The Enrollment Crisis of Today and Tomorrow with Luke Schultheis

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: You're listening to Filling Seats, the state of enrollment marketing in Higher Ed, hosted by StudentBridge. In this podcast, you'll learn what's working to grow, shape, and sustain enrollment at colleges and universities directly from fellow enrollment marketers, thought leaders, and Ed Tech individuals.

[00:00:17] Host: Hello, everyone. Thank you for tuning in today for episode 46 of our Filling Seats podcast by StudentBridge. I'm Jonathan Clues, CEO and founder here at StudentBridge. I'm joined today by our special guest Luke Schultheis. Before we hear from Luke—and I probably still butchered your last name, Luke—we’re discussing the enrollment crisis of today and tomorrow. Sounds pretty deep. My goodness, Luke, there's some doom and gloom on that message, but I can't think of anyone chirpier and happier to talk with than my good friend Luke about it. Luke, say hi to the listeners and viewers today, and maybe tell us a little bit about yourself, please.

[00:00:48] Luke Schultheis: Hi. Thank you, Jonathan, always great to speak with you and especially to meet with the viewers. My background, I spent a career in higher education and enrollment management specifically, been the Chief Enrollment Officer at four universities, and have really tried to keep attuned with current events. I have been a Vice President of Enrollment Admissions at AACRAO and have served on three editorial review boards, and I'm very happy to be kept close with a fine network of colleagues who are also trying to help solve the world's problems.

[00:01:24] Host: Well, solve the world's problems. So let's talk about something here—you’re at one of the universities you worked in. You've got a virtual background today, is that one of them?

[00:01:33] Luke Schultheis: This is the one I'm presently serving. It's Mayville State University in Mayville, North Dakota. But I've spent time at UNLV, Virginia Commonwealth University, Michigan State, Fairleigh Dickinson University, so been around the block a few times, and happy to be here again.

[00:01:53] Host: Well, that's great. And for anyone listening to the audio podcast, they won't see your background, but it's a very nice one. So look, let's talk about some factors reducing this enrollment potential. This is a topic you felt quite strongly about, and we've heard about that. In fact, you can see my background. What a cliffhanger this demographic cliff is—another word I can rarely say, demographic. Tell us about it. What does it really mean?

[00:02:18] Luke Schultheis: So there was a report published probably well over 10 years ago, and a lot of it was based upon birth rates. They’re able to pretty accurately predict the number of high school graduates for every year based upon birth rates, you know, and projecting out 17 or 18 years. Going way back, I remember keynoting an opening at the AACRAO SEM conference, speaking specifically about this. So this is going back about a decade. The issue was, we’re going to have a declining birth rate, a declining number of high school graduates due to the birth rate starting next year and going on for quite a number of years. And that is a significant concern because the number of institutions isn’t really changing significantly, but the number of traditional high school graduates is—and it's shrinking. There was one sort of caveat, if you will, and that was that the Latino population was going to increase in its number of high school graduates. Now, the concern here is that this population traditionally has participated less in higher education, so there needs to be some concern. There should have been a lot of concern going back. But what we've seen significantly is a lot of institutions felt they may have been immune to this. If they just work harder, they'll be fine. And that's a misconception. I read an article not long ago that suggested there was approximately a college closing once a month, or something like this. It’s quite alarming; we read about it in our trade magazines today. There's a lot to be done to work with the Latino market. There's a lot to be done with other markets, but the status quo is not going to keep an institution afloat anymore, generally.

[00:04:09] Host: Before we jump into some of that, I mean, look, this demographic cliff—I’ve heard about it for a long time. I didn’t know it was 10 years old. I guess it’s declined birth rates from the last, I thought it was from the kind of last financial downturn. Now there’s another one coming along because of the pandemic. Suppose even—I thought everyone would be staying at home making children, but they're not. So there’s going to be a demographic cliff again. But look, tell me about what is it? Is it just a buzzword, or is it a real thing?

[00:04:42] Luke Schultheis: Well, it’s a real thing. The numbers are in the millions. It’s definitely a real thing. It’s not a buzzword or a fad. Certainly, the institutions that seem to remain the safest are the top tiers and the flagships. Interestingly, but for the rest of us—the regionals, the public regionals, the middle privates, and the small privates especially—are really struggling. They began to struggle already with the interesting question of the value of higher education that came up this last year, which we hadn’t seen before. So this is actually a crisis.

[00:05:28] Host: Wow, yeah. And millions is real. Look, when I talk to my colleagues in the industry, yourself being a great friend for years, right? There's a couple of different things here. There’s the cliff, which means there are just fewer people to recruit and enroll. But then there’s also this perceived value of college, which means even if there wasn’t less headcount on the census number, there’s just fewer people interested in going to college or feeling the value. So you're seeing these two kinds of impacts at the same time. Would that be fair?

[00:05:58] Luke Schultheis: Yes, the question of value came on probably about a year and a half before the cliff is about to set. So the cliff is about to set this next year, but we’ve seen significant declines across the enrollment board. The pandemic didn’t help anything to top it off, but we’ve seen a lot of folks question: why do I want to invest so much money and time in higher education when potentially I could graduate from high school and go out and get a decent paying job? Now, it doesn’t help that the Department of Education measures graduation rates by six years instead of four years, and when we're measuring them by six years, the average for a four-year school is, you know, about 60%. So 40% of the students entering four-year institutions aren't even graduating from the institutions, and the prices are going up and up.

[00:07:00] Host: So 60% graduate within four years, or within six years?

[00:07:06] Luke Schultheis: Six years.

[00:07:07] Host: Got it. Okay. Right, right. Okay, yeah, there’s a problem with the data there. It’s a bit skewed. Look, so I know that Inside Higher Ed is a source here. But 58% of high school students and 50% of non-enrolled adults believe that you must have a college degree for a good job. But 65% believe that certification was enough. So I still think there’s a value in the public eye of a university, but there’s just there are just alternatives now.

[00:07:31] Luke Schultheis: I agree, and I think a big part of the issue is that when you look at the job postings these days—and this goes way back—how many of them require a bachelor’s degree? It’s a lot, and that’s been used as a screening tool. But at the end of the day, I challenge many industries to be able to demonstrate that they require someone to have acquired the skills, the knowledge, and the ability to think through issues that come with a bachelor’s degree to be able to be successful in a particular job. So I think that gets back to people asking, "Why do I need a bachelor’s degree to get an entry-level job when I can just go get an entry-level job?"

[00:08:15] Host: Right? Yep. We spoke about this already a little bit, but the types of institutions being affected—who’s this affecting? Is it mid-sized, mid to small regionals? Is that public and private?

[00:08:26] Luke Schultheis: The public regionals tend to be getting crushed. It’s particularly evident in the Northeast and in the Midwest. There are a few areas where high school graduates are continuing to increase. Texas, there are some parts of California, and Georgia is doing particularly well this year, but for most of the country, the public regionals are having a really hard time. And the small and mid-sized private schools, especially liberal arts schools, are particularly struggling, generally speaking.

[00:08:58] Host: Right. So yeah, liberal arts, religious schools, HBCUs—any kind of particular interest or storylines behind them and the demographic cliff?

[00:09:09] Luke Schultheis: I’ve seen some real success stories, and I’ve seen some of the opposites. And I think it parallels the institutions that are non-HBCUs, and that's that if you’re innovative, you’re going to thrive. If you’re kind of resting on your laurels, you’re going to have a really hard time.

[00:09:27] Host: Right, right. Now, some facts from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center were that between 2019 and 2023, postsecondary institutions lost about 750,000 unduplicated students, about 4% of total enrollment. Undergraduate student enrollment fell by 900,000, which is about 6%. However, graduate student enrollment grew by 140,000 students, nearly 5%. So while it hasn’t returned to full pre-pandemic levels, are we seeing an uptick in overall enrollment here with people going back to college and university?

[00:10:13] Luke Schultheis: That’s an interesting perspective. I guess I’d argue that even if the overall number was level, and undergraduates were decreasing and graduates were increasing, that doesn’t bode well for the financial health of an institution. Generally, we make more on the net tuition revenue for undergraduates. It costs less to educate undergraduates. We have more of them in our classes. They're not research-intensive, generally speaking. We’re not giving significant stipends to conduct research and those sorts of things. So institutions don’t fund themselves based on graduate enrollment, but on the undergraduate. So it’s becoming lopsided in that example.

[00:10:58] Host: Right. So should we all give up, go home, and do something else? I mean, is there hope? Where’s the opportunity? Let’s turn this frown upside down, Mr. Luke. And that’s right, there’s always a solution. So what are some of the remaining student markets? You touched on the Latino high school graduate market. Where do you see areas of opportunity? I imagine if you’re seeing it, the industry should be seeing it. Where should they be looking?

[00:11:24] Luke Schultheis: Thanks. I think there are two markets, and there’s an additional modality. So we'll start with the markets. One was the aforementioned Latino market. My original scholarship was on student choice of Latino students who chose to attend a university. What I found, and I've seen subsequent research based on that, was that their choice process differed from that of the majority, and quite often the choice process differed because of what I call convenience. So we'd more often see a Latino family having maybe more than one generation living in a household. They may be relying upon the college student to help contribute to the household, and all that dictates a need for convenience. So oftentimes a school closer to home or along the bus route or near work will be the choice institution, as opposed to going across the country and becoming a residential student and those types of things. The need and ability to recruit those students specifically is quite different from the traditional viewbook, the traditional open house, and things of that nature. We need to speak more to the families. Sometimes that requires bilingual engagement. We need to meet them in community settings. We need to be able to have a sense of cultural appreciation, and often that’s developed by like students and like faculty and like staff.

[00:13:03] Host: I'm so glad you're saying this. I spoke to someone about it at lunch today. We are recording in September, so this might not be timely for the podcast, but it’s Hispanic Heritage Month. I was talking about how, while you have to be proficient in English to attend a US university, I think it’s crazy that colleges and universities don’t market in the native tongue of prospective students from other countries—Chinese, Indian, Latino. You should have multilingual marketing materials because you’re showing respect for their culture by speaking in their native tongue while you’re trying to sell them your product, in this case, education, for a lot of money. Why aren’t more universities and colleges doing that, especially online? You just mentioned attending cultural events, but why not do multifaceted outbound marketing?

[00:13:56] Luke Schultheis: I think because we’re not staffed with folk who are familiar with it, to be frank. We expect students to conform to the college model in a variety of ways. We expect them to live on our campus. We expect them to come to class when we want them to. We expect them to sit in a chalk-and-talk classroom setting. We have a lot of expectations that don’t resonate with today’s individual. And when you get into cultural issues, especially as you mentioned, language, there are other issues associated with that—could be diet, could be religious access, there are a number of different things. I think we just don’t have enough presence from like individuals working at the institutions with voices. I remember clearly working at another institution some years ago, we had an arrangement with a government of another nation, and we were bringing in a significant number of students from that country. And when we saw that some of them were transferring, we spoke to them and asked, "What’s going on? We think we’ve got a great value for you and everything." And they said, "You don’t conform your food service to our diet. We’ve been eating salad for the last six months." Issues like that arise. You think commuter students want ready access to parking that’s close to their classrooms. They probably want a snack or a meal to go and not have to purchase a full-blown, all-you-can-eat cafeteria menu. So there are a lot of efforts there that I think we haven’t really figured out, but they’re not difficult challenges.

[00:15:38] Host: Getting back to some facts, in 2022, there were 3.8 million Hispanic/Latino students enrolled in degree-granting postsecondary institutions. That was 21% of all US resident students. So it’s a large population already, but there’s still room to grow.

[00:15:54] Luke Schultheis: A lot of room to grow. And to your point, there’s a lot of room to integrate different languages, and virtual campus tours, virtual open houses, and things of that nature. I know you're familiar with those efforts.

[00:16:08] Host: I’m quite familiar with those. And then the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities actually projects that number to grow from 3.8 to 4.3 million in the next two years. So that’s a reasonable 15% increase. But it’s probably the fastest growth rate of any racial or ethnic group. It’s pretty impressive. Definitely somewhere to focus. What else can be done? You’ve touched on this a little bit already, but let’s talk about pivoting to recruit and retain. What else can be done by your colleagues in the industry? Where would you suggest they put their effort?

[00:16:43] Luke Schultheis: Thanks. And I’m going to back up just to get to that other population here briefly. That’s the returning adult student. When we talked about our 60% average graduation rate, that’s a 40% dropout rate on average today. I believe I saw a statistic not long ago: there are over 40 million adults in this nation who have some college but no degree, and I believe there are 10 million adults who were admitted to an institution and never attended. So we’ve got 50 million people out there who have participated in or expressed significant interest in higher education but haven’t completed it, and that’s a huge market. And if you can imagine the affinity that people have for institutions, oftentimes people have figured out whatever it was that required them to leave the institution at the time, they’ve figured it out by now. But it can be really confusing to re-enter higher education. You know, how do I apply to go to college? I might be embarrassed.

[00:17:49] Host: We’ve all seen that Rodney Dangerfield movie, Back to School. Do the triple salchow; you'll be okay, exactly. Well, that’s interesting. You say that the average age of students now is 28, according to Inside Higher Ed, considerably higher than the historical average of 21. So we are seeing some more of the return of the adult learner, non-traditional learner. But yeah, so it’s hard for them. I mean, like you're saying, they could be embarrassed. They could have families, jobs. They want to continue. Are these courses moving online? Are they trying to meet the audience where they are?

[00:18:23] Luke Schultheis: That gets back to that modality point. We just aren’t rich enough, in general, with our online offerings. I’ve seen a lot of institutions that have lots of classes offered online. Many fewer have degree programs online. And too often, some of the degree programs are kind of what I call “fit-alls.” You know, it’s a Bachelor’s of General Studies or something like this. And while that may enable someone to earn a degree, very often, we want to study to gain an expertise in a specific field, not just be credentialed. I think there’s a lot of room. There are certainly some fantastic institutions out there with very engaging online experiences that have been around for a number of years. There are schools that have virtual cadavers to be able to learn anatomy and physiology and things like that—amazing. But there are also a lot of schools out there that just have very simple platform learning management systems, where it’s nothing more than, “Here’s your syllabus, here’s your discussion board, here’s where you come to class and talk,” and those aren’t really engaging. If you're sitting in your living room or whatever the case is, you probably want to connect a little bit with a professor and some peers. So there’s a lot of room there to grow.

[00:19:47] Host: Yeah. So I think that when you look at some universities, 95% of their courses were taught online this past academic year. Online is convenient, like the work-from-home, work-remote setup versus working in the office. It’s very convenient, but you're going to lack a lot of that collaboration. You're going to lack a lot of serendipity. And also, this is certainly something again, this Jonathan-ism, it's something I think of, but I think for the adult learner, it's about getting the education with minimum fuss, minimum expense, because my life—I've got a different life than an undergrad. The whole fun about going to university is going to university. The online, the long online experience is very solo. It's very solitary. It's got solitude written all over it. They want to get out there, they want to meet friends, they want to build a network. They want to watch sports. You don't want to watch the sport all on TV. You want to be at the tailgate, shouting, and in the stadium if you can afford it. So there's lots, there's lots of reasons to go to a physical university for an undergrad, but for the adult learner, I can see making it as convenient as possible with that. Am I getting that right or wrong?

[00:20:53] Luke Schultheis: I agree with that, and I will also offer up what's interesting is you'll see the directors of online education at institutions be very proud about how many participants are taking courses online, while the total number of online degree participants might be low. And what that suggests is, we've got your residential student who also needs to work or is on an athletic team and needs to take a course remotely, and it's a great convenience to them. So I think we've got opportunities on both ends of the spectrum there to please both parties, if you will.

[00:21:34] Host: Yeah, and then we're talking about the Latino population quite a lot. Is there any data showing whether the Latino population prefers to be online or residential? I mean, I'm talking undergraduate here, so undergraduate Latino—what are they saying?

[00:21:50] Luke Schultheis: I haven’t dived into that, but my knee-jerk reaction would be, especially if it’s a first-generation student or recent immigrant, that there may be concern about one’s ability to express themselves in written communication at a level that reaches college proficiency. One thing we do know is online classes require a significant amount of writing. There's much more writing, generally speaking, than the in-person class. So there may be some hesitancy or concern about embarrassment, imposter syndrome, things of that nature, but it’s a great area for additional research.

[00:22:31] Host: Wow, yeah. I hadn’t thought about that part. All right, look, so you're giving some reasons to keep going. Let's keep higher education going in America. Talk about, though—look, the benefits to institutions and society. What are some of the benefits to institutions and society when we keep on going?

[00:22:47] Luke Schultheis: There are a few. One is the social good. And I don't think anyone would disagree that education is the big transformative equalizer, if you will. What it presents to an individual is the ability to have options. So you're not guaranteed to make a great salary if you graduate from college, but you do have an opportunity to make some decisions. You may decide you want to enter a field that will compensate you better, or you may decide to enter a field where a degree is required, and you won’t be compensated better, but it gives you the option. The U.S. Census has published for years the benefits of completing a baccalaureate degree, and they include things such as access to better medical care, the option to live in neighborhoods that have reduced rates of crime, a greater likelihood that your children, if you have any, will participate in higher education, and an option, should you choose to pursue higher-paying jobs, to earn up to a million dollars more over a lifetime than someone who hasn’t. So those are significant as far as individual impact and how they affect society.

[00:24:04] Host: Yeah, we saw some stats from the Social Security Administration that echo that. So, men with graduate degrees earn $1.5 million more in median lifetime earnings, women $1.1 million. I’m not sure if that’s due to the pay disparity—I hope it isn’t, because I’ve got two young daughters—but I would say maybe it’s also that women may step away to start households, come back to work, and there could be a break in their employment. But these are real numbers, right? I mean, that’s a good ROI. We talk about our customers asking us for the ROI—"Hey, we use StudentBridge, what’s our return going to be?" It’s huge. But this is big for the student as well, right? I mean, if the average student can make $1.1 to $1.5 million more over a non-grad.

[00:24:45] Luke Schultheis: That's right, it’s significant. And I challenge that we still, as a society and as a profession in higher education, have failed because that 60% graduation rate hasn’t moved much over the years, and the students who tend to leave before completing tend to be underrepresented minorities more than the majority. The benefits to the institution are, if you think about it in a business sense, increases in net tuition revenue. So, you’re a businessman—you know it costs less to hold onto a customer than to find a new one, right? Significantly more. What business model accepts a 40% attrition rate? Right? I can't think of one that doesn’t sound like a good business model. So, if we’re able to hold onto more of our students, to be able to provide better for them, we’re going to increase our net tuition revenue contribution, and that enables investment in the academic enterprise. We see so many articles about institutions that are struggling financially, but we’ve got opportunities now. We can enroll Latinos, we can enroll adult stop-outs, we can improve our retention. It’s not rocket science, if you will, and that will enable an institution to not just persevere but to advance itself. With thousands of institutions today, many are struggling to find an area of distinctiveness. It’s hard to become distinctive if you can't invest in facilities, invest in green academics, and invest in other things that very often take a lot of time to develop.

[00:26:27] Host: We often talk about this as one of the challenges that StudentBridge is proud to help with—it’s hard to stand out in marketing. I mean, look, you think it’s hard to be distinctive once you’ve got the student there, but imagine that potential student looking at 30 universities online, trying to whittle it down to three to visit. They’re going to visit one. Only 10% of the ones they review online are visited, and yet you've got the stock photo of an Asian student, a teenager, and an African American student—a girl and a boy—and it’s all trying to get that one picture of diversity. They’ve all got a backpack on in the quad, and it’s difficult because it all looks the same. It’s the same four kids on every website almost, and all they do is change a building. To the university, they’re very proud of that building, but to the incoming, prospective student—they don’t care. You don’t pick a university because you like the look of a building. So, it’s very difficult to stand out and distinguish yourself. So, I understand you’re saying that carries on even once you're matriculated—it’s hard to distinguish yourself.

[00:27:33] Luke Schultheis: Exactly, yeah, I agree with you. And, you know, we’ve got direct admissions in I don’t know how many states these days. So, you’re a high school student with a certain GPA, and you get a letter from the Commission of Higher Education or whatever that says you’re eligible for admission at the following eight universities. There goes the distinctiveness. It’s a real challenge to stand out these days. I believe the present students are applying to between eight and 10 schools, so it boils down to a lot of customer service and to what that hallmark experience is going to be at the institution.

[00:28:15] Host: How much of it’s digital? Like, you’re looking at 30 schools online, you apply to 10. How much actual human interaction have they had from that first impression, digital interaction, into applying?

[00:28:28] Luke Schultheis: That’s a good question. I think we haven’t been able to keep up with our admissions staff. As an industry in general, we’ve had economic issues, pared back on programs and staffing. We’ve forgotten about reaching down into the younger age groups to expose them to higher education. A person becomes predisposed to participate in higher education in sixth grade. I don’t remember the last time I heard about a school going to talk to sixth graders about "just think about college," right? Now our staffs are going just to visit high school seniors because we don’t have enough to visit the juniors.

[00:29:11] Host: My seven-year-old told me she’s going to go to college nearby because she wants to stay at my house still. Need to have a word with that one.

[00:29:18] Luke Schultheis: Yeah, I think so.

[00:29:21] Host: I thought that point you brought up about access to improved healthcare—that’s an amazing, non-direct impact of education. So, you get a better job that offers health insurance—is that the philosophy behind that? Hence, you have access to better healthcare. Is that kind of what happens?

[00:29:28] Luke Schultheis: Oh, it’s absolutely what happens. We all know how much better we are when we're able to be proactive with our healthcare rather than going when there’s a problem. And, you know, once there’s a problem, two things are going to happen: you're going to solve it, or you're not, and neither are probably the most pleasant. But to be able to get ahead of things is really critical in human life. So, it’s a big transformative power to participate in and complete higher education.

[00:29:59] Host: Well, you just segued me perfectly today because now you're talking about the need to change and the effort to move. Let’s talk about it. You've dedicated a lot of your life to higher ed. I’ve dedicated the last 15 years to helping institutions. They're not fast to change. So, how urgent is it? I mean, look, education—we’ve both been at it for a long time. When’s the timeline to take action?

[00:30:24] Luke Schultheis: It’s yesterday. It’s critical. When higher education started with Harvard back in the 1600s, there was a particular governance structure. I’m going to be a little silly and say it hasn’t morphed that much over 400 years. And I’m not suggesting that shared governance isn’t important. I’m not suggesting tenure isn’t important, that the viewpoints of the collective aren’t important—I’m not suggesting that at all. But I am suggesting that we need to recognize what the situation is and not participate in that paralysis-by-analysis. We need to understand that the enrollment management leaders are supposed to be the experts in enrollment management. It shouldn’t be that everyone gets a fair and equal vote. It should be that we receive a lot of input, and we make the best decisions to move forward. But very often, the case becomes lots of discussion with people who don’t have a background in enrollment management, and then we get stuck. It can become frustrating. There’s a budget cycle, there’s an academic calendar—there are all sorts of things naturally working against us. It takes a lot to be able to transform an institution, but if we don't do it, at the end of the day, we're going to see change, and it's not going to happen. We’ll have nothing better to do than point the fingers at ourselves, right?

[00:31:50] Host: Right? Yeah. Eighty-eight percent think that higher ed could potentially help hires acquire advanced technical skills, soft skills, industry-specific knowledge. It’s not just about getting a good education; it’s about making us work-ready, right? Work-ready. At the end of the education, it’s workforce development. You're doing a degree to get it versus a certificate, but it's about letting you do your thing and getting out there. One of the summaries might be decision-making, learning decision-making of different cultures, especially Latinos, as we spoke about today. Reposition marketing. Any other two top tips to end us on today, Luke, or even one nugget?

[00:32:27] Luke Schultheis: Yeah, one nugget. It just popped into my head a second ago when you were talking about decision-making. I remember clearly those of us who are in the industry do when the pandemic happened, and—why should we have been prepared for that, right? That was never on anyone’s radar.

[00:32:49] Host: There was a movie about it, though, right? Maybe two or three, actually.

[00:32:56] Luke Schultheis: What helped me out where I was and helped the students out was having discussions with people outside of the institution. I’m going to point to you, Jonathan. I remember clearly having a discussion with you, and you said, "What is it that you need?" And I didn’t know what I needed. I didn’t know what the students needed, but I shared the issues, and we talked it through. We came up with some very novel approaches to represent the university remotely, to have students and families participate in engagements with faculty and staff remotely, and even developing a product that allowed students to participate in clubs and things like that remotely. So, what I’m suggesting here is that partnerships with those outside the campus can be really valuable because those people get to see lots of campuses and different things while we’re in our own bubble.

[00:33:58] Host: Yeah, I appreciate you saying that. I do want to point out—you’re not being paid for this, so these are all your own opinions and in no way influenced by StudentBridge. Look, I remember that conversation very clearly as well. Pandemic—March 2020. I spoke to you a few days into it, never met you before, and we said, "What are we going to do here?" I was like, "How does this vendor community support the industry that we need to get involved in?" You know, we came up with this virtual event idea and ways for people to tune in at certain times. Zoom wasn’t huge at the time, so we thought, "What can we do?" And so, you did—you came up with some great innovation and products. At the time, you had to innovate rather quickly, right? There was no time to sit around and think about change.

[00:34:45] Luke Schultheis: That’s right.

[00:34:46] Host: So, Luke, thank you very much. All we have time for today—we’re spot on time. Thank you so much for joining us in sunny Michigan. As always, it’s a complete pleasure just chatting with you—it’s always good fun. To our viewers and listeners, thanks for taking the time to tune in. For more great content—webcasts, podcasts, webinars, whitepapers, blogs—visit studentbridge.com. We’d love to have you visit, look around our site, and see what we can do to help you. The archives are there. Please subscribe so you don’t miss anything else on your favorite podcast platform. And Luke, thank you again, and to everyone else, see you all soon.

[00:35:20] Speaker 1: This is the Filling Seats podcast, hosted by StudentBridge, where we help enrollment teams achieve more by fusing authentic storytelling with industry-leading technology and personalized digital experiences. To connect with this episode’s guest, check out the show notes. If you enjoyed the episode, leave a rating and review, and don't forget to subscribe. For more information about StudentBridge and this podcast, go to studentbridge.com/podcasts.