If you will pardon my French, community colleges (CCs) do a crappy job of promoting their electronic programs. In fact, I should say that community colleges in general do not even promote their electronics programs. Is it any wonder that enrollments are down? I bet most of the potential students in your area don't have a clue that your program exists and what it can do for them.
If you have proprietary college teaching electronics in your area, you may be wondering why they are getting more students than your college even though yours costs much less. While these schools are no doubt also suffering from the declining enrollment problem, they are probably doing far better than the public CCs. Why? Simply because they promote, advertise, and sell. I know the mind set at most colleges is that we are an academic institution and we do not sell. (The "if we build it theywill come" attitude.) In today's competitive day and age this is a seriously bad attitude. It is particularly detrimental to electronics departments who are in decline and in some cases fighting for their lives. I have even heard one CC marketing person say that they do not support programs that are in decline. Duh...?
Let me give you a few good examples of how promotion or the lack thereof can help or hurt.
Several years back when I helped start the Semiconductor Manufacturing Technology (SMT) program for a local college, we initially had problems getting students. It wasn't hard for us to figure out that the prospects for this program didn't have a clue about what a SMT tech did. What was the job, duties, pay, potential, etc? In fact, what is the semiconductor industry? Luckily, the local semiconductor companies were hurting for employees so they chipped in an helped the college with promotion. We did ads, bill boards, direct mail, and extensive PR. The public orientation meetings were a big help. But the one thing that did the best job was the newspaper articles, TV news spots and other PR. Wow... Enrollments went from the initial 54 to almost 500 in just over a year of promotion. The point here is that you have to educate your prospect.
Today, I don't think most prospects know what an electronic technician is or does. It is pretty vague. PC and networking tech positions are more focused and easier to understand. What do you tell someone if they ask what an electronic tech does? As you know, the answer is very broad and complex. Again, no wonder the prospects go to other programs where the jobs and future is clearer. Promotion can help educate the prospect and ultimately them into your program. Promotion is an educational process. If we are such good educators as we believe, why is this a problem?
Another example comes from a colleague of mine who shall remain nameless here. He is the department head of a CC electronics department. He recently did a personal survey of the local electronic programs at proprietary schools. Believe it or not, there are five (I am not making this up.) of them here locally. CCs with their usual holier than thou attitude think they have no peer. Wake up people, you have major competition and it is not just in electronics. Anyway, this Dept Head went to each school and got the pitch, looked at the facilities and program. He was very surprised at how good they actually are. He was treated well and given personal attention. He also went to his own college in cognito and was not treated nearly as well. The counselor was not familiar with electornics and told him to take the entrance exams and come back. There was no individual treatment or facilities tour.
I can say that my own experience has been similar. My daughter who wants to be a chef recently went to this CC and asked for information on its culinary program. She was also turned away by a counselor who was not up to speed on the program. No tour or info. Just go take the entrance exams. That same day she also visited one of the Le Cordon Blu accredited proprietary college here locally. She was welcomed with open arms and given a complete tour of the kitchens and classrooms. When I went to check it out, I too was welcomed and treated with respect and interest. I went by the CC just to satisfy my own curiosity and found ablsolutely no one to talk to. Guess which school my daughter chose? The cost of her proprietary education is about 5 times what the CC charges but I am satisfied that she will get a good education.
I don't have any great suggestions as to how to solve this promotonal dilemna but I know it is a key part of the declining enrollment crisis. CC marketing departments have limited budgets and dozens of departments competing for promotional dollars, limited as they usually are. And their attitude leaves much to be desired. My best advice is to offer them something new. Change or update your curriculum, add a new major specialty, and get some local industry support. Then you will have something new, better and interesting to sell. Your chances of getting promotional dollars will go up many times. If you keep doing the same old thing, you are going to get the same old result. So the solution is change.
1 comment:
Lou,
I agree with your fundamental statement that the CC ET programs are some of the best kept secrets in the country. Promotion is one key to growing enrollment again, but that promotion has to have an industry-based focus. Here's what I mean.
For years, we have faced competitions with private sector schools also teaching ET. The names are well known because of their media presents. And, at one time they promoted ET with vigor. Then it was PC hardware and then it was networking. All the schools now have dropped electronics from their titles--they are technology schools.
Right now, in late July and early August, the private sector technology schools in the SF Bay Area are busy recruiting students. They have bought time on the independent TV stations and between 10 AM and 2 PM and again between 10 PM and 2 AM run their ads. Between each show during those time slots, they run slick commercially produced ads. This year, the focus is on "taking your interest in PC gaming and turning into a high paying career"--game programming, game troubleshooting, game graphics, and game testing are the careers being highlighted--not Electronics Technology. Video animation and computer based special effects programming and testing are also being highlighted--not Electronics Technology. Why? Lucas (of Star Wars fame) has just open a huge digital animation facility in SF (in a national park, I might add), Pixar is busy as hell in the East Bay, and the greater Bay Area is HQ for at least four major companies in the video game industry. Plus, the mayors of four cities around SF have pledged to make their towns industry friendly to the video game industry and they want this area to be known as Hollywood North for digital animation and special effects. Notice, no mention of bias circuits and K-maps.
Now, we could change some of the indusgtry cluster names to electronics companies or biotech companies and the list would be very impressive. What would be missing is the fact the the digital animation, computer special effects, and gaming industries (and their companies) have been all over the front page and the business page and the technology page of our two major newspapers--for months. Plus, the local TV news shows have weekly stories about these industry clusters. These industries are HOT, just like ET was during the cold war and telecomm/networking was during the .com era.
And so, the marketing people at the private sector schools saw this coming (and all the free media exposure), formed a program, and started an ad blitz.
If a CC saw a trend coming and got the curriculum in place, everything would be in place except for the media blitz--the paid ads between 10 and 2 morning and night (for weeks). There is no money for this kind of program promotion at a public funded CC. Unless the industry wants to write a check--which is what happened in the example you sited.
Basically, if industry says there are job, enrollment will following. Conversely, if industry says there are no jobs or is silent, enrollment will flow elsewhere.
The private schools also do one more thing right. They know how to enroll students. I walked into a private ET school here in the Bay Area and in two hours was given a tour, saw a video, met staff and students, had help filling out the application (I played real dumb), and was being pressured to sign the financial aide forms and leave a deposit for first quarter enrollment. Had I signed the paperwork, I would have left with enrollment varification and my books.
Plus, they showed me their placement center. Jobs covered the wall. They had two full time job developers who did nothing but visit companies and get job openings. They offered lifetime placement help as well--nice service for an industry known for its roller coaster employment patterns.
At the local CC, an ET candidate gets the transfer speach, faces the placement test, and gets programmed into english, math, ethnic studies, health science, intro to computers, and PE. Got to do your general ed first, don't you know!!!!!!!
Let's not even talk about CC placement services--they are nonexistent.
It would serve us all well to look seriously at the business model that the private sector schools have implemented. To be able to charge $15K/quarter they must be doing something right--maybe a lot of things right, cause their classes are full, though not necessarily their ET classes.
Without a check from industry and a concerted effort by industry to push local employment, program publicity and exposure is difficult at best. If you change a name or add a new option, the college PR deparment may get you a couple of days of media exposure--usually way off on the back page.
However, if XYZ Technology is opening a new plant or expanding on old one and gets front page coverage for a couple of weeks and their PR department is following orders to push local educational opportunites to become a trained worker and the college PR department has a side-bar detailing programs the prepare for employment at XYZ with Web sites and personal contacts listed, we might be able to turn this around.
For this to work, the CC has to get its intake process in order (like getting a counselor or advisor assigned just to technology programs), their curriculum has to reflect XYZs technology focus (if XYZ is doing PLDs and the CC program is focused on analog electronics, give up), and a placement system has to be operational. With lots of work, the CC can clean up their act. But, industry has to be an active, not a passive, player.
Post a Comment