Maintain connections with your students long after graduation.
Traditionally, Student Lifetime Value (SLV) is defined according to how much a student will contribute financially during their schooling. The longer a student stays at an institution, the higher the SLV—i.e., students who continue post-graduate education have a higher SLV than those who stop at the undergraduate level.
The disruptions to the educational sector post-pandemic as well as continuing advancements in technology, however, have shaken up the old SLV model.
Now, there are new opportunities for maintaining and cultivating student relationships that expand the very idea of SLV from three to nine years at the most to decades.
In order to grow SLV at your university, you need to invest in your own digital transformation initiatives. This means not only online learning and digital channels but also investments in platforms for re-engaging alumni to provide continued professional development opportunities and maintain connections.
In this blog, we’ll cover:
How shifts in workforce trends affect universities
The importance of self-service digital learning opportunities
How to maintain student and alumni relationships
A digital transformation success story
The Changing Nature of the Workforce
The average yearly turnover rate across industries is about 20%. Gone are the days when employees would regularly stay at the same job for thirty or forty years.
What does this mean for your institution?
Job turbulence gives you a chance to help students with learning opportunities at multiple points throughout their career, including when they pivot into a market that requires new skills.
Right now, the status quo for the majority of students is that your relationship with them—and consequently, as noted, their SLV—ends in three or four years, after graduation. But in a world where these graduates need more support, you could find a host of ways to engage them with educational opportunities every five to ten years.
The advantages are obvious: increased revenue, increased student satisfaction and loyalty, and stronger and better relationships that encourage students to become donors down the line.
As you navigate issues like decreased funding and burdened faculty, this radical change may sound like just a nice-to-have, nothing more than an ivory tower in the sky.
But making this change is possible with investments in digital transformation.
The Increasing Importance of Digital Learning Opportunities
In parallel to the shift in how people think about their careers, technological advancements have made it easier than ever for students to study what they want, where they want, in the format that they want.
Until the last few years, however, universities have been slow to harness the potential of this market. Non-traditional providers, such as exclusively online e-learning platforms, have taken the spotlight.
The good news is that the benefits these platforms provide like flexibility and online learning can be replicated easily. In fact, universities have an advantage over these platforms, with an already-established brand and credibility as well as access to an existing audience in their alumni base. If you can get the course structure and delivery right, the brand value of a certification you issue is more compelling for students than one from a non-traditional platform.
Here are a few suggestions for building your digital course library:
Prioritize self-service courses. Developing self-directed learning courses aligns with many students' preferences and expectations and saves your faculty from the logistical challenges of teaching live.
Use existing course materials to start. From courses in programming languages or advanced data analysis and statistics to certifications in a specific period of literature—even to career advice your student center might usually offer for in-person sessions—begin with more bite-sized versions of the wealth of knowledge you have to help students build their résumés or grow in existing job roles.
Choose the right technology platform. When you’re looking for a learning management system, consider the bigger picture. A Digital Experience Platform (DXP) can integrate your LMS and existing systems together into one unified interface so new students and returning students get a seamless experience.
Read more about how to build better online university experiences with Liferay DXP here.
Maintaining Student Relationships for Life
Once you’ve established your digital course library, how do you reconnect with your alumni so they can discover the learning opportunities you have available?
To start, make sure you’re engaging your alumni in other ways, taking a holistic view of the relationship that goes beyond hosting events and examines where you can provide deep value.
Consider, for example, investing in an alumni portal that offers:
A central location for all alumni communication and updates
Connects past and present students for mentorship opportunities and continued community engagement
Job postings by alumni-led companies
With a digital solution like a DXP, as we just mentioned, your alumni portal can also integrate with your LMS and existing systems, making it easier for your alumni to find courses you offer.
The Path to Higher SLV
When you embrace the changes that have happened in recent years to usher in more emphatically a digital-first era, you can actually take advantage of the inherent opportunities and increase your Student Lifetime Value, as much as ten times.
Ultimately, this means you’ll be more effective at achieving your broader goal of educating future generations, not only when students’ careers are beginning, but at multiple points throughout their lives.
This is true digital transformation for the educational sector.
Success Story: Thinking Beyond Your Current Use Case
The University of Maine System gives 40,000 users easy access to important resources by using Liferay DXP to power their portal for students, faculty, staff, and alumni across seven universities and the University of Maine School of Law.
Anyone with an active account can use the MyCampus portal to find the right internal and external resources. In reaching so many diverse audiences with one solution, the portal has saved the University of Maine System time and maintenance costs.