In The Enrollment Brief’s debut episode, Jarrett Smith, Scott Rhodes, and Jeff Kallay dive into a thought-provoking report from Advent that suggests a fundamental shift in the student psyche. While colleges have traditionally marketed the “residential experience,” today’s incoming freshmen are increasingly transactional, viewing their degree as a high-stakes career investment.
The team discusses how to bridge the gap between what students say they want (ROI and job security) and the “hidden” value of the campus experience that they only realize once they arrive.
The Central Tension: Outcomes vs. Experience
A major theme of this episode is the disconnect between what students prioritize in their search versus what they want when they arrive on campus:
- The Transactional Mindset: Survey data shows a decline in the importance of off-campus activities and social life in favor of cost, value, and safety.
- The “Invisible” Value of Place: While students claim social life matters less, the team argues that if a vibrant student life were missing, students would immediately feel the lack of it.
- The Visit Paradox: Even though one in five students enrolls without visiting, the campus visit remains the place where “place-based” education is actually sold.
- The Soft Skill Gap: A purely transactional approach to college risks graduating students who lack the essential soft skills like leadership and collaboration that are traditionally built through non-academic campus involvement.
Key Takeaways
- The New “Big Three” Majors: Student interest is heavily concentrated in Business, Healthcare, and Psychology, which may be seen as more reliable career paths and “AI-proof”.
- Outcome-Driven Messaging: To reach modern families, colleges must stop leading with social exploration and start leading with meaningful outcomes like placement rates and starting salaries.
- The MBA Blueprint: Undergraduate program pages should adopt the high-detail career profiles used by MBA programs to reduce a family’s sense of financial risk.
Episode Highlights
- [00:58] The Advent Report: Why the latest college choice study has Echo Delta’s “campus visit guy” feeling uneasy.
- [03:26] Messaging Mismatch: Why some colleges are still selling fun and belonging while students are buying a career investment.
- [08:48] Stealing from the MBA Playbook: How high-quality program pages act as essential risk-reduction tools.
- [12:33] Data vs. Real Stories: Why general labor market data isn’t enough—students want to know where your graduates go.
- [15:46] The Transactional Generation: Exploring the mindset of students who grew up during the pandemic.
- [18:34] Admissions as Career Counseling: Rethinking the recruiter’s role from “hostess” to “consultative guide”.
- [23:32] Parting Advice: Final thoughts on the “Alpha” generation and the urgent need for a website messaging overhaul.
Resources Mentioned in This Episode
- The Advent Report: The college choice study that sparked today’s conversation.
- Designing for Decisions Report: Echo Delta’s research on how students use information to choose a college.
- Bentley University Program Pages: A gold-standard example of showcasing class profiles and career outcomes.
Transcript
Jarrett Smith (00:00):
Welcome to the Enrollment Brief, a new show from Echo Delta. I’m Jarrett Smith, SVP of Strategy, and one of the hosts for the show. Each episode, I’ll be joined by a couple of my favorite Echo Delta colleagues, Jeff Kallay, our resident campus visit expert, and Scott Rhodes, who heads up our enrollment consulting practice. We started this show because some of our very best thinking happens in the car ride back to the airport after we leave a client campus. That’s when the pressure’s off. The conversation gets really honest and you can start to think about what you just saw. This show is our way of inviting you into that car. For just 15 or 20 minutes, you get to step back, see the patterns, and think about where to go next. So if that sounds like your sort of thing, jump in, buckle up. We’re super glad you’re here.
(00:53):
Well, welcome to the enrollment brief. Jeff, what do we got on tab today?
Jeff Kallay (00:58):
Well, briefly, we’re going to talk enrollment, but specifically, we are going to talk about research that came out by our friends at Advent. And Advent is a designer of experiences and they have been helping colleges and universities and athletics and welcome centers and some other things. And they did a survey of almost 500 US incoming freshmen. And as the campus visit guy that’s out there selling place-based education, I was not happy with the college choice study gentlemen. So here’s what they saw. I think this is really interesting because really what we’re talking about here is how students want outcomes. They want to know internships. They want to know how much money people are getting and where those jobs are. And so the report basically says that, this is interesting because I think this goes along with the vibe article about the degrees that students are seeking, business and economics, big time.
(02:05):
Healthcare, really significant. And then there’s that psychology and counseling. And maybe that’s because everyone’s stressed and we’re in a forthturning crisis. I don’t know. But what I found interesting guys is the report said that fewer than 4% remain undeclared. Yet when I asked … Thank you, Scott. Yet when I asked tour guides, did you change your major? 50% of them do. So I think first off, I find let’s talk about these majors, right? Because this, again, repeats a lot. Business and economics related. Healthcare within aging America. But then you’ve got that psychology and counseling. I have found economics, pop culture have always influenced choices. When I started campus visit consultant when Scott Rhodes hired me when he was at Concordia, everyone wanted to major in forensics. Thank you, CSI. And then I think when the economy tank, parents are like, “Major in engineering, major in engineering.” I mean, Scott, you’ve been at school.
(03:15):
So I think I got a two-part question. Do you feel majors change like this and why are we seeing business, healthcare and counseling?
Scott Rhodes (03:26):
I do think it’s changed. I do think students are seeing this as a career investment and I do see colleges not changing their messaging. They’re still communicating that same message about student life and come here, have fun. And the students have made a shift. They see this as an investment, just like buying a house, buying a car. So I do think we are selling the wrong thing and we need to look at our messaging. We need to look at those viewbooks and those email messages and those text messages and rethink everything and how we message things. I don’t know what you think, Jarrett, but that’s my thought.
Jarrett Smith (04:04):
Yeah. So going back to the choice of major, I mean, I think partly there’s a little bit of maybe a demand or selection bias where it’s like we find a lot of jobs are sort of oriented towards business or healthcare. Obviously, I think in 2026, healthcare has been one of the only parts of our economy that’s actually been growing outside of AI. And so there’s sort of a feeling of like, okay, these are good reliable practical majors where you can get hired. I think what’s interesting is in the Advent report, they’re pretty broad. Business and economics, that’s a big umbrella. And the actual career and employment rates postgraduation vary widely. So if you’re just talking like I’m going for business administration, the rate of underemployment for that bachelor’s degree is pretty high. It’s one of the higher ones. It’s not as high as performing arts, but it’s kind of up there.
(05:10):
If you’re talking nursing or accounting or something like that, then obviously it’s lower. So I do wonder, I don’t know that traditional undergrads are going to the New York Fed website and looking up employment and underemployment rates by major, or if it’s a little bit more of vibes, well, businesses pay you, I should major in business. I don’t think it’s quite that simplistic, but-
Jeff Kallay (05:39):
I think they’re taking counsel from people to older people who are saying major in business.
Jarrett Smith (05:44):
Plastics.
Jeff Kallay (05:44):
And then I have to wonder, business, economics, healthcare, psychology and counseling, is that something that AI can’t disrupt? Or I find college students are really stressed about AI. And I’m glad I’m not one with AI and I’m near the end of my career. Dude,
Jarrett Smith (06:01):
I’ve got a 16-year-old right now and we’re having extensive college conversations and career conversations right now. And as a parent, it’s so challenging to advise him on what should you do because nobody knows where that’s going to shake out exactly and what jobs are going to be favored. So yeah, it’s a tricky one. I will say, Jeff, one, this whole notion of students really zeroing in on outcomes and value and what Scott’s talking about, this career orientation, this is perfectly in line with every brand perception study we’ve done for the last few years with clients, students are really looking at what is that overall value, the cost versus what I receive and outcomes. And when we did our designing for decisions report last year, same thing, very much in line.
Jeff Kallay (06:53):
And that’s where I think this circles back around where Scott was at too, right? In the second part of this report, the college, choice college determinants, fun word, determinants. I got to use that more. Off-campus activities, extracurricular opportunities and quality of social life has had a decline according to this. And as someone who’s committed to selling place-based residential education on campus tours, I want to juxtapose this, but major interest, degrees, cost of attendance, value, which I think gets to outcomes. But I think value is not just price. Value is what you’re going to end up in student debt and in many ways private is a better value in many ways too. But then it comes down to is campus safe and secure and campus cleanliness. So when I read this, I fired it off to Scott and I said, “Maybe I’m a dinosaur here.” But as I thought about this in the enrollment funnel, I think that this comes back to the point, colleges are not marketing properly in the higher part of the funnel, yet when students find what they want and are visiting their campus, they do want housing, they do want food, they do want wellness.
(08:05):
And then I think parents in that want the support. So I wasn’t ready to toss the campus visit out with this report, and I think they work together that on your marketing, your website, you better do a better job with outcomes, right? Because R&L had a, back in 2016, they had report that said outcomes matter more than cost, that you could be 80,000 a year, but if you’re declaring outcomes and showing placement rates and all that, families will pay that if they see the value. So Scott, coming back to you, your Visit More College website, probably you two, I think colleges are missing this mark of-
Scott Rhodes (08:48):
Well, it’s funny you actually asked that because right before we got on here, Jarrett and I was going back and forth in Slack and I said to him, “Do we need to reprogram our program pages like MBA program pages?” I mean, you think about it, MBA has been doing this for over a decade. They know how to sell their programs and they talk about outcomes. They have students talking about outcomes. They talk about their salaries, the starting salaries, placement rates, all these things that students are looking for today. And there’s some really great examples out there. You just go out and you look at MBA programs across the country. University of Michigan has an awesome one that I like. I know Jarrett has some favorites, but if you look at that, is this what they’re talking about? Is this career first strategy that we need to be thinking about?
Jarrett Smith (09:39):
I definitely think there’s something to it for a couple of reasons. One, I think obviously we’re in a category-wide crisis of confidence and it’s being exacerbated by all sorts of external factors that really have … I mean, some of it’s higher ed’s fault, but a lot of it is these external factors that have nothing to do with higher ed and are just creating a lot of uncertainty and fear for the future. So Jeff, kind of double clicking on student debt for a minute. So when we survey students, we find they want to know how much debt am I going to leave with? That’s all about managing risk and uncertainty. And I think when we did our designing for decisions report, we found that students outside of understanding cost and debt, they want to know yes about placement rates, but they also want to hear directly from students.
(10:36):
They said student satisfaction was a super high priority for them, which I think is kind of answering that question like, “Would you do this all over again?” That’s about risk reduction and reassurance on their part and hearing about career paths from graduates and alumni, that’s all the sort of thing that they want to see. So yeah, I think this is all sort of tied in there and having stronger program pages, I think it’s going to be essential. I think also as we look at AI search and how AI is pulling forward a lot of information from your website, you have to seed it with high quality information for it to pull in to those sort of summarized results. So ideally you have that kind of data by major, to be honest, not like overall institution-wide placement rates, but by major, which is very hard to do.
(11:34):
Some schools do it. One of my favorites is Bentley University. If you go to their program pages, they have these career profiles of graduating classes and it’s super detailed. Job titles, employers, the percentage of students that were recruited from some sort of on- campus event versus an internship to hire situation. I mean, it’s really sort of detailed, but I think that’s like not everybody can pull that off. Most don’t, but kudos to them.
Jeff Kallay (12:06):
Sorry, Scott, you were saying?
Scott Rhodes (12:08):
Yeah, I was just going to say, if you look at career services tools that are out there, a lot of colleges use today, they have all this information for current students. I’m wondering, should that be coming earlier? Should that be on the program pages? Because I know they have these different widgets that they can put on your pages and your career services pages where students can actually go out there and research. Maybe that needs to be on the program page.
Jarrett Smith (12:33):
Yeah. You’re talking like lightcast data and that sort of thing? Yeah, exactly.
Scott Rhodes (12:37):
That’s what I was-
Jarrett Smith (12:38):
Yeah, but in our research last year, what we found was that that data is helpful. It is not primarily what students are looking for. We did see that non-traditional adult learners seem to be a little more in tune with broader labor market trends and that sort of thing and seeing that data. What our traditional undergrads want is, I actually want to know program-specific outcomes if possible. So when I see an accountant makes $80,000 a year, it’s like, okay, that’s account. They realize that’s accountants in general or accountants in North Carolina, but I want to know what are students who graduate from the accounting major here, where do they end up? And so that question’s hard to answer. Well, you can’t answer that question through
Jeff Kallay (13:30):
That. When I look at this in the three emerging trends in the report, the classic college experience narrative not only fits one in eighth students, I was like, “You got to be kidding me. ” But that could also just be there are 4,200 schools of all types, and I tend to be more on the heavily residential ones of those that still want that. Pandemic aerospikes and hybrid learning, DEI mental health, but cleanliness to campus matters to these people. And then 19% are attending a school not visiting. I think that’s always kind of been the norm. But here’s my takeaway in all this. I think this is so tail end Gen Z. These were high school seniors that would have been, where were they when the pandemic hit? Junior high, right? I think that Gen Z approaches things very transactionally and the adaptive generation that they are, how much does it cost?
(14:30):
What do I get for it? How much am I going to make? It was so interesting when I spoke at the Disney leadership conference about American generations and the number of exer managers that came up to me was like, I’ve flat out had Gen Z say, why should I work at a particular level or you don’t pay me enough to smile or I had a good report, I did a good presentation, so now I should be a vice president. So I’m going to take all this to say this report is based upon 517 year olds whose brains are still being developed. So I think there’s a lot in this data, but I still think that there’s more to the college search that is beyond this cut and dry outcomes still matter, outcomes matter. But I also felt as I read this, this is going to shift when alphas, yes, you want to heal and fix, so they still want medicine, but they’re going to want to care about the experience more because they’re a completely different generation with their millennial parents and their boomer grandparents coming to campus tours.
(15:43):
So I think this data is going to shift.
Jarrett Smith (15:46):
Jeff, I think you bring up a really interesting point around the transactional nature of the current generation. I mean, that’s super interesting, but I do think it’s like these things they’re saying are less important. I think if they went onto a campus where those things were not present, where a good student life situation was not present, they would feel the lack of that or they talked to alumni or recent grads or whatever, current students and they’re like, “Yeah, it’s boring here on the weekends.” It’s like-
Jeff Kallay (16:20):
Scott’s point, marketing is not providing what they want upfront in viewbooks, in messaging, in websites and they’re having to hunt for it. But when they go on tours, they do want res halls and food and student life and school spirit.
Scott Rhodes (16:38):
Well, Jeff, you know, and you preached this and I always hired you to come to campus and have a great experience and we had great success together. How do you think colleges should recruit to students who are not visiting? I mean, one in five are enrolling and not visiting. We know that that’s so important and when you walk on campus, you’re like, “Hey, this is a place I want to be. I feel it. ” They’re not getting that.
Jeff Kallay (17:06):
No. And I think because as someone, the way you all review websites, I review the campus visit stuff, right? It’s boring. It all says the same thing and still says the same thing. The way to figure it out is come visit. They know that. That’s why they’ve clicked visit. “You can do this, this and this. Talk to a faculty member, “which has nothing to do with what they want. But Scott, I would answer your question of your campus visit promo should lead with outcomes. 90% of our students got jobs for this or went to graduate school. Come see why this is the place where outcomes happen, right? They lead with what the audience doesn’t want.
Scott Rhodes (17:48):
And I think about Lee University’s Welcome Center now and what they did with those logo soups that they have on the wall, it’s so impressive when you went there and you did an audit with them and they have just stepped it up in their welcome center. So when students get there, outcomes are-
Jeff Kallay (18:05):
On
Scott Rhodes (18:05):
The wall.
Jeff Kallay (18:06):
On the wall and every report for the last 10 years, as Trent Gilbert calls it Walla State, but you know what? But you know what, Scott? Yeah. But then every department or college or school on campus needs to have outcomes up on their wall in the foyer bragging about it all too. So let’s carry those outcomes across the campus tour.
Jarrett Smith (18:34):
Guys, I’m going to throw something out there for you. Do you think there is a role or a way to infuse admissions counseling as that happens in the recruitment process with more, not just outcomes talking points, but treat it as almost like very early stage career counseling? And I think there’s like … So you could take that too far and it can be very risky, but I do see, seems like there might be some way. I don’t know, Scott, does that make your hackles stand up just even thinking about that?
Scott Rhodes (19:09):
No, it actually is exactly what we do in our sales training. And right now, we’re going out and we’re re-training admissions counselors, and most of them have never had sales training. Now we do consultative sales training, but it is focused on all those things. What is the cost of value? What is some of these outcomes that you’re going to get? We talk to them about selling what the students are looking for and selling their institution versus basically admissions counselors, they’ve been trained to be like hostesses and just to welcome them and to answer their questions, but they need to do more things like probing questions and finding out those objections. And so we teach that in our sales train. So I think you’re onto something there,
Jarrett Smith (19:57):
Jarrett. One other thing that this made me think of was, I think it’s been a long trend of schools developing branded programs for a while that infused some form of career exploration and sort of life design in it. I think it’s really important for schools, I think, to be able to do that and to show this is a journey we’re going to help take you on. When I went to college, it was like, pick your major. Hey, you’re taking too long to pick your major, hurry up, hurry up. And then it’s like, well, oh my God, did I pick the right one? And then it’s like, all right, good luck with that. And if you want an internship, you got to line it up yourself. I mean, you’re just kind of fed to the bulls because it was just a different time. But now I see some of our clients thinking about Salve up in Rhode Island, Salve Regina University, they developed a four-year Compass program and it has very deliberate career oriented aspects to that and sort of takes students on a journey.
(21:04):
So I can imagine just being able to talk to students about that to reassure them, you don’t have to figure this out on your own. Part of your college experience aside from learning subject matter is us guiding you through this intentional process so that you have better chances when you get to the other side.
Jeff Kallay (21:22):
No, I mean, Jarrett, as you were saying this, I think that all of this, what schools should be doing, what campus tours should be doing, but I guess when you’re talking about all this, and I think because the conversations are so fresh in my head from employers, right? I used to want to have colleges that would have two marketing firms, two slogans. One, average students thrive here with emphasis on thrive. And then I want one to say 80% of what I use in my career I learned outside the classroom. And I think that this transactional, disengaged, and I get it, the pandemic, American crisis that is happening with Gen Z is they’re now going through, they’re getting their degree, but all the soft skills that you learn being in a fraternity, that you learn being an RA, that you learn being a student athlete, all those things that we truly apply in the workplace, they don’t have.
(22:25):
And then that’s a big complaint about consumers. So I guess I just come back to saying, I get we do, we do, we do, but what is lacking in all this is the individual students’ choices and approach to it all. They want this, they want this, they want this, but I don’t know that that makes them the properly educated or the best employees for the jobs that they want to go into.
(22:51):
And there’s my old dude rant about young kids.
Jarrett Smith (22:54):
I love your old dude rants.
Jeff Kallay (22:57):
I mean, as someone, and that’s just me, I think it depends upon the position, right? Healthcare, I want them to be certified in that, but if they’re in business, if they’re in sales and they have no extracurriculars on their agenda or their life outside of college, I’m not going to hire them.
Jarrett Smith (23:17):
All right. Well, how about we wrap up, do a little round of parting advice and wisdom for if we have one takeaway from this.
Jeff Kallay (23:32):
It’s all going to change very soon and Alpos are going to want something completely different.
Scott Rhodes (23:39):
I go back to what I said at the beginning, we need to really start to rethink all of our messaging, and that includes print, digital. I mean, for right now, we do have to make this shift. You’re going to see a bump in enrollment if you do, because you’re talking directly to the students and what they want.
Jarrett Smith (23:56):
Yeah. I think for me, I’m a website guy, so it does come down to the website. I think to Scott, your point about program pages, that is like the meat and potatoes as the hard and soul of your website. And if we were going to start with somewhere to change messaging first, I think that’s potentially a good place to do it.
Scott Rhodes (24:18):
Agreed.
Jarrett Smith (24:19):
Awesome. Jeff, great topic. Thank you.
Scott Rhodes (24:22):
Yes. Thanks, Jeff.
Jeff Kallay (24:24):
Thank you all for joining me. I hope we talked enrollment and I hope we were brief.
