ENROLLMENT MARKETING IN THE PANDEMIC

When a prospective student asks ChatGPT about the best nursing program or whether an MBA is worth it, something happens in milliseconds that most enrollment marketers have never had to think about before. The system doesn't search a database. It doesn't return a ranked list of websites. Instead, it synthesizes information from dozens of sources, weighs those signals against patterns learned from billions of data points, and assembles an answer that feels authoritative, specific, and complete.

Enrollment marketers are navigating a very different landscape than they were just a few years ago. Student expectations are changing. Competition is increasing. And AI is transforming how prospective students research colleges, universities, and workforce education opportunities. These shifts aren't coming. They're already here.

For years, enrollment marketers focused on helping prospective students find their institution. Today, AI is changing how students discover it.

For years, enrollment marketing followed a familiar path. Prospective students searched Google, clicked through to institutional websites, compared programs, and eventually submitted an inquiry or application. Most marketing strategies were built around this journey. That journey still exists. It just doesn't start where it used to.