Lisa,
The most rewarding event at a career school/college is to witness the professional growth in a student. When a student walks across the stage you can honestly say I helped that person achieve their goal.
Cindy Bryant
Helping someone change their lives for the better is a wonderful feeling. Helping a potential student with all the information they need to make an informed decision is the best help you can provide. Thanking them for referring a person so we may help them take an important step will help them realize the value of what they are doing for the person. If they are recommending the school, you have done your job. That's a great feeling! This is worth more than a plaque or a t-shirt.
Overall support and assistance to the student in order to achieve their goals and make the transition a little smoother is probably one of the highest compensation a student can be provided with..
Chris,
I agree, students overall compensation is achieving their goal. The federal regulations prohibit compensation to employees directly or indirectly related to student enrollments. By comparing the approved and unapproved methods explain which methods are most effective.
Cindy Bryant
Seeing a student graduate in their program of interest provides the greatest satisfaction.
To deal with the prohibition of direct compensation base on student enrollments. You must first analize the way an institution measure performance. If an annual # of student enrollments is included the budget, pressure to reach the quoto must be manage.
The total prohibition to linkage of compensation to metrics relating to student enrollments is the most effective. The least effective the myriad of rules relating to proper and improper gifts or token prizes for good performance.
Student success is at the heart of our business. It is a geat feeling to help the student's dream come true.
I see fulfilling the enrollment quota as maximizing the student experience for learning from /through others and maximizing the dynamic teaching/learning environment for the instructor. A small class has benefits, but since our class size in already small, a full class, I believe, has much more benefit all around. The intrinsic value of a full class vastly outweighs direct compensation.
Joy,
The students are the foundation of education, placing them first can only net positive results. Changing lives is the most important thing anyone can do.
Cindy Bryant
To my mind, what makes the difference for an effective enrollment is basically the ability to advice potential candidates and guide them to the most appropriate program to their particular needs.
If you try to boost course attendance by luring candidates not meeting the real standards of a program (even if they meet with the admission requirements), you are only depreciating the value of the program. For our courses, which are all taught online, student interaction is a key element in the value added by the program. Therefore, a well managed admission process directly reflects in the quality of our courses.
The approved methods would be most effective because they require schools to act with integrity when enrolling students. Sometimes students sucuumb to various pressures when trying to decide on whether to enroll into a program. Just like the underlying point of this course, the best practice for schools is transparency especially during this time of regulatory changes. If schools act with integrity and transparency, they will create a long term competitive advantage.
Susan,
Thanks for your response. Sticking to the approved methods is definitely the best practice. It helps schools avoid any suspicion from the students, media or general public.
Cindy Bryant
Unfortunately, perhaps because of life circumstances, some reps might find the unapproved compensation to be of more value: for instance, if a school were to reward its most successful reps by awarding more vacation time, this could be a very valuable (but still illegal) inducement. And this needs to be realized. But in general, good reps sincerely believe in the value of the product and are knowledgeable about it - a quality education in a rewarding field is a wonderful opportunity - and very satisfying to the rep to be able to connect a potential student with a promising future.
Many posts have mentioned plaques and recognition of hard-working reps. And this can be very satisfying for dedicated employees. However, upper management would be wise not to negate the value of this "approved" inducement by, shortly thereafter, continuing to apply more pressure to attain goals.
This is so satisfying when it happens! Although I'm just the bursar, I do have an opportunity to help students by listening, and sometimes even by helping with study tips, and it's a wonderful feeling when they say it has really helped them. That's the best part of my job, in fact.
Nyssa,
The key may be to find the right admissions reps. The face of admissions has transformed in the past few years. It has become more of a counseling position as opposed to a enrollment process. Dedication to student success is the greatest asset an admissions representative can possess.
Cindy Bryant
This is very true - the successful Admissions rep is one who counsels prospective students and focuses on their success.
By the way, once again our local newspaper, which seems quite unfriendly to career schools, is portraying admissions reps at private, for-profit schools as being predatory. The article only pertained to institutions offering Title IV aid, which are prohibited from using misleading, hard-sell tactics. There's a big disconnect between the picture painted in the article, and the focus of those of us participating in this forum.
Obviously, we don't want to provide either monetary or gift-related compensation for enrollments because that can encourage unethical practices in obtaining such enrollemnts. The only and best way to compensate for acheivements in enrollments is to provide a recognition for good work through a plaque or a ranking on a leaderboard. This inspires others to receive recognition for their good work in helping people make improvements in their lives with an education and a new career.
Your response to Nyssa below speaks to the heart of the matter Cindy, because the regulations have changed so much we strive to hire people from outside our own industry but from other direct service environments. In past times, when "features and benefits" was the sales training focus we could use people who were good presenters and closers. Today as we strive to present our value proposition our focus is on helping prospects make a "decision to buy" and that involves less selling and more information sharing. From this we are finding that daily encouragement, prompt recognition for effective calls or interviews and positive accolades work wonders.
The approved methods of compensation are best. A school risks tarnishing its reputation and the integrity of its programs by utilizing unapproved methods. The admissions reps, faculty, staff and students could all be negatively impacted.
