Dr. Carey Dukes | Assistant Professor of Management at North Greenville University in Tigerville, SC

Speaker 1  0:00  
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 innovators. 

Host  0:17  
Hi. Thank you for joining us today. I'm Jonathan Clues, CEO of StudentBridge. Joining us today for our episode 47 of our filling seats podcast, and today we're going to talk about the one year wonder.  Why students aren't returning after freshman year. I'm joined by special guest Carey Dukes. Love to hear from you, Carey, tell us why are you on the show today. Carey, what is your background here? 

Carey Dukes  0:40  
Well, my background actually started in supply chain, so I started fixing broken things as I tell people, whether it's organizational processes, whatever the case may be. And after doing that for 25 years or so, I was interested in going back and teaching in academia, trying to teach the next generation some of the things we worked on in management or in processes, so teaching them how to be better for better, better employees. Day one was my goal. So that's what led me to getting my doctorate, going back to school, completing that, and then actually joining academia in 2017

Host  1:16  
Alright, excellent. Now you've got your own podcast studio. I know you're not there today. I'm actually at home myself today, so I'll be taking off tuning in for the video, not just the audio. I've done a couple on the road now. Now I've been at the office in our studio. Now I'm at my house. You're out, so, so we're going to try to see if the internet may without impending storms. We're all worried about internet properly announced.

Carey Dukes  1:36  
Yeah, it's yeah, we lost Wifi again because of Helene. It's still not on. And what has it been a week and a half, and it's still not on in all parts of North and South Carolina. So,

Host  1:46  
wow, I'm glad you're safe, glad you're well. So alright, let's jump into it. We'll talk about this again this one year. Wonder how big a problem is it? I mean, retention is a big problem in my mind. But where you where you seeing it?

Carey Dukes  1:59  
You know, if you look across all universities, it's, you know, in that, you know, depending on what level of school you're actually working with, will really kind of drive what big of a problem is. So the larger schools, the SEC schools, ACC schools, and even your your Ivy League schools, they have pretty high retention rate. The smaller the school is, though, the lower the retention is, and unfortunately, that's also the ones that are the most going to be the ones that will be most impacted from those students leaving right because the tuition so it's roughly around the the study I've done, which is the less than 10,000 students in your university, your current retention is, on average, 69.7% is right between 69.7 and 69.8 so almost 1/3 of all the students they recruit don't come back for their sophomore year.

Host  2:48  
And look, we, StudentBridge. We really specialize in that. The front of the whole thing, the recruitment and enrollment of students, they put a lot of time, effort and money into getting those students through the door. So that's a big number when you're losing 30%

Carey Dukes  3:02  
Yeah, it is. And the customer acquisition cost, in this case, students being the customer, is extremely high, as you well know, and to lose 30% of your the students and the customers that you're bringing into the fold is is a problem that's going to become more and more a problem as we, you know, move forward, and we'll talk about some of those items as we go. But, yeah, it's, it's scary.

Host  3:24  
Well, that's by your intro. You're used to fixing things that are broken, so this might be one of the areas you're coming in to fix. Um, you also had another stat that I know you shared with me, that only 41% of students actually graduate in four years. So, yeah, again, that's, that's a four year program. I hear that we, we typically say the average four year program takes five six is that kind of what you're seeing out there as well.

Carey Dukes  3:45  
It, is, and it's I, you know, I teach at a school with roughly 2500 students in it, right? So when I'm talking to those students, their parents have kind of budgeted a four year plan. Well, that number is pretty accurate from the students that I talked to. They're in the four and a half to five year plan, and a lot of that has to do with their freshman year. It really does, and how they get started has a big impact on how long it takes them to finish. So I think that's as I think it's the same problem that the universities are seeing, but from the opposite side of the coin, it's costing more money to get a four year degree than it should, and it's mostly because of the induction and the beginning of the students. I believe that's my point. 

Host  4:28  
Well, I love that. I love your point about the parents budgeting. You know, when you budget for four years, it takes five that's a 25% increase and a big jump. 

Carey Dukes  4:37  
Correct, yeah, yeah. And it's in if you, if you think about it, that that's what we've all heard. You know, I heard it. You've heard it. Everybody here, oh, four year degree. Well, let's you know when 60% of them, or 59% of them, aren't finishing in four years. I don't know why we even call it a four year degree anymore. It's more like a five year degree, but right to just accept that, right? Right is, this is where my supply chain analysis comes in. I don't like to just accept failure, because to me, that is, if it's a four year degree, we can't get them out in four then what can we do to try to help that?  

Host  5:13  
How much those two things related. So you've got, you got 30% that churn out, that I don't want to call dropout, effectively transfer out. So if you, if you've got any data at all, you may not have it that shows if a student stays at one institution, they graduate sooner than if somebody transfers out. Or is it across the board about the same?

Carey Dukes  5:36  
Well, it does. It does add to it. There's no question, if you transfer there at this is kind of logical based on the hours that transfer and a lot there's multiple reasons why people transfer. So it's not just they got a bad start. There may be academic reasons, there may be athletic reasons. There may be don't like the university when they thought they did. So there's a lot of reasons why. But the reality is, depending, unless you align, you know this is from my advising act, because we do a lot of advising for students as well. Unless you align the courses you're taking with where you're getting ready to go, it's very easy to end up taking courses that don't necessarily transfer. And if they don't, you're going to end up having to take those hours at that new institution, which is going to increase your time again. 

Host  6:22  
Got it? Okay? Now we're going to talk about the individuals and the students a bit later and show but right now, let's talk about institution. And by the end of the day, you work at an institution, our partners, our customers, are institutions. We're here to help the university. I would, conversely, I try and help the student by helping the university. But, but, sure, yeah, how big is this big problem for universities, isn't it? As well, the students are paying 25% more. But this isn't good for universities.

Carey Dukes  6:46  
Oh no, yeah. And it could be, it's going to be worse, right? As it with the reduction in student the students putting coming to the universities, then the headcount being lower. And like I said, that especially those institutions that are less than 10,000 students, because the bigger schools are going to still fill their roles based on what they need. The smaller institutions are fighting and scrapping for the students themselves, and as that that population reduces, because basically, for instance, over the last 10 years, we've lost 500 institutions. That's roughly one every week closes. Well, what happens when you have a 10% 

Host  7:22  
Say that again? Because that again, that's sound bite that. Yeah. How many institutions close?

Carey Dukes  7:27  
Over the last 10 years 500 private and and not, not for profit, universities have closed over the last 10 years. That's one a week. Yeah. And that's before the 10% reduction in college, high school graduates, which are going to happen in 2026 what's that number going to look like after 2026 2027 that's my concern, because I don't think it's going to infect the number of enrollees at the University of Alabama or some of the bigger schools, but some of the smaller schools, especially those ones with less than 10,000 students. That's where my worry comes. How How much less, how many less applications are you going to get in there? For less students are going to be there? So it makes even more, puts even more emphasis on, let's keep the ones that we're we have now, so we don't have to replace as many. You know, 2026 2027 2028 so that makes sense. That's where I think it really matters for institutions to engage this issue. And I initially looked at it as a First Year Experience problem or challenge, but I don't think it is, after doing the research and doing some of the studying that I've done, because I've talked to several First Year Experience folks. Their focus is building the community between the student and the institution. I think they do a great job of that. That's not where the gap falls. And I've actually taught some of these classes. The problem with First Year Experience is it's during the semester, so there's only so much you can do in week one and week two, whereas the the gaps that I'm seeing from the students is really they don't know what's coming for you know, the first four to five weeks of the of the semester, and by the time that fourth or fifth week comes, and academic Armageddon, as I call it in the book, comes, where they have five tests in one week, they are looking at that. They're literally walking around like zombies because they had no idea this was happening. And that's part of that readiness that I talk about. Well,

Host  9:16  
we'll talk about that a bit, a bit yes, um, look when we look at, when we look at the lifetime value of a student. We've done some research on this. So, you know, let's just use $25,000 as the tuition fee, right? So sure, and maybe that's the next tuition or including board or whatever. But it's got $25,000 revenue to the institution. Well, if you leave after you spend all that money to acquire them, they leave after one year, you've only retained, you've only you only capture $25,000 of return of your investment in in in recruiting and enrolling them. But we see that if you graduate going to that five year typical graduation for a four year course, you now got five times, 25 100 25,000 Yeah, you've also got two things that follow on from, I believe that. Should be counted lifetime value of student is when you do good as well. I've got a saying that better retention through better recruitment. If you recruit them right in the first place, they're more likely to retain because you get the right fit better and so what we look at is that if you graduate from an institution, two things happen. You're more likely to refer it to family and friends, because if you drop out year one, there's nowhere you're going to go. It's a great institution. Because bear, you know, humans, we're not very good at saying it's our fault. So so if you drop out of a university or transfer out of year one, it just wasn't the right fit, you're probably not going to refer to family and friends. So there's other additional enrollment. They're going to miss out on, right? Referral enrollment, we call it. The second thing they miss out on is alumni donations. You know, we you recruit a student, especially the undergrad world. You're going to recruit them from 15 16, years old to 18, matriculate them from 20 to 18 to 22 23 but then you hit them over the head for your capital campaigns to the day they die. And so that's a 30 40, 60 year relationship you're going to miss out on afterwards. So we believe that the lifetime value of a particular graduate student, sorry, a graduate student, is about eight to 10 times more than a one year student by the time you add all those other things in.

Carey Dukes  11:17  
I think that's actually a perfectly reasonable calculation. And and that's even that even speaks to, you know, I hadn't even thought about that. From that obviously, we look at the world and the lens that we see it right, hadn't even considered that, because I was looking at what is the customer acquisition cost, but there's actually way more value there to keep them. And if you keep them as sophomores, especially if you get them to between their sophomore and junior year, they're going to stay. They're halfway home now they're not the retention rate drops like a rock, and it's usually somebody a sickness or some major emergency happens. So to your point, if you can do better at retaining them through that first year, it's better for the student, and it's obviously better for the institution as well.

Host  12:00  
Now, whether universities admit it or not, and our partners do care about this rankings, the US, news reports, these, these, these ranking systems care about graduation rates. So if your graduation rates are falling down, how's that impacting your See, that's a self fulfilling prophecy, if you will. If you have bad graduation, you're not going to enroll so well, because you don't have great graduation, so you got to get your graduation

Carey Dukes  12:28  
up. Yeah, but I'm gonna be honest with you, I've looked at some of these graduation rates based on financial aid projections, and I'm a little skeptical. I'm just going to tell you, because I'm seeing, you know, technical world class technical institutions with 99% retention rates. Really, I It's either I just I struggle with that, but that's one of the reasons why that that category of school, I don't though that what the problem, I don't think has been proven from my perspective, what, what I'm trying to address, I don't think it's there yet to address that. So what I'm looking at is more of an economics, and this is where the less than 10,000 student population comes in, because they don't worry as much about rankings as they do the pure economics of the institution today, right down the road. I think that that's necessary, but they're all reporting retention, all of it, and it appears there's a direct correlation to the size of the school and how high that retention rate is. The smaller the school, the lower the retention rate is. But that,

Host  13:36  
you know, the one word to use in in talking to educators, don't call the student the consumer, even though they're buying something, the customer, their customer, the student. Are they in any way? Are they sophisticated enough to look at graduate the rate and understand, wow, that's low, or do they not really understand it?

Carey Dukes  13:55  
I don't. I don't hear a lot of that, not from the students that I teach and the ones that I've engaged with even other institutions. That's not why they come or they don't there. A lot of these institutions are driven a lot by athletics. There's a lot of athletic components to this, and I work with a ton of athletes in this regard, trying to help them get through because what they're looking at is an institution that, okay, it's a four year degree, and they're going to let me play sports, so they're going to let me do this, and it's playing at a level that I think I can compete with and that I can do other things with. And this isn't just football, this is softball, volleyball, all of these. So sports is a big part of this subgroup of institutions, and it's a big draw for it's also part of the driver of the of the retention loss is that is that they go there to play sports, realize they're not going to make it, and then they move and then they move. But it's not the only driver, of course, I mean that, but that is a part of it. But I don't think they look at they don't compare, say, Georgia Techs and their retention rate to the institution that at a division two school or a smaller, public and or private university. But I don't think. We, we

Host  15:00  
keep, we keep kind of, uh, we keep comparing, maybe the ivy to the high profile schools to Middle America, yeah, the bulk, right? And so, yeah, but in the bulk, like, if you're, if you're not, especially if you're a first year your first generation student, or even second generation students, right? They look at two, like universities in a state that so not, not the, not the kind of figurehead university, but would they have any feeling towards any of that data? They are students not looking at that data.

Carey Dukes  15:30  
I think so. I'm not 100% on that. I'm not 100% I have not done enough research in that to say for sure that's the case. So I don't want to, I don't want to state something as a fact that I don't know to be true. It seems good that it would be but I don't know that to be the case.

Host  15:46  
Yeah, maybe we need to research on that. I think common sense dictate it is like two universities got a 60% graduation rate. 70% is that? That one seems to do a better job with its students, 35 to 60, not a huge swing, right? Again, I

Carey Dukes  16:02  
have not looked at that because I've focused so much on that first year. I haven't even gotten to the graduation rates yet. This is one of the reasons I want to recruit some collaborators and let's work on this problem together to see if there's areas just like the few you've mentioned, which is, that's why it's so fun to talk to folks, that there's all these opportunities to to look at it. You know, obviously one person in a in an island or on an island can't solve all those problems or even addressed

Host  16:27  
well, and also could give you the false data as well. One person in Ireland has the one person on an island experience, yeah? Trying to help, if you want to help 10,000 people not on an island, there's something great. Yeah, that's great. Daniel, so let's, let's bring it back to student then. So disruption for college freshmen becoming it's one of your statements to becoming a freshman, one of the biggest disruptions a student will face in their lifetime. Let's talk about that. So let's talk about these kind of three things I know you like to highlight. So first of all, transition to college.

Carey Dukes  17:00  
Yeah, yeah. There. There is a there. There are a few things in life that are more disruptive than than becoming, becoming a freshman, right? We think we we look at, we look towards it all our life is to becoming a, you know, getting out of high school, being out on our own, being in an into the school, doing our own thing. But when people get on campus after a week or so, or maybe two, two to three weeks, the reality starts to set in. Yeah, okay, well, this is not like it was in high school. And I hear this all the time from students, you know, you know, I learned this way, and you're teaching this way, yeah? Okay, well, they figure out real quick that they have to learn the way the professor is actually working, and every professor is different. And there, and there is a culture shock between the emotional, the physical, the psychological, the you know, the all of that is just a culture shock to him. So

Host  17:55  
you go from a big fish in a small pond or a medium to the smallest fish in a big pond. And yeah, absolutely. And,

Carey Dukes  18:02  
and you see some give up. You know, I see it every semester. I see some that just it overwhelms them. But think about it, how you've been home all your life, for 18 years now, all of a sudden, you're not right. You're responsible for your own schedule. And somebody handed you a schedule and says, Oh, by the way, you only have to be anywhere 15 hours a week. So the other 153 hours, you can do whatever you want and believe make

Host  18:25  
good decisions.

Carey Dukes  18:28  
There's not enough of those conversations for sure. So we have a lot of those when I'm talking to students, and I

Host  18:34  
think that's one of these things we talk about student bridges that really universities is right to page. You're getting out of your parents basement or attic. You're becoming an adult. You're doing your own laundry. Had to buy your own toothpaste, I mean, things you didn't really think about before, like say it's all bright and shiny when first game, they were the freshman parties or the events. And also, I went, this is, this is real, yeah. And the bad weather starts coming, and then then all kinds of things. So you know, it's all lovely summer in August, and then it starts getting worse. So, so, okay, so transition is hard. How about the First Year Experience programs? What are some of your questions you ask grandmas?

Carey Dukes  19:09  
Well, I think they spent a lot of time, and they do this has been going on for 50 years now, right since the 70s, and it's really penetrating. Within universities, they recognize there's a need to connect those students with the community of the university, and I think they do a really good job in that regard. You know, I think there's a there's a challenge for them based on just the sheer timing of how things flow. I think they're their form when they walk on campus and they start getting their dorm room set up. I think they're their form where they reach out and the ones that I've evaluated to try to help and provide support. The problem is it requires the students to do the reaching right, because the institutions don't have the resources, again, these smaller institutions, especially, to actually reach out individually, proactively to the students. And frankly, they don't know where the problems are. All the time because of the way that program flows. Because I'll give you an example. While they're great at building community, when I teach that course, we work on time management in week eight. Well, by then, the horses left the barn in week eight. Because if you didn't, if you change the way you manage your time, which I call, you know, gridding or blocking in week one, then you're not going to be ready for test number one, right? So, but it's, it's just the nature of the beast, is the way that that process flows so and then, and then students also come out of there where there's this concept of, okay, well, this student's being, you know, he's not necessarily buying into the process. He's not buying into the to the to the program. Overall, he's being resistant, right? There's a resistance to him joining in with the rest of the community. And when I look at that, and I've had conversations, again, with several folks in this regard, the problem with with that and thinking that way, as far as resistance is, it doesn't give you anywhere to go, right? And again, I don't think it's the it's the fault of the programs. It's just the way that world, way higher education, sees that student, where, when I look at that student, I see that student is not necessarily being resistant. I see that student is not being ready. And the resistance that you see, or the lack of commitment that you see from them, is actually it's, it's a manifestation of the fact they weren't ready to begin with, right? And that's, you know, that's how, that's how I look at that problem. And the end the first year experience programs as a whole, I

Host  21:31  
think we always like, kind of, one of the things I believe in is the thing behind the thing. So humans, when we ask people, like, Hey, why do that incision? They can't just say the last thing made them. It's probably a series of things that happened. Hence the saying exists the straw that broke the cameras back right? So 42% of get them stacked by education data they called dropouts. But 42 college dropouts indicate they left you to financial reasons, while 32% indicate they left for family reasons or commitments. So that kind of goes with what you said. But what are you seeing? Are you are you seeing? How they How are you institutions? They measuring this, and how are they tracking it? Well,

Carey Dukes  22:08  
they some institutions, I don't know. They know why the student left, you know? And when I talk to them, some do, some don't, because they don't necessarily track the why, again, based on, you know, those publications, there may be enough, there may be enough volume to assume that. But I don't think that's the case across all institutions. I think some institutions have mechanisms to measure some don't. I know, within the first year program that we work through, I don't know, I don't see that mechanism to measure why, but I can tell you that 42% academic, or you call it money wise, whatever. It's actually a manifestation of the grades, because a lot of those students lost their scholarships the first year because they bombed the first couple of tests. So it is monetary thing. Yeah, correct. That's the thing behind the thing. It becomes monetary when you lose your scholarship. And in Georgia, for example, the Hope Scholarship. I've done a lot of research on this. I've been working through this, and I was shocked to find out that the majority of students actually lose that scholarship at some point during their four year, five year journey, which I couldn't believe it. And I'm still kind of trying to nail down those specifics of what those are, but that's the same thing. And so if you lose that scholarship, which pays the majority of your tuition, I can believe that that would be why those students would be leaving, and I see a lot of that from the students I counsel that they're leaving because they've lost their scholarship, whether it be an athletic, athletic scholarship because they didn't earn enough hours, or an academic scholarship that they had to keep a certain GPA. And you know, my high school, I was a fill in the blank guy. I that's what I did. Now, you want me to write papers, and you you have me doing multiple choice with six choices. And you know, this isn't what I signed up for. And you know, it's a diff, it's a different role, and every professor is different. And so that's I see that I'm consistent. That makes sense to me. That number. Let's

Host  24:02  
move on to something that this is on the downrack. But what can we done to fix this? I mean, you've got the six key variables, the readiness components, six key variables. Talk, talk to me about those.

Carey Dukes  24:13  
Yeah, I my theory, let's say this, and it's also been observed in students. I've been working on is that if we want to solve this problem, or at least start to address it, and I'm not saying you're going to get every student to stay, but I think you can make a significant impact if instead of thinking them as being resistant, you think of them being not ready. So all right, how do you address readiness? Well, there's six key component to variables to readiness, and I and I go through

Host  24:38  
those, you've memorized them, right? You've memorized

Carey Dukes  24:41  
I memorized them because I've been living with them for 10 years. I see the world. In this case, I'll tell you a funny story in a little bit about the way I see people. Well, context is, is the first key variable, and it's probably the most important, right? Because where we come from, we have no control over but has the greatest impact. In the way we see the world, right? It has so much to do with how we see ourselves, how we see others, how we see ourselves, fitting in, what kind of support we get. All of that I call context. That it's a part of that self it also has a huge part of your own self esteem is built there, right? Then another is, you know, informational assessment. Do you know what is expected of you when you walk onto your college campus as a college student? And I can tell you, the answer is not yes. For the majority of them, they don't know what they don't know. And so we we spend time through that. And then another one is value do they value this. Do they really want to be here? Are they really committed, ultimately committed, but if you don't value something, then you're not going to be as committed or or as ready to attack it. So teaching them the value, not just monetarily, of the college experience, but also the friends you make, the connections you make, the communities you build all those opportunities that you have for for being on the college campus is huge, and then ultimately you got commitment. They have to be committed. And if they're not, are they not committed because they don't believe which is the fifth one, or are they not committed because they really don't want to be here? And I forced them, you know, through our process to answer that question. It's, and this is one for athletes, because I really, I really harp on this with athletes. I'm like, You're telling me you can go out in the sun, especially in South of North Carolina, and work at 100 degree temperature for three hours a day, and you don't think you can learn how to do multiple choice test every four weeks. And they just look at me, but because you committed, it's where are you committed? Where is your commitment? And it should be towards completing this. And then finally, so what are they doing? And this is all really prior to stepping on campus, what are they doing about the work that needs to be done? What is your change related effort, as we call it, that you you were sleeping on this schedule. Now think about sleeping on this schedule. You were studying this many hours a week while you were in high school. Well, guess what? You need to start studying this many hours a week when you're in college. So those steps I take students through it both verbally and in writing, depending on which the way we're doing it. And I try to not chastise them for where they are, but make them realize this is where you are, this is where you need to be. And if you do these things, you're going to be more prepared to be ready to actually be successful at

Host  27:32  
college. I want to go through those six for our listeners and watches today. Six variables, one, context, two, commitment, three, value, four, informational assessment, five, I believe, six. Change related effort, yeah, yeah, yep. Okay. Carey and for the journal and national survey, quite recent, 500 students between 2019, 2022, not a huge cross section there, but 75% of high school graduates. So they're not ready to make college and career decisions. Yet. So there's part the problem is the high schools are preparing Right? So there's Oh, yeah, lack of readiness. Lack

Carey Dukes  28:10  
of readiness. There you go. That's my favorite phrase in the world.

Host  28:13  
And I mean, has, has the school experience changed much over the last 1020, years, could could we not paint a better readiness picture?

Carey Dukes  28:25  
I don't even you know. It's so funny. You should say that, because the students I deal with almost are in the exact situation I was in in the 80s, believe it or not, because I approached it I was a first generation student. I'm like, wait a minute, I only have to be here for 15 hours, and I can play football. Okay, this is great. And my GPA was first semester was very similar to theirs. The only advantage was I knew when I started, and it wasn't an option to go longer than four years. So I was never transferring and the SEC because I didn't want to pay any more money, because there was no scholarship involved. So whatever money I was get was going to have to pay, was going to it was going to it was going to be the minimum amount of time as soon as don't think that way, not many students think that way, and so they have a tendency to they've been a lot of them, and I'll tell you, some of them, especially the athletes, have been coddled to the point of they have a preconceived notion to their abilities, academically and socially, that run into reality pretty quickly, and that's tough on folks, and so I can tell you it from an institution outreach perspective. I've yet to come across one that is approaching readiness prior to stepping on campus the way I'm trying to advocating for but I hope to see it, but I don't see it currently, in the ones that I'm working, not the schools that I work with. I'm

Host  29:46  
going to end on that. I'll end on the let's get back to the institution. This seems like good, straightforward advice. It's not revolutionary. It's just been you said, No, the problem's been there 40 years. Are you surprised by how few. Institutions are putting these safeguards or situations, the things in place, or are you seeing a massive move towards it?

Carey Dukes  30:07  
I'm surprised at how the resistance isn't the right word, because when I talk to folks, I don't think they've they've thought of this as a contributing factor to why students, why they're not staying. I don't, I don't think, I think they, they've, they've really tied in with this idea of resistance. And so there's just an expectation that certain amount are not going to come back and and and seeing the world through that lens, they can blame it on the student, frankly, as opposed to the institution in the in the way it's developed. And I think it's just easier to look at it as a student problem, rather than how do we as an institution reach out and try to address that problem? Because I don't think it's literature doesn't show much research in this in this regard, wasn't

Host  30:54  
the right thing as well. I mean, in anything we do in life. I mean, we work hard to to market correctly, and then prospect speak to potential institutions, be partners of ours. But we're looking for percentage gains. You know, if you've got a graduation rate your attention after the first year of 70% we're not saying you follow these six steps to go to hundreds. No, not at all. Imagine the value of going to 73 that's exactly

Carey Dukes  31:19  
and tying back to your your long term value of customers.

Host  31:23  
It's millions. Yes, small institution, but a 3% gain might be 100 students, and 100 students worth an extra 150 $200,000 I mean, just do the math. It's 4 million, $5 million

Carey  Dukes  31:35  
it's funny. You should mention that, because I was speaking with, uh, you know, one from the northeast. He's a pretty large institution, and I was walking him through this, you know, again, it's a verbal conversation right now. And he said, Wait a minute. He said, So you're trying to get a program in front of them through kind of tied in with admissions, not first year. I said, Well, I think it has to be there. He said, so if I go from, say, 70% retention to 75 he said, that's that's a really big number. I said, Yeah, I know he goes, Well, what's the program called? It's the book. I said, it's the book and then the video combinations. But really the research is to we're trying to nail it down, and that's where I think the collaboration can help

Host  32:15  
my calculator out. So I wanted to not in case anyone there was going to call me up on and say, I've got my math wrong. But if 100 students, if you go from 25,000 value for a one year student, yes, highest one year, last one year, and one for that lifetime, value of 10x so by time they spend 125 maybe, maybe introduce one or two other students, as well as alumni support, that would be a $22 million difference. 22 and a half million dollar difference by retaining 100 students for four years or five in this case,

Carey Dukes  32:47  
actually, when I was originally building this out, saying, Okay, does this make sense for the institutions? I actually did the math on an annual basis. I took, I took the the 1055 schools that I'm kind of targeting, and I divided it. I said, Okay, what if I take them five, five points 70 to 75 but for one year, what does that mean to the PnL, for the institution, it was over 4 million bucks. That's one year. It's huge. And this was usually their average retention or the average tuition numbers. It's a got a huge number with minimal engagement, you don't need extra professors, you don't need some new building. There's a different way to approach the students. And by doing the this different approach, I think there's an economic benefit that I think is going to be needed from the very students institution that I'm trying to reach

Host  33:38  
when we do this show, I always want to be careful, because I don't want to upset how upset our our trusted partners. But I'm still confused that, not that the the office of enrollment isn't tightly incentivized to retention, like, it's like their job's just to get them in the door, and they do a great job of that, and then say, someone else's I've got problem for someone else's task to get them to stay. And it's like, Wait a minute. Should you not be recruiting with the hope? No, that the target they graduate. And that's just what, well, see, this

Carey Dukes  34:08  
has been my challenge, because I'm not. When I talked to first year, they got offended, thinking I was trying to take over their curriculum, which it has nothing to do with that. So I said, Okay, well, maybe there's a difference. So I went to, I went to admissions, and admissions is like, well, you know, we just try to get them in the door. Once they're in the door, the institution, in the first year, take them home. And I said, Okay, here's the, I don't think it really, I don't know who now, when I spoke to this VP of enrollment, he said, It's the academic student success person. But I don't know that that student success within every institution functions the same. So this is part of my challenges. I can't figure out who to sit down with, but every single person that I talk to within these institutions, they give me that same this is a no brainer. I know that. That's why so. Let's move forward. But they're all okay, well, how do we do this? And I, I've tried every way under the sun to really kind of engage them, and I feel like I'm at the point where it's just going to be one of the time. This is why I started, you know, looking to do this type of format, because I don't know any other way to get them. I want them now to call me, right? Let's collaborate. You just call me and we'll work through a program. Well,

Host  35:21  
that's a perfect wrap, because that's our final topic today. I want you to have a shameless plug. I know that you, that you, you've mentioned the book a few times. What's that? What's the book? Uh,

Carey Dukes  35:32  
Ready. Set, change, a guide to thriving your freshman year of college. Yeah, December 1. Well, we'll talk about that. I don't want to talk about the December 1, but yeah, we'll talk about that in December. Ready?

Host  35:41  
Step Check. Okay, well, we're going to do another podcast I know this year, and then, and then I know that you kind of have this thought about corporate collaboration. So take us home with that. Talk about that. Yeah,

Carey Dukes  35:51  
yeah. From a collaboration perspective, what I'm looking for is if any, if any other professors, or any other administrators out there say, You know what, I think we'd like to look at this in our institution. I would love to work with anyone and try to and I'll work through the the instruments and how we do the analysis, and just do an evaluation of their institution, and also and measure whether or not we're successful in trying to implement this there, as well as the places that I'm already working with already. I think there's a lot of opportunity to to evaluate the the success and or lack of success. And once we do, I think then there's a there's a message here, but at this point, it's really collaboration, whether it's publishing or not

Host  36:35  
so and your focus really is enhancing the readiness of check for change. That's like a real focus for you in the red Mr. Jr, and the goal being very simply put, the goal would be impact both student success and institutional improvement.

Carey Dukes  36:48  
If we don't do those two things, what are we? What we missed the mark? Both of those are the outcome. I my, my theory is that we will reduce retention and increase we will. We will reduce retention and increase institutional effectiveness by implementing a readiness to change for the academic freshman. Yeah, brilliant, excellent.

Host  37:07  
I think we could talk all day, so unless our listeners have a very long, hard journey, well, we'll wrap it for today, and we'll we'll leave something on the table to talk about next time. Carey, absolute pleasure talking to you today, thank you for taking the time. Thank you so much rushing home when your internet dropped out at the institution. To our viewers and listeners, thank you again for tuning in to today's filling seats podcast. It's been a great one for more great content, please visit our website, www studentbridge.com, where you'll find all kinds of great resources, from podcasts, white papers, maybe some webinars, all kinds of great stuff from different guests as well. Please subscribe if you don't miss anything. And on that note, Carey, have a great day. Please stay safe in the upcoming storm. And to our readers and listeners the same thing, not readers, listeners and viewers, please stay safe and see you on the next one. Thanks.

Speaker 1  37:58  
This is the filling seeds 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 guests, 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/podcast.