When Morons Run Colleges — Fiasco Ensues
Many colleges and universities in the US are mired in a sinkhole of debt and falling enrolment. Many have had to close down for good, or merge with others in a vain hope to stay afloat. Even venerable schools like Lincoln College and Becker College, with histories stretching back to the 19th century, shut down. And many more will fail as the downward spiral continues unabated. While changing demographics and over-supply account for some of the failures, a great number have (and will) failed because of poor leadership and gross mismanagement.
“Empty Chairs at Empty Tables, where my friends will sing no more.” — Les Mis
The industry (yes, the higher education industry, for that’s precisely what it is) faces declining demand as people have fewer kids and as people got wise to the unsustainable cost of going to college. But just because the industry falls on hard times does not mean that all players must fail. Indeed, I argue that college leadership are paid to extract their charge from the general downfall. I mean, if a college president can only perform as well as the industry average, who needs them?
Marketing, the business discipline most closely associated with revenue generation and customer acquisition, thrives on differentiation. In fact, you may argue that differentiation is what marketing is all about. Simply put, if all you are is what everybody else is, why would anyone come to you? The sad reality, though, is that poorly led enterprises (in our case, failing colleges) always succumb to the trap of sameness instead of seeking to differentiate. Why?
For one, doing what others are doing seems like a safe bet. Ten billion flies can’t be wrong, eat shit, that sort of thing. If you are familiar with the US college scene, you will notice that many colleges pursue the same strategy, proffer the same offering, and sing the same tune. College presidents, looking around at their fellow college presidents, follow one another’s lead. Result? Sameness. This appears less risky, but in reality is risky as hell.
Question is, if you can only follow your competitors, who needs you? How are you earning your keep? And believe you me, college presidents (and their cronies) are paid very handsomely indeed.
Get Ed Chunski’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
A college I was associated with experienced significant enrolment decline. Solution? Build a new gym. Other colleges in the area all seemed to be building new gyms, so we couldn’t be without one. Put aside the fact that we didn’t have the endowment for such a vast capital investment, or that the college was already in the red. We borrowed money so as to build a brand new gym. Called it a field house because it sounded better. And increased our debt by $25 million.
Why, I asked. What kind of enrolment increase would it take to offset this investment, I asked. Why did we think a new gym would provide us with this kind of enrolment increase, especially if everyone is also building one, I asked. Management’s reply? We know what we’re doing. The fact that the entire business faculty thought it was foolish meant nothing to management. They, by virtue of their elevated sense of self, knew better.
Of course enrolment didn’t go up. But debt and interest payments did. So what next? More administrators got hired. And everyone was a VP or a Director. This ostensibly was to allow greater efficiency. Right. Well, that didn’t quite work, so the college canned whole departments. And raised tuition. Oh, and increased administrative staff some more. Created more new deans even.
The college surveyed its students, and showed that the vast majority said they liked the experience. But that’s not the key, I suggested. Should we not find out from those who were admitted but didn’t come, and those who transferred elsewhere, what they thought about us? Why focus only on those who stayed (and thus certainly by definition didn’t quite despise us)? I proposed we should research those students we lost or never got. It was the most ridiculous thing that management ever heard. Actually the joke was on management.
I had spent more than 20 years working in colleges in the US. And the story repeats itself elsewhere. Sure there are successful colleges that thrive despite the general down trend. Sure there are colleges whose enrolments increase year over year, and endowment grow healthily. They, however, are the exception.
The general malaise of the higher education industry is a management failure. Many of these people have no clue what marketing is, at the exact moment when marketing is critical. Marketing is a hell lot more than coming up with a fancy slogan or a new logo, putting up a new website, or going on Instagram. Marketing is about building a brand that differentiates and achieves a sustainable competitive advantage. That’s Marketing 101. Sadly, that’s completely lost on most college management.
What’s happening to US colleges is a cautionary tale. Whether you are building and running your small business, or managing a major enterprise, you need customers who will come back time and again. The question you need to ask yourself is why. Why should they come to you, and return to you? If you can’t offer a cogent answer, if you can’t explain why you are so special that you warrant your customer’s patronage, you have no business being in business. It’s NEVER about being just like everyone else. That’s for losers.
What’s so special about you, then? Can you answer that?
“Oh, if I’d only seen, that the joke was on me.” — I started a Joke, The Bee Gees
