Standing Apart
The proliferation of on-line instruction has ratcheted up a competitive element across a region already blessed with quality programs, school executives say, and is a big reason for addition of specializations that help set one school apart from another. Other ways of building in differentiation are with tuition levels, deepening the bench of distinguished faculty, and, in some cases, with a well-attenuated sense of self-promotion, giving credit where it’s due with effective marketing efforts.
“Some of this is intentional, some is just a byproduct of our success,” said Columbia’s Wiegenstein. “For example, we were listed on GetEducated.com as a best buy, and on the listings of military-friendly schools. While I wouldn’t call that marketing, what it has is the byproduct: When somebody in the military is looking for a school that suits their needs, we’re more likely now to pop to the top of their search engine.”
Effective outreach also helps, said Smith. “I can tell you that, personally, every eight weeks, I send out mass e-mails to students enrolled in our capstone class, to tell them about the standardized test they have to take” and inform them of the possibilities of securing a waiver if they live more than an hour from one of Columbia’s 35 campuses. “I get e-mails literally from all over the world: Sailors in Okinawa, soldiers in Kandahar, Air Force personnel. We have, literally, a global reach.” And that kind of connectivity, Smith said, helps set a program apart.
Donnelly noted a defining characteristic of the Bloch School’s programming, with its intense focus on entrepreneurship. “We have distinguished ourselves as internationally prominent in the field of entrepreneurship and innovation,” which runs throughout all of our programs,” he said. Joan Gallos, who oversees the school’s EMBA track, echoed that: “We emphasize developing an entrepreneurial mindset—ways to be more creative and innovative in all you do.” That trait, in fact, is what drew Spenner to the program when she was exploring her options. “The entrepreneurship and innovation sequences that the Bloch EMBA provided, that’s something not provided by other programs in the area at that level,” she said.
Falvey cited quality faculty as a difference-maker. Baker, he said, is defined in part by “Distinguished faculty who are both scholar-practitioners, in that they have both met the educational requirements to teach at the MBA level, and have the practical experience in their fields of study at a leadership level to provide positive role models for our MBA students.”
And even with the two new programming tracks, Baker continues to pursue ways to expand areas of concentration beyond the basic MBA. By doing that, he said, “we believe that we are continuing to meet the ever-changing needs of our MBA students, their employers, and the communities Baker University serves.”
Cost Considerations
As much as any marketplace demand or global factor driving program direction now, Wessel said, cost containment is becoming paramount. Institutions that can address affordability concerns and still produce a high-value degree will strengthen their competitive position, he said.
“I don’t know the full history here at Ottawa, but in almost two years here, I’ve seen almost no tuition increase,” he said. “Those two years combined, it might be up 5 percent. One of our emphases is to make sure programs are affordable; we understand that the tuition bubble has probably burst, and it’s really time to start managing tuition costs in the other direction. Maybe not down, necessarily, but very, very flat.”
A welcome development on the cost side has been the return of tuition assistance dollars, something that went away at many businesses during the Great Belt-Tightening of 2008–11.
“Tuition assistance from employers is slow to return, but as the economy is improving, companies are beginning to give this benefit back to their employees,” said Park’s Koudou. “We also have tuition-reduction plan for our military students and graduate-assistant stipends are available for a few qualified students.”
Falvey said any cost considerations begin with understanding students’ individual situations—a one-size-fits-all approach to tuition structuring won’t work. “We realize the difficulties many families and individuals are going through during these difficult financial times,” he said. For that reason, affordable fees have helped Baker University maintain its competitive position, but, again, he says the cost also has to be weighed against the quality of the educational experience students receive. And, like Koudou, he welcomes the general economic improvement.
“Several greater Kansas City-area companies have reinstated tuition assistance programs again,” Falvey said. He also cited the range of funding options Baker has for students and its tuition discounts for those in the military.
Combating costs, said Columbia’s Smith, is a never-ending proposition.
“We keep on keeping on,” he said. “We are very competitive cost-wise. One of the attractive things for us is that we make the military happy, because lower costs mean less tuition assistance they have to provide. And it makes the civilians happy because when they shop around, they find a quality program they can get for a reasonable tuition, and we’re certainly in the bottom half of tuition for private college for our graduate programs.”