You may have been busy last night when the PBS Frontline documentary – College, Inc – aired. You can watch the entire 1-hour show online (in the United States) and watch additional extended versions of some of the interviews.

Personally, we were shocked to learn that while the For-profit market has 10% of the student population in the US, it is taking up 25% of FAFSA dollars. It remains frustrating to see students leaving an overpriced program with more debt than they will ever be able to pay back.

This interactive map by the Chronicle of Higher Education shows the increases in enrollment from 1998 -2008 – which are nothing short of amazing feats of sales and marketing.

While you can watch the documentary as its intended – with disdain for the for-profit universities highlighted in it, I suggest also thinking about the marketing tactics used by these universities. Look at what they’re doing. Online, offline, on the subway, in the magazines, and most of all – in their personal calls. Sure, they’re basically doing what amounts to a high pressure sales tactic used in time-share seminars all over Florida, but that personal connection…maybe that’s what you should think about.

So basically what I’m saying is, take what they’re doing, dial it down a few notches, and use it for good. Diversity. Outreach. Engagement. Make it more than just buzzwords on an ad campaign.

Finally! We’ve secured our facebook URL, took a little longer than it should have… but that was our fault for not pushing it a little more in our marketing efforts. We’ve concentrated on getting the Al Jamiat facebook fan page going, and we’re happy to be reaching almost 500 fans within just 5 weeks of having it up.

Are we friends yet?

http://www.facebook.com/usegtours

http://www.facebook.com/aljamiat

I hope you’re keeping tabs on the fun stuff going on at Al Jamiat, our student traffic continues to grow as our content increases. Let me know if you have any articles or students who would be interested in sending something in!

Our student site, www.al-jamiat.com launched a new series of posts today reviewing different colleges and campuses beginning with Otterbein College in Westerville, Ohio. If you would like your college to be featured on our student site, send us an email!

Visit the Al Jamiat Magazine site to read about the student view of Otterbein College.

An excellent article in Inside Higher Ed today highlights a topic we at USEG discuss with our clients often: the use of a consortia to attract international students to a State they may not already know about.  Read the full article here: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/06/22/consortia

States spend money on attracting tourists by advertising in magazines, billboards, and TV – its time for colleges and universities to grab on to this style of marketing and pull students in to the state. At the Washington International Education Council (WIEC) conference in Washington DC this past January, a representative from the US Commerce Service discussed the importance of international education consortia.  They gave examples of states who have already put this idea into practice including Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Oregon.

In budget crunch-time pooling together resources is not just smart, its necessary. By collecting advertising dollars from private high schools to small niche colleges all the way to specific graduate programs, everyone can benefit from a high impact ad campaign aimed at international students.  Many countries, such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK are competing aggressively by the use of consortia to attend more trade shows, advertise in more magazines and attempt to attract more of the foreign students.

We encourage you to call your US Commerce service representative to discuss the support they can give you, or contact us for assistance on your project!