are dealing with more financial need while simultaneously experiencing cuts in state financial aid. Often, institutional resources are scarce as returns on endowed investments have been disappointing. These conditions are likely to persist for at least the near future.

Douglas Spadaro, Ph.D. President Premier Communications ? David Waggoner, M.A. Vice President Premier Communications As graduation speakers often point out, commencement is a time of celebration and new beginnings. Administration, faculty and staff are happy about another job well done. Parents and families evidence pride in children and relatives. And, most importantly, new graduates exalt in their accomplishments and look forward to the future. ? A significant aspect of this future is the ongoing lifetime relationship that graduates have with the college as alumni. From your perspective, commencement is the start of cultivating positive relationships with your alumni. Clearly college […]

April Clark CAS Marketing Consultant CAS ? First, put on your ?search engine thinking cap!? The more your creative folks can ?think? like a search engine, the more successful your site will be. But strike a happy balance, don’t think so hard that your site becomes a spam victim. ? Understanding how a search engine works is the second step. Search engines look at your HTML code within your web pages and try to extract the content of your text. Then this page text goes into the search engine’s index ? which is a huge pool of Web site information […]

Bill Firman Dean of Admission Wesley College In February 2008 Wesley College purchased 100,000 names of high school juniors who had taken the SAT. These students were sent a ?personalized URL card? [PURL]. This? ard was a slightly larger-than-postcard- sized, high-gloss photo of a cell phone with a? ersonalized message on the screen saying, ?Hi, [first name]! You have 1 message, from? Wesley College?. On the reverse were instructions for going to their own personalized Wesley web site: firstname.lastname.@wesley.com. From that site, students were provided with links to 15 different points of interest on the Wesley web site [financial aid, […]

David Ruderman Vice President of Education Marketing Greenwood & Hall You are thinking about expanding your degree programs online? Or,? you are thinking of starting online degree programs. The research has been completed showing an opportunity in the marketplace due to economic times or to meet unmet demand. Back-end systems are in place for delivery of instruction. The enrollment management and marketing teams have been tasked to develop marketing plans and related back-end systems to generate and follow-up on leads. Basically the same process that would be employed for the introduction of any new program at your institution, right? Possibly […]

John W. Dysart President The Dysart Group, Inc. Mary Hendry, the Vice President for Enrollment at Roosevelt University in Chicago,was featured in an article in this publication one year ago and I have had the pleasure of working with her the last two cycles. With the support of the President, Dr. Charles Middleton, and the Board of Trustees, Mary managed the implementation of a new recruitment model last year that resulted in a 70% increase in new freshmen, a 38% increase in new transfer students and the largest number of full-time undergraduate students in the history of the University. This […]

John W. Dysart President The Dysart Group, Inc. Dr. William Johnston came to Wesley College in Dover, Deleware, after a successful term as President at Iowa Wesleyan College, where he posted the largest number of freshmen enrollments in at least thirty years, despite demographic and economic impediments. I had consulted with Dr. Johnston at Iowa Wesleyan College and he contacted me to assist in growing the enrollment at Wesley while taking steps to improve academic quality. Dr. Johnston began his tenure during a time of exceptional economic barriers. The recession, credit crunch, drop in the stock market, corporate bankruptcies and […]