Higher Ed Reimagined: Data, Trust, and Student Connection

[0:17]  We are back on the Heart and Hustle Podcast, and this time with Nathan and Teege. And I told myself that I gotta get ready because the first time I met these guys, they came with all the energy. But also I didn't know what was true and what was not. So today we're gonna find out a little bit of what is true and what is not. I'll let Nathan, since he was late today actually to the recording, Nathan, tell us your your role, man, and what organization you got to represent in today.

[0:39]  Yeah, thanks for having us. I'm vice president for enrollment and dean of admission at Knox College, which is a small private liberal arts college here in Galesburg, Illinois. so really excited to be joining you today.

[0:45]  Yeah. Well, I just have to say, Knox College is not just a small liberal arts college. It is one of the best small liberal arts colleges in the country. So Nathan is underselling it a little bit. It is genuinely one of my favorites. Ifrain, my name is Tiege for your for your audience. I am an owner and college planner of Class 101. It is an independent consulting platform, college guidance, support, ACT prep, etc. And with Nathan, co-host of the Admissions Directors launchcast. So that's what brings us here.

[0:52]  Love it. And T man. What's your role? What are you guys talking about on your podcast?

[1:21]  Yeah, you know, we are talking about things most less most people would not want to tune into, right? Like our audience is incredibly niche. I don't think there's gonna be much crossover, but it is meant for admissions directors and then people one degree removed on either way of the org chart from that. So aspiring admissions directors, passing on retail admissions directors, et cetera. So we're talking about admissions strategy, theories, concepts, et cetera. Not from the family's pers perspective of how to get in. But from the admissions office's perspective about how to engage and work with families.

[1:54]  How does collaboration come together? You just find him one day and decide you want to help him, or how did this happen?

[2:01]  Go ahead, Nathan. I'll correct.

[2:02]  I found I found him. I found him. He stumbled into the admissions office at Lawrence University asking for a job almost twenty years ago. But yeah, and we've been friends ever since.

[2:02]  Ha ha ha.

[2:02]  Mm-hmm.

[2:02]  man.

[2:12]  Yeah, we've been friends since we worked together. and then just actually just, you know, as we moved on into different areas in within the admissions and the enrollment management world, decided that, you know, you kind of need help when you're in in these positions, when you're in these leadership positions, it can be very lonely. And so we just needed to collaborate with each other, kind of bounce ideas off of each other. And then it was COVID, right? And then it was the pandemic and you couldn't go to a conference and you couldn't talk to other people in person.

[2:27]  Mm-hmm.

[2:42]  So we said, why don't we just keep taking this conversation to a podcast, which is why a lot of people do podcasts, right? I mean, they said we should just record our conversations and and we had this idea of kind of bringing both sides of the desk in. That's a frame or a phrase that happens quite a bit and is used quite a bit in our profession of like, as you're serving students, like what side of the desk are you on? Are you on the school counseling side or are you on the admissions counseling side? So we felt by bringing both those perspectives to one issue in each of the episodes really provided

[2:56]  Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[3:10]  You the kind of what was missing during the pandemic of like being able to talk about these issues. And so that's where we that's where we came together. And then I mean, at the time we were both on campuses, right, Teach? I mean, you were on a college campus. I was on a college campus down in Louisiana. and then since then, Teege, I don't think on purpose because of the podcast, has kind of gone to that other side of the desk working with families directly. So it really provides a good framework and context for for our podcast.

[3:24]  Yeah. And y Lord, close enough, close enough. he had been badgering me to start a podcast for a while and I kept refusing with every excuse imaginable, right? I don't have the equipment, I don't have the time, I don't know how, I'm not good at this. And then during COVID, as a joke, I started a very unprofessional podcast about a nineteen nineties soap opera called Melrose Place. And I just made passing reference to that, and then he he called me out on all my excuses.

[3:38]  Did you get a right teach?

[3:40]  No

[3:53]  Call suck a good deal.

[4:06]  We're gone and I I couldn't come up with an excuse to not do it. So here we are. It's been it's been a blast. We've met so many really cool people, really different perspectives in the profession, that we otherwise wouldn't have. And I I think it's expanded both of our networks. Hopefully our listeners like it. and you know, we we have a lot of fun with it as well. So

[4:23]  Yeah. I'm gonna ha I'm gonna put you guys in a a space where you guys gotta be nice to each other. I know this is probably difficult, you know what I mean? But Tiege, I mean, you d don't work with anybody. What is some of the leadership qualities that Nathan really brings to the table that really just made you wanna work with someone like Nathan?

[4:41]  yeah. Yeah. persistence. But also I think one of the things I really appreciate and value about Nathan's leadership with his team is he's always very I I didn't think I was gonna have to be be glazing Nathan today, but here we are. He's always I I was thinking someone's gonna need Yeah. I was someone might need to define it Nathan, but he does have two Gen Z kids, so I think he knows it.

[4:56]  I love that you said glazing, because not everyone knows that glazing terminology. Yes!

[5:00]  I'm here for it. I'm here for it. yeah, I know that word.

[5:10]  he is always very focused on the needs and experiences of his team in a way that I I appreciate and and respect a lot. So in private conversation, obviously he does it in public conversations, of course you have to, but even in private conversations, he's talking about the members of his staff, the members of his team, what they need, what he can provide them, how he can help them, the experiences they need. and I appreciate that.

[5:34]  Yeah. And Nathan, do you have anything nice to say on what leadership qualities Teach brings to the table that you appreciate?

[5:38]  There we're timely done on this, Nathan. You can't get you can't list them all.

[5:42]  Yeah. That's what it is. He has too many to talk about, God.

[6:28]  That's it.

[6:54]  Too many. Yeah. No, Teach has an an insane ability to be able to blend the art and the science. Well, we talk about in admissions is art and the science where you have you know, all the data. Our industry is very data driven. We look at numbers all the time. We're constantly looking at spreadsheets and dashboards and all the things. but being able to understand also the psychology behind all this, the psychology about how families think about things. the psychology and partly your background and and and his yeah I would say his degree is in all that. but just being able to kind of pull that all together and say like, okay, how are families actually thinking about this? What are the issues that are actually facing the families and the entire family? And I think that's what's made him really good at what he's doing right now. as opposed to a lot of the work that I do it is is administrative. When you get to this type of position, you're interacting with board members, you're interacting with you know, other senior members on campus, and you kind of lose sight of the work sometimes. And so I find it really, really fascinating and refreshing that Tiege has gone back to working with families directly, which is where we all kind of started in this profession. We all were admissions counselors at one point. We were all managing territories, all working with students and families throughout the day. but it's been really, really cool to watch that journey happen for Tiege. And he's really good at it because he can relate to them and understand exactly what they're thinking. And how to get them from point A to point B. but understanding that the journey is a big part of it. so that's really cool to watch.

[7:20]  You mentioned data. I love the conversation. I think sometimes higher ed may not utilize their data the way they should be. so when we talk about data, how are we using that to communicate and curate an experience? As you mentioned, parents now being more involved than ever. re retention, like when we understand that data and we allow it to talk to each other, is that where teach? Is that where your expertise lies? And how are you getting the word out? Or is it email nowadays? Are we talking about SMS? Like what does that all look like?

[7:40]  Not your own ridiculous it should be. Yeah, you know, I don't you know, I think we can always use data better. That's probably a universal truth out there generally. But I think, at least from my experience, the the error I made when utilizing data was always looking at a massive data set that we had on students, every email click, every website visit, et cetera, we've got it all. And looking for systemic ways to utilize that, right? Like how can I take this information on one thousand students and come up with the best email campaign for that group? I think the better way to use it and and some of the AI tools are really helping us get there is to use that data and not I not from the system wide perspective, but on an individual student perspective. What does the data tell us about where this student's at and what does she need? What is the conversation they need to have that they don't even know that they need to have yet? And I think with machine learning engines and with the AI tools available to colleges, they can utilize that data to help individual students. And I think that's the correct way to utilize the the data. And I I w I certainly was not doing enough of it when I was on a college campus.

[8:00]  Love it. And w what do you got to to that, Nathan?

[8:20]  Yeah, I was gonna say it's overwhelming when you're sitting in my position though. Cause you're constantly feeling like you're behind the technology because that's what higher ed usually is.

[8:40]  Mm-hmm.

[9:01]  That being said, on a college campus, the admissions office is always at the front edge of the technology, similar to how the sales department or the sales or is at the front of the organization. with you know, what are the what are the customers saying? What is the what are the product developments that they're seeing out in the field from some of your competitors? so we're trying to understand all of that while also understanding how Gen Z and then Gen Alpha right behind them are interacting and what their expectations are. And I think right now they're They're just, it's kind of a level set there, or table stakes is probably a better way to say it. That like they know that we're tracking everything that they're doing. They know that if they click on an email, that we're seeing that on the back end, and that they think then we're gonna take an action and deliver them an ad or we're gonna do something because they did that one behavior or they took that one action. In reality, very few of us at like especially small colleges, maybe some big institutions. The small colleges are not doing that. We don't have the technology. We don't have the budget and the resources to be able to be that sophisticated. And so it almost feels like, well, you you say that you want us to engage with you, and now we are engaging with you, and then you're not doing anything about it. So then you lose a little bit of trust with the with the student, and then you're missing that opportunity. So we're in this really weird point of of. or weird chapter, I would say, right now, of how this is all working. and we are desperately trying to keep up on our side of it. And we're really probably leaning, majority of us are leaning on outside vendors and partners to make sure at least at the top of the funnel. So when a student has a perspective or an inquiry, basically all the way down to when they're applying to the specific school, that the the partner or the company is dealing with that at that point, because we don't have the scope.

[9:01]  Okay.

[10:52]  I mean we don't have the resources here or the infrastructure to be able to do it at that level.

[10:59]  Yeah. You gotta find what your strengths are, right? And delegate those weaknesses sometimes. so you have someone like Teege though that looks like he's real being very helpful. Teege, what other things are you seeing that maybe most schools are not doing that you're really working with Nathan to make sure that they're they are doing?

[11:06]  Mm-hmm.

[11:14]  Yeah, I think it is what I think most schools are doing that that is one degree off center of where they should be is there's this drive to just keep increasing the applicant pool because if you get more applicants, you'll get more students, et cetera. but i and and so they're communicating with students as a block, as a group, instead of leveraging the unique abilities of an admissions counselor. I I do a presentation about the work only an admissions counselor can do and it's one to one, it's individual. And I think both admissions counselors and the leadership on college campuses kind of veer away from that because the ROI on that time spent is much harder to track, much harder to identify and not as as significant as increase the applicant pool 10%. and so I think that's where where colleges are kind of missing a little bit right now, missing some opportunity, leaving some enrollment potential on the table from the margins because they're focused on the the massive blob of applicants.

[11:43]  Mm-hmm. Do you think that the way that we communicate is different as well? I know we talked about emails. Is it that people, you know, I my co-host says this marketing teams really messed up emails, marketing, right? Because now it's just kind of you now have our own email just for spam that no one's really taking a look at. Are we finding other ways to communicate with them? I know we talked about communication. Is that also the struggle is meeting them and where they're at?

[12:13]  Yes, I did. You just cueed up the biggest fight Nathan and I have every season. Every single season. Go ahead, Nathan. State your incorrect opinion and then I'll correct it.

[12:43]  he got incorrect. I love inter that what there you go, there you go. Tell me.

[12:47]  I have two different opinions. Like so VP of enrollment, Nathan, has one opinion. You know, just Nathan, the dad of a college student, has another opinion, right? And VP for enrollment opinion is that what else are we going to use? Right. So what other piece of what other technology can we use that doesn't seem lame, that we're not gonna then completely swarm and the students are gonna be like, shoot, now you've entered my text messages. I don't want you in my text messages. Text messages are are just for my friends. Or Now you've entered my insta feed. I don't want you in my insta feed. I wasn't ready to do that, right? I wasn't ready to take that, take that on. So I think we've started to find some technology or some pieces of technology that work. you know, we've worked with this company at Knox. I've worked with them at Loyola. That I think we've had people I'm on the podcast with this cut this product called ZMe, which is basically a social media app, but it's just for the college search.

[13:21]  Do that.

[13:21]  Ha ha ha.

[13:21]  Mm.

[13:44]  So, like students can enter in, create a profile, and then be involved, or I guess enter into different streams for different schools that they're looking at and still engage in a social way on an app. and they don't have to join every last one of the Instagram pages for every school that they're looking at. So students are purposefully entering into that and saying, Yes, I want to be a part of it. Yes, I want to find information because it's not like. There's an admin for every school that's in there that is making sure that everything, everybody stays on their best behavior, but the colleges aren't curating the content for the most part. Like it's really more like a probably an Instagram combined with Reddit all at the same time. And so that's probably the best way. But email really, especially for parents, is still getting opened. They're still responding to it. And this is where we start to have the argument on the podcast is that if I don't email them, if I don't hit their inbox at least a couple of times a month, then they're gonna think we don't want them. Then they're gonna think, why am I not getting contacted by Knox College? I'm getting contacted by all these other schools. And so Knox College clearly doesn't want me. And so what we've seen lately, and I know I'm going on about this a little bit, but you you kind of hit the third rail here, you push the button. in that they're treating the inbox

[13:44]  Yeah.

[13:44]  Mm.

[15:07]  like a social media feed. So if you look, I'll even use my son who's a rising college freshman. You look at his inbox right now, there is two or three thousand new messages in there. But if I asked him what email did Knox College send last week, he could tell you. Because he's watching it. He's not interacting with it. He's not deleting it. He's just watching it scroll through like you would on TikTok, like you would on Instagram. So there it's funny how like email almost swung back. And so they're viewing it, but they're not treating email like I do for work or like you do you're doing for the podcast, right? Like they're really kind of treating as it goes through. So we keep sending emails because if we don't, then they're gonna be like, well, I know nothing about Knox College and I shouldn't apply there. Teach, go.

[15:32]  Mm. All right. Real quick, Tij, real quick. I would say I'm thirty-six years old. I d if I had a preference, I'm doing SMS all day. I still have board members that email me, like he's texting me and I'm like, but he's a little older, you know? So it's like, sir, why don't you just text me? Because in reality we can get this done faster through text message. Sometimes I read a text message and forget to respond, but because we don't open up our emails unless we see notification of something that we care about.

[15:57]  Yeah. No exactly. Okay. Yeah.

[16:22]  so that's just where I'm at on it, you know, just a millennial here talking. But T, go ahead.

[16:26]  Well millennial here too. Me and Nathan are in widely different generations, right? Because I'm I'm just by by eight months on the bro on the right side of the millennial. but the I have no objection to the email right. You gotta do it. And like if your absence stands out, but it's not particularly eff effective, right? Like I think the people opening your email are wanting to open your email. Where Nathan and I argue every year is the effectiveness of phone calls. And I think there's nothing more effective at moving a student and helping them find the match with your institution.

[16:28]  HORIT!

[16:57]  Than a genuine live back and forth dialogue and conversation. And I don't really feel weird if it's by text message instead of phone call, but it it is that one-to-one conversation, not where the admissions office is sending a blast email, right? The the blast emails are good at identifying who's opening them, but then someone has to follow up with the interested students and really zero in on like, when you say you want a small college, do you mean do you mean are kind of small or

[16:57]  Mm.

[17:23]  Do you mean, you know, Bloomington small, right? Like do you mean tiny small or do you mean 2000 small? And being able to have that back and forth conversation is the most effective thing we can do. It's also the hardest to track, the hardest to prove, the hardest to validate. And this is the real reason I think it it doesn't carry as much weight in the admissions world. it's the hardest for vendors to monetize. so we we have all these other different cool tools and dashboards and tracking mechanisms for open rates and podcast or I'm sorry, postcard delivery, et cetera. but at the end of the day, nothing's more effective than talking to a student. The pushback we get from admissions counselors is they will say some version of an e-frame, you might be thinking of it yourself. Nobody wants to talk on the phone anymore, which is partially true. But the the real question I I came to in my in my last job working with a Ned Tech company is does that student not want to talk to anyone on the phone or do they not want to talk to you? Because that's telling you something, right? Like students will talk to the colleges that they're like really zeroed in on. They just don't want random calls out of.

[17:54]  Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I also think it's sometimes, as you mentioned, is it talking to you as in being able to break the ice, right? being able to just kind of really meet them at where they're at. And a lot of it is data. We kind of go back to the data. If you understand a little bit about them, when you get on this conversation, you get to really talk to them and kind of break that ice faster versus just kind of speaking to another adult, because in high school we spoken to nothing but adults that told us about where we should be going and how we should be here and all this other stuff. So are you talking with them or at them?

[18:25]  Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[18:56]  So think that's also kind of w what we're we're talking about from the marketing perspective, calling perspective. But I think it's you are right. All of it is correct. We I think we still have to do a little bit of all of them. as long as we're not sending postcards. Are you guys sending postcards too? Is that what you guys do?

[19:03]  Right. So many postcards. You would not believe the postcards. I I'm collecting my my son's a rising senior right now. he's only got one thing from Nathan, by the way. Only one thing from Nathan. And it could be 'cause I texted him and said I don't like this. So I think he

[19:10]  Hundred so many postcards.

[19:25]  I Go ahead, Nathan.

[19:41]  We're well saying we're sending a lot of postcards because the family's seeing the postcards. That's that's pretty much why we're doing it, is that mom and dad will see it because unless they unless it's a school, which not it amazes me that like very few schools copy the parents on the emails that they're sending. They send it directly to the student, which I think is a miss. but then they're the family's not really seen anything, but they will see a a postcard that comes in the mail and the and it's usually pretty colorful. Some of them all look like the other ones, especially at this point in the funnel. But you get closer, right? And you get it throughout the year. The ones that TJ's son will be getting are probably a little bit more specific. But again, that's one of the very few ways that we can communicate with the family.

[19:57]  Well and the the the other thing, one of the things that the challenges that happen on a college campus, I you know, I I have this all the time, is if you're not recruiting in a way that is visible to the campus community, the faculty, the staff, the board, then you get you like you will get dragged about. Why aren't you recruiting my student? She's not interested in the college, but why aren't you recruiting her anyway, right? Like why aren't you sending postcards? So some of what we have to do on the college end is really just appeasing people that

[20:13]  So good.

[20:25]  They wanna see the postcard in their mailbox.

[20:38]  Yeah, yeah. Nathan, you said you have someone in college, a son in college, right? Two kids in college. What was your experience, man? or or maybe they ended up just going where dad was at, but did you also visit college campuses? What was that like? What what were you seeing out there that you felt like was good and maybe was also bad?

[20:51]  Two sons in college, actually, yeah. We did. It was we saw a lot. and it's really hard when you're the professional to just like hang back at the back of the pack and be and be just the dad. and so but it's really fascinating to see how much on a college campus the tour guide can make or break your entire recruitment cycle. I mean, you I I I push it here, we train our ambassadors here quite a bit.

[20:51]  Mm.

[21:34]  But we could be spending all this money and all the emails and the text messages and occasionally a phone call if you're d you know working for TEG. but to get this student to campus, because that's one of the things that we push, you know, even before bit even before applying or whatever else. And then if a tour guide has a bad day because they just got a bad grade in a class and came over to work a shift or it's raining or things you can't necessarily control all the way down to the minutiae, if they're not on their game. Then that family has a bad experience and that's it. Because what I've always said is families are looking for reasons to cross you off the list, not put you on the list, right? So they always they have a really long list and they have a lot of great options, but they're looking for any last little thing that will cross it off. And it could be anything from the tour guide having a bad day to they won't let you have a microwave in your dorm room, or, you know, that elevator doesn't quite work, or that elevator was too slow. And they're

[21:35]  Yeah,

[22:33]  They're crossing you off the list. So it was fascinating to see that from the family perspective. Also fascinating to see once you kind of get into the cycle and you get close to making a decision. And then at this time of year, when you're onboarding a student, right? Like students already made a commitment, trying to get all your forms in, having an advising appointment, doing stuff throughout the summer as they get to enter into the fall. all the communications that come out of the admissions office or the campus need to be very clear and you need to set expectations.

[22:33]  Well.

[23:04]  That does not happen. All of them are in jargon and campus speak and kind of make you like feel like you have to understand every part of the know and the inside and understand how a campus talks to be able to do that. So we work really hard here at Knox to make sure that it's clear and concise, reminding them, involving the parents, because the parents are the ones, you know, that are making sure that we're hitting all the deadlines, submitting all the right forms. But when you see it from a parent perspective, you're like, anything you can give us that actually makes sense makes such a big difference. And so I make sure that that I translate that back to the staff here and how we treat our students.

[23:40]  Yeah. Love it. And T, do you're going through that experience now?

[23:40]  Going through I I've been touring colleges with Logan and some nieces and nephews every other year since twenty nineteen. so he's he's kind of his first college visit was at nine years old, where he loved Westminster University because of the ice cream and the video game club. That was that was the extent of it then. out in Utah, right? Yeah. So it's to me it's interesting the way the weird things that students will latch on to. because I've done I've done these visits with my son, but always with two cousin two of his cousins with him.

[23:41]  That's for sold them, huh?

[23:41]  sometimes they latch on to the football team. I I saw you know, in the in our business, we always joke about colleges that do the lazy river and the rock climbing wall. That that's not the mission. That's not why you exist. but I saw North Dakota State University like rock it up to my nephew's top of his list where it stands to this day when he saw the indoor fire pit in their pool, their lay with the lazy river going around it. And he could see himself hanging out there. And now he's not Nathan, you wouldn't like him. He's not an academically gifted student, right? He's not going to like wonder about the world. He's not a liberal arts kid. so maybe it's better that way. But to me it was it was interesting what they what they latched on to. And some of the features, you know, my niece last year loved Loris College in Dubuque, Iowa. she but when I asked her why, she couldn't give me anything about Loris that wasn't true about other colleges. But there was just something. So what I find, I think students before they even get out of the car

[23:42]  Yeah.

[25:10]  know whether or not they're gonna like the visit. they they just cannot turn around. Their parents will not turn around if the the kids are like, Never mind, I don't think I need to see it So they they go through with the visit anyway.

[25:49]  Well, I have I've only done like one college tour and we actually took some kids and I was really impressed. I went to FSU, which is a hell of a school. and I went to Fam U. And just to be on these colleges in realizing so many different they're different. They completely are. Fam U and FSU are completely two different schools. The environment's different, the energy in those places are different. I was able to go to two different football games and realize how they were also both very different. Of course, FSU having that bigger stadium. But it's always interesting because it is all about an experience. It is about the how we curate that from, as you mentioned, from them just wanting information to applying to being on campus. I'm really when you talk about admissions taking in a lot of these inquiries, I can only imagine emails, calls. Is that like they're doing this 247? I can't imagine that you guys are answering all these calls, right? Like how many people are actually part of the team? So even parents understand. We may not be getting to you back in twenty four, forty hours, but we also have these many applicants with these many people actually doing the work. How many people are doing the work?

[26:28]  A whole lot of people are doing the work. and I would say that again, you know, the way that the industry has shifted, we're not we're not fielding phone calls. I mean, much to T just sh chagrin. but we're really fielding emails or like I said, students are are taking action, clicking on an ad. You know, that's how they're basically filling out an inquiry form. It's what you know they used to do 10 years ago. Now it's really shifted too because the application processes has become so easy with things like the common application.

[26:43]  Mm. Got it.

[26:58]  you know, score a coalition app, things like that, where they can just go through and c and fill out one application, check that they want it to go to 10 schools, upload one transcript, and then it goes for the most part. So we've really lately in the last couple of years really shifted our focus to be like, okay, an application is almost like an inquiry form to some extent, because that's the point that the student says, All right, I've taken 50 options and called it down to 10 or 12 options. But these are the ones that I'm serious about that I might be able to like see myself at. So then how are our how are we recruiting them from that point? And that's where in like what Tija was talking about earlier, that's where the admission staff is really coming in to make sure that they can yield them at that point. Whereas when Tej and I were in the business, you know, 10, 15 years ago, kind of, you know, back in the, you know, two thousand, somewhere in there. Like if a student applied, like they only applied to probably about five schools at that point. So there was a really good chance that they were really, really serious and that you'd already had a relationship with them up to the point of application. Now there's so many stealth applications, so many students you've never even heard of are putting an application that it's just shifted everything higher up the traditional funnel, as we call it. you know, to to go through that process. Not unlike sales or whatever else. I mean.

[26:58]  Mm.

[26:58]  Yeah.

[28:19]  I I recently just bought a new to me used vehicle. And I knew everything about that pickup truck before I even reached out to the dealer. The dealer was three hours away in Iowa. I'd found this truck that I really wanted. At that point, then that's when I engaged. But in my mind, I already knew that I probably was gonna buy it at that point. But I did not engage with them way up, like, hey, I'm just sort of looking for a truck. Can you help me out? Right. So like you have to think about.

[28:33]  No reason. Yeah.

[28:47]  This really is a purchasing process for these families, but mixed in with what are we gonna do for the next four years? How is that gonna shape my future? And how is that gonna impact my family and my and basically generations to come, especially for low-income first generation students? So it's kind of mixed all together, which can make it very, very complicated for an admissions counselor who's just trying to go through their inbox, just trying to like work through their territory. and understand how to get information and get students to to engage with them. It's a really difficult job when you break it down.

[29:01]  How big is Knox? And not in Knoxville, like peop like let people know we're not in Knoxville, because that's what I thought when I first talked to you. But how many students are in Knox? Like, what is a graduating class that just happened?

[29:15]  Mm-hmm.

[29:30]  Right. Yeah, we are a small school. We hover right around a thousand students. So I think we're gonna have eleven hundred students total. we are undergraduate only. and so we're here in Galesburg, Illinois. And at Knox at its height, the largest it's ever been was only fourteen hundred students. So it is a very small school graduating a couple hundred students every year. and so the experience that we're trying to To basically tell the prospective students about is that we want to be very personal with you. We want to help shape you. We have a really close community here. That's really hard to convey that when you're looking at 3,500 admitted students that you're trying to work through with, you know, six to seven to eight admissions counselors dividing that all up. So, whereas 10, 15 years ago here, we didn't have that many applications, but we had about the same number of admissions counselors. So it just kind of takes away from how many conversations or how much outreach or how much counseling an admissions counselor can have with these students when you talk about these volumes. And that's why we're leaning into tools, you know, a tool similar to what Teege when you were at this ed tech company, right, Teach. And it was a it was a machine learning based AI tool that helped the admissions counselor sort through their admitted students, not the top of the funnel. But the admitted students, like these are actually been admitted to this institution. How do you sort through those students? How do you know which ones to reach out to, which ones have taken behavioral actions that you can say, like, okay, they really want to be engaged, as opposed to, yeah, they checked out three months ago because they took you off the list, but they didn't tell us, of course. So we have no idea. So that's where we're trying to use some of these tools to make sure that we can get to the right student.

[30:29]  Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. I love it, man. I love where you guys are heading. Tej, as we start wrap up, man, if you could resolve an issue in the next three years in higher ed, what is that issue you're resolving?

[31:29]  it would be the price of college. The the way college is priced is I think very problematic and and damages the trust of the American public. It harms the federal and state investments into higher education. in short, and there's any number of good reasons why it it ended up this way that we started doing it and continue to do it. but the the sticker price of colleges is scaring a a majority of families off from applying to college. It is scaring a good chunk of students out of college entirely, and that's I think real harm being done to real students. And that is what I would find a way to fix. I do not have the fix. I do not have the fix. So I I I can't say like just do this. but that if I if I could, that's what I would.

[31:49]  Not yet. Love And Nathan, how about you?

[32:09]  Go the same thing. I I really do. but I'm again on the other side, I'm in the rat race right now. Like I'm I would love to reset our tuition and bring it down to like an actual transparent price of like this is how much it actually costs. But at the same time, we have to make sure that we're keeping up with our competitors, that we're putting ourselves in the same, you know, bucket or the same price range as these other institutions, because we are the same type of institution. We're similar. because as soon as you put something like that far on dis onto sale, then You know, the families as well that there's something's wrong with that. Like, why is that right? So I think we we are just on this, and we've been on it, I'll be honest, both of our careers, our entire career, if we've been on this arms race. I started in admissions in 2001. Right. And so it really has been this whole time where the price keeps good sticker price keeps going up, but the discounting keeps going up. Like the coupon or the scholarship just keeps getting bigger and bigger. So if there's a way that we can figure that out, that would be wonderful.

[33:48]  Yeah. Yeah.

[34:06]  but I don't see a way without some type of involvement from the federal government on basically fixing the price for that to happen because it's we're in a capitalist society and it's all about who can who can do better, if that makes sense.

[34:25]  So crazy you said that. I've lost opportunities because I my price was too low, right? Like come 'cause you look like a liability. You look like you may not know what you're doing. And it's as much as you mentioned universities wanting to change or colleges wanting to go down in price, you can't because you look exactly like that. Like, are you of quality? Are you even good enough? Like it is just crazy where the mindset's at. But yes, kind of the world that we live in. But I I I I do agree. Sometimes people do get scared. they see that that price of a college, but I think the ROI is also something that we c we could really talk about, right? It's like really what it's helping for others is setting the standard for a family. There's families that have never went to college, but because one have continued and and graduated from college, that is the standard. Now mom is also looking like I've I love the stories of a child that went to college, showed mom or dad that it was possible and that mom now has a master's degree because they've seen their child do it. or mom that went to school and now their whole family went to school, all her kids. So I think definitely in a unique space and and love that you guys are still in it. You know, 2000 and and you mentioned 2001 was a start, or you're still in it. You know, it shows that passion and purpose and understanding that it's not about just us in general, but about how do we fertilize the future and educate others to make the right decision around this. So Nathan, where could people find more information about the school, maybe about the podcast? If you can kind of give some of those socials and websites so people can continue to stay tapped in wherever they're watching or listening.

[34:43]  Yep. Two thousand and one. Yep. Yeah, I mean we're pretty straightforward. Nox.edu is the website. but you can find us on everything from TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, if you know, we have old people watching the podcast. but everything that you can everywhere you can find us, I would highly recommend you follow us. Same thing. we any of the w any of the places you can get your podcast, it it's called the Admissions Directors Lunchcast. and you just look or you look up our names and we're there. And it's really hard to believe what season is coming up, Teach, this fall.

[35:02]  Twelve. Twelve. Yeah. Someone some yeah, well, someone asked me yesterday, Nathan, about the future of the podcast. And I said, here's what happens at the end of every season. I say to Nathan, never again, I'm done. I'm not doing this. No more. And then he just it to his different like in to his credit, he doesn't argue. He just waits a month and then all of a sudden I start texting some crazy ideas for the next season. So Yeah, it's hard to

[35:21]  Season twelve. It's just hard to believe.

[35:32]  Wow. When you guys have them fun. So it's you T, it's you keeping alive, huh?

[35:44]  No, Nathan's ju Nathan's just like, okay, he just lets me rant a little bit and take some time off and then come back for the next round.

[35:56]  He knows you well. He knows you just need a little bit of time. T, send home, man. You you've been in this space. There's leaders out there in this space of higher ed that sometimes forget the why, needing some advice in a times where we talked about a little bit about government funding. It's it's taking a toll right now. And so many people are just kind of scared of their jobs or trying to figure out what do we do next for retention to, you know, communicate, all these other good things. Some words of encouragement to those individuals listening.

[36:09]  Ha ha. Yeah, you know, and this is what I wrote my first book about, the admissions counselor malaise of essentially get back to the reason you got into this work. It was not this is always a laugh line when I do a presentation. I was like, raise your hand if the reason you were excited when you got your job was to marginally impact the net tuition revenue of a private Midwestern institution. No but like that's not why any of us are here, even though that becomes the job, right? It is to make a difference in the lives of students. And I I al my answer to to what you were just saying is who whoever's in that situation, whatever role

[36:23]  Yeah. Absolutely.

[36:51]  you play on campus in school or whatever work you do, get back, find opportunities to like touch back to that. Even if they're they're they're hit or miss here and there, not as frequent as you would like, that's what'll keep you keep you moving forward.

[37:07]  I love it. Well, Nathan and T I appreciate your time. We had fun. We laughed together. We learned together. you educated me in a lot of different ways as well. And hope the people that are listening is whether you're listening, you're watching, wherever that may look like, that you also just continue to tap in, not to what just what they're saying today, but even their podcast, where you can really learn more about what you said, more about nothing. Is that what is what it is? I'm just joking guys. I appreciate it. Make sure you guys check out T and Nathan. Had to give them a hard time 'cause they gave me a hard time the first time I met these gentlemen. Make sure you connect. I'm Efrain. This is T and Nathan. We'll catch you on the next one. Later.