Don't Slash - Retain - Free Book to Help You Do This

ENOUGH CUTTING!!!!! Higher ed is not a slasher flick though most decisions that are being made about budgets is just as dumb and predictable as many such movies.

We have a budget issue? Okay. CUT! Not the scene but programs and sections and people that actually help students succeed.

C’mon folks. Calculators actually have an addition sign. Yes. That + things is to add revenue.

“But we have no money to add. Where are we to find money to put into the budget? Woe is me.”

How about trying to actually keep students. Maybe you heard the word retention before. Retention is not just about retaining water but about retaining students. You may remember them. They are the ones you count up as they come in but then really don’t care about enough once tuition comes in the Fall.

“Oh no. That’s not fair. We care about each and every one of our students. They are very important to us. Well, maybe not as important as the football coach, or the basketball coach, mainly the men’s coach, or the trustees, or my own salary and raises…..but still important.

And don’t give me that all you care about is keeping the faculty happy. And that faculty have it easy and are paid too much. Most of our faculty are adjuncts and we really don’t give a rat’s ass about them.

And don’t worry about us overpaying them? Won’t ever happen. After all, they don’t do research, except for finding places they can afford to live in on what we pay them.

And they are dedicated. They are teaching four and five sections mainly ones that are required and full-time faculty won’t teach them. Takes away from their research and we do love research. That’s what we reward after all. Research. And well, adjuncts just teach. Most do it well too. That allows our tenured faculty time to do research which is what they prefer to teaching. So we don't want to put reluctant researchers in classrooms so we use adjuncts who will work at wages less than what they could make at Wal-Mart.

So don’t try to tell me that we don’t care about students."

Okay, so then why do you cut so many sections of courses needed to graduate on time and offer some of them only once a year but never make sure advisers are aware of that fact? And why do you cut services that students need? And cut people to provide services? And cut and cut and cut…..? Haven't you heard that the school can add dollars simply by doing what is necessary to retain more students?

BOTTOM LINE – RETAINING MORE STUDENTS PUTS MORE MONEY IN THE BUDGET!!!

What is it about that idea that some can't just get it?

I mean what is it?

Can someone explain why as a nation we lose almost half of all students who start at a four-year college to attrition? And 70% of all students who start at a community college?

Explain it to me.

Is it fun to see students and families lose their investments in the future?

Is it more fun to cut and hurt than to retain and help?

Is there some perverse glee at losing so many futures and $4-8 Billion a year?

Tell me what it is that we can't get focused on keeping students in college?

Do we believe that having students drop out shows a school is academically rigorous and maintains high standards?

Is it that we base our revenues on Fall entering student numbers so we focus on entering only?

Whatever it is; someone just tell me.

Why can’t higher ed institutions keep more students through graduation; keep more money and better the lives of the students they sold on the school and, YES and keep more money in the budget so schools do not have to cut, cut, cut?

My g-d, with all the cutting and budget bleeding I’d think that colleges and universities are run by surgeons not academics!!!

If a college, university, career college or community college increased its retention it will accrue additional revenue that could oddest most of the budget “losses”. This is an old topic here. And I am amazed at how dumb some smart people can be.

Here it is if each student brings in $10,000 for example. If the school loses ten students it loses $100,000 from attrition. The school has to the recruit new students to fill the empty seats. For ten students, that will cost the school about another $65,000. So the loss in revenue to the school from attrition of ten students is $165,000.

Schools budget to lose students so the $165,000 loss is in the planned losses. If the school retains ten students more than it had in the budget that adds $165,000 to the budget.

Retention has the ability to add dollars to budgets and these dollars can still be added to the coming semester/term.

My publisher, The Administrator’s Bookshelf wants to both help make the point clearer and celebrate the success of one of my books. Customer Service Factors and the Cost of Attrition has sold out of all its hardcopies. There are no more left at this time. So to celebrate the selling out (in a good way this time) The Administrator’s Bookshelf has decided to provide free digital copies of Customer Service Factors and the Cost of Attrition to any reader of the blog, and any colleagues you wish to tell about the offer. Just click here and ask

CSFactors and the Cost of Attrition will also explain the retention to revenue concept more and even provide formulas you can use to see how much percentage increases in retention will add dollars to the budget. I also recommend a copy of another article that will help make anyone understand the value of retention Retain Students: Retain Budgets in University Business magazine.

So get the free book. Read the articles. Pass them all on to others. Put away the budget knives and bring out some academic customer service and keep more students.

IF THIS ARTICLE MAKES SENSE TO YOU, YOU WILL WANT TO OBTAIN A COPY OF THE BEST-SELLING NEW BOOK ON RETENTION AND ACADEMIC CUSTOMER SERVICE THE POWER OF RETENTION: MORE CUSTOMER SERVICE IN HIGHER EDUCATION by clicking here

AcademicMAPS is the leader in increasing student retention, enrollment and revenue through research training and academic customer service solutions for colleges, universities and career colleges in the US, Canada, and Europe as well as businesses that seek to work with them

We increase your success

CALL OR EMAIL TODAY
www.GreatServiceMatters.com

info@GreatServiceMatters.com

413.219.6939

Neal is a pleasure to work with – his depth of knowledge and engaging, approachable style creates a strong connection with attendees. He goes beyond the typical, “show up, talk, and leave” experience that some professional speakers use. He “walks the talk” with his passion for customer service. We exchanged multiple emails prior to the event, with his focus being on meeting our needs, understanding our organization and creating a customized presentation. Neal also attended and actively participated in our evening-before team-building event, forging positive relationships with attendees – truly getting to know them. Personable, knowledgeable, down-to-earth and inspiring…. " Jean Wolfe, Training Manager, Davenport University

“We had hoped we’d improve our retention by 3% but with the help of Dr. Raisman, we increased it by 5%.” Rachel Albert, Provost, University of Maine-Farmington

“Neal led a retreat that initiated customer service and retention as a real focus for us and gave us a clear plan. Then he followed up with presentations and workshops that kicked us all into high gear. We recommend with no reservations; just success.” Susan Mesheau, Executive Director U First: Integrated Recruitment & Retention University of New Brunswick, CA

“Thank you so much for the wonderful workshop at Lincoln Technical Institute. It served to re-center ideas in a great way. I perceived it to be a morale booster, breath of fresh air, and a burst of passion.” Shelly S, Faculty Member, Lincoln Technical Institute

7 Myths and 5 Realities of Retention

Today’s New York Times (12/10/09) has an article on a new and important study on page A 23. It focuses on the Public Agenda publication With Their Whole Lives Ahead of Them. It exposes four myths under which our colleges and society currently work. The myths are

1) Most students go to college full time. If they leave without a degree it’s because they are bored with their classes and don’t want to work hard.

2) Most college students are supported by their parents and take advantage of a multitude of available loans, scholarships and savings plans.

3) Most students go through meticulous process of choosing their college from an array of alternatives.

4) Students who don’t graduate understand fully the value of a college degree and the consequences and trade-offs of leaving school without one.

These are all important myths to be debunked and they do a pretty good job of doing so.

They do miss two important myths that need to be examined as well

Myth 5) Students are young people who attend during the daytime.

Myth 6) There are actually almost always two colleges in one. There is the daytime school which gets the most attention, support and assistance through the staff, faculty and administrators. Then there is school two which is at night and has almost no attention support, or assistance. If the mass of students which can equal or even exceed daytime population is lucky, there is a part-time “evening director” who most often has a tentative attachment to the institution.

The ignorance of colleges and universities toward College Two is a topic for another discussion which will come soon. Just wanted to get it out there since most every stuffy of colleges fail to include College Two and its students.

The Report With Their Whole Lives Ahead of Them looks at retention and some of the reasons students really leave college. It concludes that the top reason students drop out is the need to work and go to school. The money itself was a concern sure but the larger was find a way to balance work, family an external commitments and school demands. It also sees that the myths above are so prevalent in higher education that it is having trouble making a shift to retain more students. These are important issues to which I wish to add some thoughts from our research.

We concur with most all of the above. We add that 84% of drops occur because colleges are focused on the wrong issues for most students. The report says correctly that 75% of today’s students would be termed nontraditional. They don’t live in a dorm,. They don’t attend full-time; have family incomes above $35,000 and do not have families with college experience and/or support. Colleges are focused on the 25% that fit the “traditional student” image. But they are not even focused enough on them to be honest.

Colleges are not focused enough on students and their success. Okay, that is a generalization but one I will support so when you write and say my college is focused on students first, better have proof starting with a retention to graduation rate of 85% or better with at least 50% of the population non-traditional. And you’d better be able to show me the retention to graduation plan and the people who are hired to retain students as their primary and only focus. I’ll let you all slide on full-time versus adjunct/serfs and moist anything else but graduation rate.

The myths in the report have validity but there is another I need to add.

Myth 7: Students come to college to become better educated. NO. They come to get a job. Just like you and I did. They are there to get to graduation so they can get the diploma that certifies them to employers for a job. That’s it. That’s why they will even take required courses that really have no direct benefit nor are made to seem somehow relevant to them and their lives. They take it because they have to if they want to move ahead. They are realists and here are four of their realities for deciding if staying in college is worth it.

THEY WILL STAY AND TAKE COURSES IF:

REALITY 1: they can perceive a real return on their investment

REALITY 2: they can envision the goal of a job from the college experience.

REALITY 3: they believe the school actually gives a damn about them including their situation.

REALITY 4: the school shows that they really do want to retain them in college.

REALITY 5: the college provides an equal output of emotion and concern for them as they do.

If the five realities are not met, students leave as shown by the chart below.

Money is of course important but our study of 1200 students who had left college showed that money and cost to attend isolated from the five realities is a small slice of the attrition pie. In fact, when we audit a college for academic customer service, we find that colleges that do employ the five realities find students at risk for financial reasons and then help them resolves the money issues whenever possible.

The most important thing colleges can do to retain students and to give a damn about keeping them. As we like to say Deal with the realities! You worked hard to get them; now work on keeping them.

As Hillary Pennington said it so well in segment in the NYT article that is at the head of this piece, we need to be aggressive in working to keep our customers. If they leave us, it’s not just dropping a service like leaving a cell phone company, it’s more like dropping a life, a future. And if you or anyone else at the college does not feel like something huge is lost when a student leaves, you’re in the wrong job.

If this made sense to you, consider obtaining a copy of my best selling new book on retention and academic customer service

AcademicMAPS is the leader in increasing student retention, enrollment and revenue through research training and customer service solutions to colleges, universities and career colleges in the US, Canada, and Europe as well as to businesses that seek to work with them

We increase your success

CALL OR EMAIL TODAY
TO INCREASE YOUR SCHOOL'S RETENTION
www.GreatServiceMatters.com
info@GreatServiceMatters.com
413.219.6939

GET A COPY OF MY NEW BOOK THE POWER OF RETENTION: MORE CUSTOMER SERVICE IN HIGHER EDUCATION by clicking here. Conduct your own campus customer service retention seminars. Discounts on multiple copies of The Power of Retention.

“We had hoped we’d improve our retention by 3% but with the help of Dr. Raisman, we increased it by 5%.” Rachel Albert, Provost, University of Maine-Farmington

“Neal led a retreat that initiated customer service and retention as a real focus for us and gave us a clear plan. Then he followed up with presentations and workshops that kicked us all into high gear. We recommend with no reservations; just success.” Susan Mesheau, Executive Director U First: Integrated Recruitment & Retention University of New Brunswick

“Thank you so much for the wonderful workshop at Lincoln Technical Institute. It served to re-center ideas in a great way. I perceived it to be a morale booster, breath of fresh air, and a burst of passion.” Shelly S, Lincoln Technical Institute

Actually Get Closer to Students

After a fantastic dinner on Thanksgiving, I began to ruminate (yes, I used both my bellies). The issue I was working to digest was the desire of students for more meaningful relationships with people at the college. Students want to increase their college experience by adding a dimension that has been lacking on many campuses nowadays. They wish to be more involved with the professors. No, not in that way! In ways like I had opportunity to when I was a charter class (first class in the door) undergrad at UMass-Boston.

The University of Massachusetts in Boston had just opened its doors. It was a brand new adventure in higher education that became an excellent experience. It was great school. So great that after orientation day the week before the start of classes we were told to go home for a week. Classes would start a week late because the building was not finished. (Yes. It’s 15 minutes for a fool professor, 10 minutes for an assoc. professor, 5 for an assistant and a whole week for a building.)

One of the things that made UMass-Boston so great was no one knew any better. It was a new school with some new faculty; some of whom had never taught before. Some had not even been professors or been tainted by the rite de passage called the doctorate. In fact, my first English professor was Dan Wakefield, a wonderful teacher and professional writer but not an academic. He actually got to know us and was concerned that we enjoyed the book a week we read.

He did something really crazy. He invited us over to his apartment to sit and talk about books and writing. Dan did not know that protocol called for him to draw a line between he, an upper caste faculty Brahmin and we casteless students. He could be excused of course since he did not have the academic indoctrination experience. But I also had some other crazed English faculty such as Sean O’Connell who came to my wedding; Marty Finney who with Dan Wakefield called late one Saturday night from MLA to tell me I should be a lawyer and marry a beautiful blonde in my lit class; and Lee Grove of the five hour finals with yellow NECCO wafers glued on the page for a question on images of the sun in American lit who called in a panic asking me to meet him at Harvard Square to find some shoes he could wear at the open house he was holding for students that weekend.

And it was not just the English Department. I have already written in an earlier article and in The Power of Retention about a brilliant and caring math professor Dr. Taffi Tanimoto. If it were not for Dr. Tanimoto I would not have graduated.

All of these teachers reached out to students and connected with them as people who cared and enjoyed connecting with students. And yes, I know they are not alone or this only happened at UMass-Boston and UMass-Amherst where Dr. Robert Creed, the head of Graduate English and I became and remain very close friends.

In fact, during discussions and late night reminiscing at conferences with colleagues and friends, the one issue that will evoke the most positive discussion is the “one person who made college a good experience for you.” This leads inevitably to reminiscences of someone who reached out and made the person feel valued. The faculty member who treated me as a person. The administrator I could go to when things got crazy and I just needed someone to talk to. Or the adult you worked with in the bookstore who invited you to her home for dinner with her family. The stories of human contact outside of the formal roles and positions made school so much better. And for many, the anchor in their experience at the school that kept them there.

So, it is no surprise that when we do a customer service and retention audit at a school, students tell us they would like more out-of-class contact with faculty and others. We strongly agree with them since this is a very important retention and customer service activity that can reap solid positive results. In fact, we suggest that all colleges and universities create ways to bring students, faculty, administrators and staff together in informal and more personal ways.

Bringing Students and Others Together in Ways HR Will be Comfortable

The student request to be able to get together with faculty outside of classes is one that can be easily accomplished perhaps but also one that HR and legal could see as problematic. The problematic aspect can occur, of course, when a faculty member and a student might become involved in an inappropriate relationship. But this can be overcome quite easily by providing opportunities to meet with a faculty member in a group and public space. For example, it could be very possible to set up a program for faculty and students to meet in a back table of the cafeteria or a side room to discuss a topic of interest to both. A literature teacher meeting with students to critically discuss a new book or movie; a science professor talking with interested students on some new scientific discovery that is in the news; an ethics prof discussing the public option in the health care bill or a couple of faculty members leading a discussion on the folklore and reality of vampires, and so on. These could be done informally by a faculty member just getting the word out at the end of class or by making these into a regular brown bag lunch series. It would of course help if the University supplied coffee or food to participants. Food is always a draw for faculty and students.

We further suggest opening these brown bags to being offered by staff and administrators as well. There are many talented and very bright staff for example who have many topics to provide information or how to’s on. The grounds people could be excellent sources of information on growing house plants in your room. There are likely crafts people who would be delighted to be able to teach students and colleagues their craft. And do not rule out intellectual skills that can be used to provide lively discussions between staff and students. By bringing staff and students together through common interests, Monmouth would overcome the barrier that exists when anonymity allows staff to be seen as “just a part of the University”.

Having faculty, staff and students share ideas and work together would increase understanding and empathy between customers and service providers and in so doing improve customer service significantly.

If this made sense to you, consider obtaining a copy of my best selling new book on retention and academic customer service

AcademicMAPS is the leader in increasing student retention, enrollment and revenue through research training and customer service solutions to colleges, universities and career colleges in the US, Canada, and Europe as well as to businesses that seek to work with them

We increase your success

CALL OR EMAIL TODAY
TO INCREASE YOUR SCHOOL'S RETENTION
www.GreatServiceMatters.com
info@GreatServiceMatters.com
413.219.6939

GET A COPY OF MY NEW BOOK THE POWER OF RETENTION: MORE CUSTOMER SERVICE IN HIGHER EDUCATION by clicking here. Conduct your own campus customer service retention seminars. Discounts on multiples copies of The Power of Retention.
“We had hoped we’d improve our retention by 3% but with the help of Dr. Raisman, we increased it by 5%.” Rachel Albert, Provost, University of Maine-Farmington

“Neal led a retreat that initiated customer service and retention as a real focus for us and gave us a clear plan. Then he followed up with presentations and workshops that kicked us all into high gear. We recommend with no reservations; just success.” Susan Mesheau, Executive Director U First: Integrated Recruitment & Retention University of New Brunswick

“Thank you so much for the wonderful workshop at Lincoln Technical Institute. It served to re-center ideas in a great way. I perceived it to be a morale booster, breath of fresh air, and a burst of passion.” Shelly S, Lincoln Technical Institute