Why Enrollment Strategy Needs to Be Built for Unpredictability
If you’ve worked in enrollment for more than a decade, you’ve probably seen a lot, soaring growth years, sudden slumps, and moments when everything you thought you could predict simply… broke.
Jay, a veteran enrollment leader, calls these moments the “hurricanes and torpedoes” of higher ed, unpredictable, high-impact events that force schools to shift strategy fast, or risk capsizing entirely.
And if you’re feeling like these shocks are coming faster and harder than ever before, you’re not wrong.
Let’s look at the major external shocks that have redefined higher education enrollment challenges, and why today’s enrollment teams need to prepare not just for forecasts, but for full-on storms.
The Hurricanes That Shaped Enrollment Strategy
Over the last 25 years, four events stand out as watershed moments that changed how (and if) students enroll:
1. 9/11 (2001)
A moment that reshaped national identity, international student confidence, and economic security. Institutions saw sudden dips in international enrollment, especially in STEM fields and urban centers.
2. The Great Recession (2008–2009)
Families tightened budgets. Adults returned to school en masse. Public institutions saw surges, while privates had to pivot quickly to affordability messaging and online offerings. It was a complete reshuffling of audience and ROI expectations.
3. The COVID-19 Pandemic (2020–2022)
The mother of all hurricanes. Enrollment projections became useless overnight. Yield models failed. Institutions scrambled to build virtual tours, remote advising, and digital-first recruitment in weeks. The “digital transformation” that was supposed to take 10 years happened in 10 months.
4. The FAFSA Breakdown (2023–2024)
Less visible in national headlines, but catastrophic behind the scenes. Students couldn’t file, counselors couldn’t advise, and financial aid packaging ground to a halt. Many schools missed their yield goals not because of a value problem, but a process failure they didn’t cause.
When Predictive Metrics Fail, Strategic Agility Wins
Each of these events disrupted the models schools relied on for decades:
- Predictable funnel conversion rates? Gone.
- Year-over-year comparisons? Misleading.
- Historical yield data? Unreliable.
This is where “hurricane thinking” becomes essential.
You can’t always predict the storm — but you can prepare your enrollment infrastructure to flex under pressure.
Schools that survived, and even thrived, during these moments didn’t rely on a one-size-fits-all strategy. They diversified pipelines, automated manual bottlenecks, and prioritized flexibility over tradition.
What Today’s “Torpedoes” Look Like
While hurricanes are the big, obvious events, torpedoes are the quieter threats:
unseen issues that quietly compromise your enrollment goals until it’s too late.
These include:
- Transfer melt, losing students due to lack of credit transparency
- Staff turnover, taking institutional knowledge out the door
- Cost misperception, students ruling out your school based on assumptions
- Slow systems, weeks-long transcript evaluation cycles that lose students to faster competitors
- Student behavior, students making gap year(s) decisions for a multiplicity of reasons
You don’t need a Category 5 disaster to derail your enrollment, just a few small misfires that go unchecked.
Build Systems That Bend, Not Break
Here’s how forward-thinking enrollment teams are responding to today’s higher education enrollment challenges:
Invest in lead capture from actual student behavior
Instead of buying outdated lists, institutions are turning to site-based tools that capture transfer intent as students explore credit evaluations.
Automate without losing accuracy
AI-powered systems like DegreeSight’s INBOUND platform are helping teams review and route transcripts instantly, while still empowering human oversight where needed.
Bridge admissions, registrar, and advising
Institutions that align these silos avoid the “black hole” where students get stuck waiting weeks for answers. They move faster, and win more enrollments.
Plan for agility, not perfection
Strategy should include “plan B” scenarios, real-time feedback loops, and tech that can adapt, not collapse, when the next unexpected event hits.
Hurricanes Will Keep Coming
You can’t stop global events, federal policy breakdowns, or economic downturns.
But you can prepare your enrollment operation to respond with speed, clarity, and confidence, and that’s where the competitive edge lives now.
Want to see how enrollment leaders are doing just that?