Enrollment management as competitive strategy in private community universities

Autores

  • Victor Meyer Jr.
  • Maria Cecília Barbosa Lopes
  • Marcos José Zablonsky
  • J. Patrick Murphy

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.19177/reen.v3e12010123-143

Palavras-chave:

Enrollment management, Strategy, Private universities

Resumo

The purpose of this study is to analyze managerial practices of the Pontifical Catholic University of Paraná—PUCPR (Curitiba, Brazil)—to attract and retain students. The highly-successful model of enrollment management implemented by DePaul University (Chicago, USA) serves as reference and benchmark for comparison purposes. The highly -competitive environment experienced by both institutions provides the setting for the challenge to attract and retain students through effective managerial strategies. The study is comparative and descriptive in nature. The analysis focuses on strategic planning, educational marketing, and enrollment management —key elements of the model used by DePaul University. The results indicate that enrollment management practices in place at PUPR are characterized by the combination of professional and amateur, or unprofessional approaches. Results further indicate that adopting an integrated system would improve decision making especially vis -à-vis the competition, demand, and profile of targeted students; it would also increase student retention rates. The result s show the need for enrollment management techniques to survive and flourish in the highly competitive market of student
recruitment and retention.

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Publicado

2010-07-17

Edição

Seção

Artigos Científicos