I am a professional higher education marketer with decades of experience. This allows me to look at higher education as an autonomous outsider. For the last decade or so, I have observed that higher education is being driven by a significant force: economics.

Consumer cost of acquiring higher education has resulted in two significant behaviors on the part of purchaser: fleeing to community colleges and fleeing the country.

Flight to a community college.
Many students and their parents have discovered that they can attend, at generally far lower cost, a community college and then transfer to an accredited, more highly "imaged" university for its diploma. This has been a boon for community colleges and for universities marketing themselves to the community college market.

It has also accented the importance of image, both in the initial attraction to community colleges and to universities who strive to keep good marketable appeal in the competitive marketplace.

What I have not seen is a logical, formal, collaborative association between community colleges and universities, to address this approach taken by "customers." This formal tracking with "linked" community colleges and universities could become a marketable commodity. This vacuum does not surprise me since administrators and faculty in higher education have traditionally had their marketing heads in the sand! Unfortunately, their irrational fear of "lowering" their self-perceived value and quality by associating with community colleges results in loss of potential income.

Flight to another country.
Perspicacious parents and creative potential students have discovered less costly quality education among the varied institutions beyond our borders.... Canada, for example. Just as consumers cross the border to purchase products at a savings (cigarettes, gasoline, etc.), U.S. students are "fleeing" for quality education at much lower prices.

Higher education offered outside the United States is becoming an attractive educational alternative. What I have not seen are institutions in other countries such as Australia, for example, making formal associations with air travel vendors to make this association much more attractive to the American student. For example, envision an Aussie uni (university) building into its educational curriculum, for American students, regular economical air travel for American holidays and summers!

 
            —Bob Topor
                Senior Consultant, Topor Consulting Group
                Author, Lecturer, Publisher

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