1. Please don’t Go: Avoiding
during new student onboarding

2. About the Presenter
Almost 20 years of progressively responsible experience in higher education.
Served in key leadership roles at public, private and proprietary institutions.
Responsible for short and long-range strategic planning:
academic guidance
career services
disability services
enrollment management
financial aid
placement testing
retention services
student activities
veteran’s affairs
Works closely with campus and external partners to ensure students meet the demands of a constantly changing community and workplace. 
What’s worked for me and what’s
Dr. Porter Brannon
Vice President for Student Services
Mitchell Community College

3. 50% of community college applicants drop out b4 the first day of classes.
Why is that?
What Mitchell did to reduce fight or flight

4. Testing & Credit Evaluation
How College Administrators View the Enrollment Process
Application
Financial Aid & FAFSA
Testing & Credit Evaluation
Academic Advising
Registration
Orientation
1st Day of Classes
College administrators and staff often see intake and orientation as a linear path from application to the first day of classes. A series of sub-processes comprise the onboarding process, from application to advising and financial aid, to registration.

5. the Enrollment Process
Student’s View of
the Enrollment Process

6. Stress-Inducing Scenarios
New applicant receives conflicting information about college onboarding steps.
Multiple visits required to complete one task.
Completing the FAFSA.
Selecting a major

7. The end result 50% of new applicants never attend.
Most college administrators are aware of what’s happening.
We have made sense of our processes.
We get frustrated that our student have not.
We tend to blame student for their behavior, instead of modifying our processes around their behavior.
Why should we change what we do to accommodate perceived bad behaviors? Because we need them.

8. How did we reduce fight & flight at Mitchell?
Staff Paradigm Shifts using Behavioral Economics
Monitoring enrollment processes
Setting Goals. Communicated Goals. Achieving Goals
Repurposing Staff
Change the way we communicate with students.
Stats on Mitchell
3,000 students (900 are dually enrolled)
67% of our students are PT
57% receive Fin Aid
Student Services 25 FT staff 10 PT

9. Too often students are required to helplessly navigate complex and ill-defined requirements, and make significant academic decisions without fully understanding their impact. Behavioral economics theory asserts that individuals do not do a good job of making decisions when faced with such large sets of complex and ill-defined choices.

10. Paradigm Shifts: Traditional Economic Theory
The rational person is assumed to correctly weigh costs and benefits and calculate the best choices for himself.
The rational person is expected to know his preferences (both present and future), and never flip- flops between two contradictory desires.
He has perfect self-control and can restrain impulses that may prevent him from achieving his long-term goals.

11. Behavioral Economics Reality
In contrast, behavioral economics shows that actual human beings do not act that way.
People have limited cognitive abilities and a great deal of trouble exercising self-control.
People often make choices that bear a mixed relationship to their own preference (happiness).
They tend to choose the option that has the greatest immediate appeal at the cost of long-term happiness.
We choose a goal and then frequently act against it, because self-control problem fails us to implement our goals.

12. Community College Processes Don’t Help
The traditional community college employs a self-service model of student support, where applicants find their own way through decisions, processes, policies, and procedures.
Community college students are forced to make a wide range of complex decisions during their onboarding process.
Students do not do a good job of making decisions when faced with complex and ill-defined.
Unexplained processes, poor communication from the college, seemingly unnecessary tasks to complete, and directions wrapped in unfamiliar jargon trigger “fight or flight” new student responses.

13. Monitoring the Enrollment Process
Fragmented with no one person responsible or accountable for enrollment and recruitment.
No recruitment plans.
No one monitoring enrollment funnel.
No one monitoring enrollment trends.
No one setting enrollment targets.

14. Set Goals. Communicate Goals. Achieve Goals.

15. Repurpose Staff
Reorganize in-house talent with the necessary skills, attitude and desire to improve our processes.
Removal of staff who’s skills did not match the new needs of the Division.
My assistant. Testing Coordinator. Senior Advisor

16. Change how we Communicate with Students
Personal phone calls
Text messages s
Postcards
On-time Reminders

17. End Results
Grant money from the endowment

18. Questions & Discussion