College closures steamed through 2024, and more institutions may find themselves in the crosshairs next year as declining numbers of K12 students trickle into higher ed. However, one private liberal arts school has transformed its enrollment strategy by bucking its traditional paradigm.
“We were built as a single product institution that only knew how to recruit freshmen,” says Melik Khoury, president of Unity Environmental University since 2016. “We knew that we needed a different perspective and to find a new way of reaching students.”
The average age of its student population is now 29 years old, with 25% of these learners hailing from underrepresented communities. In the face of a pending enrollment cliff, universities must seize the moment and embrace an enrollment shift, says Greg Clayton, president of enrollment management services at EducationDynamics, a partner of Unity.
“We talk about the concept of a modern learner,” Clayton says. “We don’t talk about students, traditional, non-traditional, adult or whatever. Age is no longer a predictor of learner modality preferences.”
President moves: Miami installs a new leader as hiring intensifies
Cost, convenience and quality are the three most important aspects for the modern learner, and Unity has repackaged its academic programs and school calendar around them. For both online and in-person learners, baccalaureate courses run for five weeks. Degree-seeking students are free to take only one course per term to earn financial aid eligibility and can step away from registering for another course for up to one year.
“We don’t do sticker prices and discounts. Half the schools that are closed do that,” Khoury says. “It costs different to create, acquire and support different kinds of students.”
Khoury oversaw the university’s pivot to an enterprise model, adopting an operational strategy he likens to that of Yamaha. Unity’s broad array of services (distance education, in-person learning, associate degrees and other revenue-generating ventures) are each independently operated, budgeted and governed to best serve their targeted audiences. An overarching system centralizes critical functions like HR, finance and other business units that standardize and coordinate each subsidiary.
“Yamaha sells pianos and they sell motorbikes, but they’re still Yamaha,” Khoury says. “I doubt very much that the people who design the motorbikes are also designing the piano.”
Unity’s customer-centric approach appears to be paying off. Enrollment is about to eclipse 10,000 students, a far cry from its 50-year average of 500. Despite its lean $15.8 million endowment, the Maine-based institution’s sheer growth has allowed leadership to implement a tuition freeze through 2030 and guarantee all full-time employees a $50,000 minimum salary.
Regardless of its upswing, Khoury believes the key to maintaining Unity’s financial sustainability is staying on the pulse of each credential’s expenses. “By creating financial verticals based on assumptions of cost of acquisition, delivery, infrastructure and level of support for each and every one of your credentials, you can then change the levers as needed rather than manage a one-size-fits-all.”
