In just a few weeks the postsecondary education season will begin anew. Presidents and Deans and Department Heads alike will all be scrambling to do something they probably haven’t been insisted upon to achieve in the past: run a money-making operation.

Postsecondary institutions, until the recent change in the economy, were either Endowment-driven or Tuition-driven. In other words, the schools were on the one hand given a pot of money at the beginning of the year that paid for courses, facilities and staff until it ran out, or on the other desperately needed students to sign up and pay to keep the lights on, but didn’t clearly know where those students were coming from.

Typically, we at KDI work with education clients who are:

• Pressured to completely change their business model because they’ve been hammered by funding losses, but don’t know how to best move forward
• Unsure of how or why to monitor and manage student progress, from showing interest in a course through being awarded certification
• Overwhelmed by all the possibilities out there that claim to drive potential students to their school’s website, and unclear about how to inexpensively implement methodology that works.

Administrators are in a panic. We have found that nearly all postsecondary institutions are actively looking for ways to accomplish three things. First, to attract more students. Second, to figure out in a systematic manner which courses to offer and which to cancel. Third, to manage the progress of their students with increased transparency. We give postsecondary institutions the tools to determine:

• how many students are in the pipeline—from showing interest through certification
• whether individual courses are going to be profitable or not
• if a program is generating enough interest to keep it running.

Several postsecondary education leaders haven’t been waiting: they’ve been working with us at KDI all summer long, developing the tools to ensure that they are running a profitable school—not next year, not in a few months, but now. If you’re under pressure to get your school or department making money, we may be able to help. Pick up that phone and invest a few minutes of your time to let us know about your situation. You can reach us at 1.800.661.1755.

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