Navigating Higher Ed: A Parent’s AI Journey with Gordon Boyes

This episode of FYI uncovers the perspective of the college search by a parent who happens to also be an EdTech CEO.

Subscribe for Updates

Don’t miss a single episode—subscribe today for the latest content!

Who is Gordon Boyes?

Gordon Boyes is the CEO of Concept3D, a higher education technology company that builds virtual experiences to connect students with schools. He is also a father of a recent high school graduate that just completed his college search.

In this Episode

Gordon Boyes, the CEO of Concept3D, joins FYI host Gil Rogers to talk about how technology and innovation are reshaping higher education. Gordon shares his dual perspective as an ed tech leader and a parent of a college student. Gain insights from Gordon’s personal journey as he navigates the college selection process with his son, offering valuable tips for families grappling with these pivotal decisions, and possibly an unexpected reason for students to use ChatGPT at school. This episode underscores the urgent need for continuous improvement to keep higher ed’s aspirational value intact.

Discover successful strategies like using outside facilitators to invigorate brainstorming sessions and the crucial role of AI in alleviating repetitive tasks. They also explore how AI can revolutionize student engagement and improve both organizational efficiency and student outcomes. 

Listen to FYI on your favorite podcast platform!

Episode Transcript

Navigating Higher Ed: A Parent’s AI Journey with Gordon Boyes

Publishing Date: June 18, 2024

[00:00:05] Gil: Welcome back to FYI, the For Your Institution Podcast, presented by Mongoose. I’m your host, Gil Rogers. And today, I sit down with the CEO of Concept3D, Gordon Boyes. Gordon and I talk a lot about the state of the college admissions process. He has some great perspectives, both as a chief executive officer and as a father. Let’s listen in.

Gordon, welcome.

[00:00:30] Gordon: Thanks for having me, Gil. Good to be here.

[00:00:32] Gil: Awesome. Well, one of the things I love to do on the pod is bring on people that are thoughtful, have really good ideas. And today, we’re making an exception. No, I’m just kidding. The, the purpose of the podcast today, and in full disclosure to our listeners, Gordon and I work together on some projects at Concept3D. So, we’re talking all the time about higher ed, about the challenges of the industry, ed tech. Gordon’s got a unique perspective, being a father of a current college student.

So, I’ve asked Gordon to come on to just have a coffee talk at a conference conversation about some of the issues that we see with the challenges facing higher ed, especially, during a cycle that’s been dominated by the FAFSA fiasco. But even prior to that, there were a number of things taking shape with things like AI and others.

So, Gordon, before we hop in, I would love for you, I know you’ve been on the podcast before, but for the select few that may not have listened to that episode before, I’d love for you to give us a little bit of your background, and, kind of, fill in the blanks with why you’re here today.

[00:01:36] Gordon: Sure. Thanks, Gil. I’m here, first and foremost, because you asked me to be here. And I do whatever you, I do whatever you ask, right, Gil?

[00:01:43] Gil: Right.

[00:01:43] Gordon: Let’s see. Yeah, I’m here today as an ed tech leader running a software company, Concept3D. We’ve been longtime partners with higher ed, and we’re super passionate about the business of higher ed.

I increasingly find myself thinking about and empathizing with the business of higher ed and all the challenges that go into that space. We really enjoy building software for those clients. And as we always like to say with our product roadmap, we’re always higher ed first, meaning that what we do often supports applications outside of higher ed, but we tend to lead with higher ed.

And as you mentioned, I’m here because you and I have been partnered up for a little while. We’ve been working together. I hope that our mutual love for dad jokes and bad jokes doesn’t take away from the podcast today.

[00:02:26] Gil: Well, we will see. And I encourage anybody who doesn’t like our dad jokes to try again, first of all, and second of all, let us know and tell us a better one. So, I’ll throw that into the internet. Shoot me an email with your best dad joke or bad joke. And maybe, I’ll send you a Starbucks card. Who knows?

So, so, Gordon, I spoke about this a little bit during the introduction, but, you know, you run an ed tech company and you’re talking to leaders all the time. And on the flip side of this, you are also the father of a current college student, right? So, you have a unique lens with your current family situation, as well as your community. And I’d love for you to, kind of, share a little bit about your recent experience and where some of your current ideas are coming from.

[00:03:12] Gordon: Yeah, I would say, you know, first, at a high level, one of the things I often think about is that higher ed delivers on one of the greatest promises of living in the United States or participating in the economy of the U.S. And that’s that higher ed has an opportunity to change lives and impact for generations, right?

So, whether you look at somebody who might be a first-generation American or whether you look at young adults around the world, when they think about prosperity and when they think about wealth creation and when they think about changing the trajectory of family, often, they think about U.S. higher ed. And that’s because it’s one of the greatest value propositions in the world. Does it work every time? Maybe not, right? Is there room to improve? Most certainly, right? But when you look at it, it’s aspirational for a lot of people.

And so, for me, as you mentioned, kind of, the big change was going from knowing that and believing that and having that in my background to, all of a sudden, being a consumer of higher ed. And so, that’s where, for me, a lot of things change. And around our company, right, as you look at a young company getting older, you end up with a lot of parents, and we start to think like parents and we start to think like buyers of higher ed. And then, eventually, we watch our children go through the process of narrowing down a list, reflecting to themselves, and then ultimately, jumping in and applying to college and picking a college and all of those kinds of things.

So, that’s been a recent part of my journey. And then trying to put that together with the business that I run has been something that I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about. And you and I have bounced ideas off of each other in that vein for a while now.

[00:04:45] Gil: One of the stories I like to tell people when I explain, kind of, some of the work we’re doing at Concept3D, I hijack the story of your son’s college process. I’d love for you to, kind of, walk some people through that and how that, kind of, serves as an inspiration of some of your more recent work.

[00:05:03] Gordon: Sure. At first, I’d say it’s probably fairly typical, right? The only thing that is atypical is my relationship on the business side with the business of higher ed. And so, I, kind of, looked at it through a bit different lens. I’d say, like most students, right, sometime in their junior year, they start to pull together sort of a list of institutions they might be interested in. They start to pull together majors that they think they’re a good fit for. There are a lot of different places to research that stuff, a lot of different aptitude tests that get provided by the high school setting. And ultimately, they, sort of, begin this journey, thinking about what higher ed might look like for them.

On their end, it feels like a lot of work, I would say. It feels a little stressful at times, especially as you start to get to that, what schools am I going to apply to? And then, ultimately, that waiting on the edge of your seat, as you do in late winter, early spring, waiting for decisions to be made. And then it obviously flips the student who needs to make a decision.

I think the unique perspective going through that, again, fairly typical, right? You have schools that you’re going to apply to that are a stretch. You have some majors that feel like are a really good fit, but then you have some institutions that might be a bit different, right? Do I maybe want to explore this in my career or that in my career? You start to think a lot about venues and the characteristics, both physical and, I don’t know the right word, but, the values, for example, of an institution. And you’re looking for that fit.

Pretty exciting to go on college trips, right? If you get the opportunity to go and take a trip and visit a college and, sort of, see those students that are two, three, four years older than you and, sort of, realize the independence that they’re experiencing, right? And so, it’s a pretty exciting moment for the student and for their parents to think about the art of the possible and to begin to be consumer of higher ed. That’s wonderful, I think, in a lot of ways. And it’s powerful in a lot of ways.

I think there are, also within that experience, you end up, especially from my side, right, I always look for problems and areas that are for innovation in higher ed, the other elements of that process is, as I mentioned before, it can be stressful. I’d argue it’s a little inefficient, right? So, it’s really hard as a student to bounce what you’re looking for and your criteria against all of the options that we have, right, thousands of options for school and make a strategic decision. That’s really hard, if not impossible, for the student.

And so, I like to say that the market is inefficient. Getting the perfect match, if you will, between a student and an institution, it’s hard. I’ll say it became really obvious to me that my son didn’t look at every option that would have been a potentially a good fit for him and probably left a lot of opportunity on the table.

Did he find a great fit? Sure. Is he super happy where he is? Absolutely. Would he change anything? Probably not. In fact, no, definitely not, in case he listened to your podcast. I didn’t want to make it seem as if he was unhappy with where he’s at.

But I do think that, for any student, right, more choice is better. Because it’s free. Having another choice other than the application, free. It’s free. It’s like a free option to understand another institution. And that became obvious to me, as a parent going through the processes, it just doesn’t feel right how you start with thousands of options and you quickly get down to, oh, I don’t know, 10 or 15 institutions. And then maybe you applied to some number that’s like two-thirds of that. So, that was one of the things that, as a consumer, I felt was definitely a little inefficient and less than a perfect marketplace, if you want to think about it that way.

[00:08:41] Gil: Yeah, I think part of the challenge, and this just comes from my experience working in the enrollment side, working at a college in the admissions department, working at companies doing, call it lead generation, digital advertising, etc. I feel like the process of finding and recruiting students has not evolved at the pace in which the rest of consumers connect and engage with other things, right? And you think about jobs, you think about houses, right? Zillow is a thing. You don’t have to go around and look at every single house. You find the houses that you feel are a good fit. Of course, you’re going to go and actually check it out at some point, but not during that, kind of, discovery phase, right?

And so, students have all these options to, like you mentioned, to find and compare research schools. Institutions buy names, right? And that’s the process that’s how it’s been. The providers of those names may have changed their names over the past 10 or 15 years. But overall, the process is, I feel like, ripe for disruption and ripe for innovation.

And I know we’ve talked about this a lot. And I would love for you to share a little bit about your thoughts and where you see the process of engagement evolving over the next, ideally, two to three years.

[00:09:59] Gordon: Yeah, a couple things in there. First, I’d add to your, it’s even harder on institutions than you just described because their demographic is 17 years old. Their demographic, as we’re realizing, is essentially the first generation to grow up with a device in their hand from the age when they were a single digit years old, right?

And they are communicating in ways that, even as a parent, I can hardly understand or keep up with, let alone trying to build a business on the back of connecting with that generation. So, super empathetic to all of those who are in admissions, in enrollment trying to connect with probably the hardest demographic there is to connect with. So, yeah, I agree with you that, A, they haven’t necessarily kept pace and, B, they probably got the hardest job on the planet when it comes to that.

As far as the second part of your question, innovation goes, I think, message to anybody in the software world who happens to be tuning into the podcast. I think, as companies and as, sort of, leaders in the software world, we definitely have to build in processes and build in time and space for innovation.

So, as a company at Concept3D, my leadership team tries to find several times a year, where, we’ve done exercises where we’ve got post its and we’re running around a whiteboards with ideas, sticking things on boards and narrowing down ideas and seeing where we see the biggest opportunities from our customers and from outside our customers.

Sometimes, they’re big ideas and sometimes they’re little pieces of innovation that just bolt onto existing products that we have. But you have to have the time and space. You have to be really purposeful, I think, to find that innovation. We’ve had some success using an outside facilitator, which is great that you get the benefit of someone who’s truly disconnected, trying to inject change into an organization and able to, sort of, facilitate from a very high level in an innovation process, which I think is a great idea, and can be done, again, fairly low level of commitment and investment. When you think about the cost of time on a leadership team, it’s a great way to spend a day and it’s a great investment in a professional facilitator for a day or two.

Yeah. And so, we run through that process. And in that process, it’s where we’ve started that together with, as I mentioned, this very personal journey, with my son and with his friends and watching our friends as his parents, sort of, go through the process, that we ended up finding what we think is a really great opportunity for innovation, as it relates to the admissions process. It really started by identifying both, you know, pain points and themes, as a consumer of higher ed, and then, also, from the folks in the higher ed market in enrollment, specifically, that we talked to and getting them to identify, what are they struggling with?

[00:12:45] Cadence Ad: Thoughtfully nurture applicants, personalize retention efforts, and exceed fundraising goals with our Cadence Engagement Platform’s text messaging solutions. Designed exclusively for higher ed by higher ed professionals, Cadence helps you engage your audiences with the perfect balance of AI and personal connection.

We leverage an intuitively designed interface and easy-to-use texting templates so you can have targeted conversations or scale up to expand your reach. Our powerful smart messaging can respond automatically, exactly how you would, and to measure progress, track your campaigns with unparalleled reports and analytics.

Effectively meet your community where they are, as we proudly feature an industry-leading 95% read rate within three minutes. It’s never been easier to make every message count.

[00:13:37] Gil: To take a step back to the process that the leadership team goes through at Concept3D, I love the idea of multiple times a year, because I feel like, in the admissions world, the only time we do things like revisit communication plans at many institutions is when we switch CRMs, right? Until that point, it’s a lather, rinse, repeat process for inquiry conflows as a basic component of all of this.

And feel like it’s hard, given the current expectations on admission staff, right? Think about it as, and, you know, we’ve experienced this, talking to many institutions over the past few months, getting people just to even be available on campus because they’re traveling to go visit high school, they’re going to colleges, they’re at a conference, they’re reading applications, they’re running events.

And so, we don’t take the time to pause and really think critically about, what are some of the ways that we can improve our processes? And so, then we end up doing the same thing over and over again. And then we observe things like staff turnover or hard-to-fill positions or just overall staff morale.

Again, I remember when I was an admissions counselor, there’s always this, and some of it’s real and some of it’s trying to convince ourselves and speaking into existence. But when travel season starts, you know, mid-September, early October, everyone’s posting on LinkedIn about how excited they are to be doing travel, but then what happens in late November, early December, it’s, “Oh, I can’t,” you’re on the road, “I can’t deal with this anymore. I don’t want to lose spirit.” And it’s just a lather, rinse, and repeat type of a thing.

And so, well, when you think about the challenges of, and the processes for admissions officers, I know there’s a number of things that we’ve talked about that institutions are facing when it comes to, or applying what we just talked about, right? And I’d love for you to share some of your thoughts on some of the things that are impacting students and schools.

[00:15:28] Gordon: Yeah, I think, first, innovation on the enrollment side. From what I see, from where I stand, the number one time that they take their heads up and they have their innovation type activities tends to only be when there’s change at the senior level within an institution, right? So, someone super senior comes in either in enrollment management or a change even at the higher level of an institution is when they take the time to really change their strategy.

And then, on the more specific things that we’re hearing, right, that, sort of, come to us as common feedback, the obvious one is admissions cliff. I think everybody knows about that. If I could, I’d share a little silver lining about the admissions cliff. The U.S. economy isn’t going to slow down and we got an aging population. So, if you’re a student coming out of a college on the back end of the admissions cliff, you’re going to be in super high demand. And so, I think that, but nonetheless for the institution, the admissions cliff is real and the changing demographics is real.

We also hear a little bit about, a lot actually, about the uneven and unequal demand for programs on these campuses, right? And so, you’ve got one particular major or series of majors, and those have very low admissions rates, but here you have some comparable majors or some similar majors in other parts of the institutions with much higher admissions rate, which means lower demand for those degrees. And so, again, inefficiency there.

If only a student knew that they had a 50 or 60% chance of getting in for a data sciences degree versus the computer sciences degree that they think they should be going after, it may open up some very similar career goals. But there’s an inefficiency there. And I would hear from enrollment staff, hey, we really wish we could have more students to fill this particular profile at the institution.

And again, let’s not forget that drives our economy here in this country, right? Healthcare workers, great example. That student who wants to study biology might be just as valuable over time from their career standpoint and from their contribution to our economy as someone who wants to go study pre-med. Maybe the pre-med major is twice as hard to get into as the biology or biochemistry major, but they’re going to have similar outcomes for the student and for the economy.

Also hear about the volume of work for admissions is increasing. And you’ve also got that dynamic, right, where the admissions cliff is going to put financial pressure on the top line. And then the amount of work that the admissions team has to do is increasing pretty significantly due to record level of applications. So, that’s a tough dynamic. We hear a fair bit of that.

And then, like you would expect, we always hear about looking to make sure that there’s a high ROI on their marketing and technology investments. Those are the things that I think come to mind for me most often when we talk to enrollment. I would say, for us, a big part of how this started is, with our products map and tour and events platform, we often heard admissions teams saying, “Hey, how could we get an ROI on that product?” And those products are less about that incremental student on campus and are more about, sort of, other pain points. But that’s how we realized a lot of what the thinking was on the enrollment side of an institution.

[00:18:42] Gil: Yeah, it’s interesting. I was on an Enroll ML webinar a couple weeks ago, and Teege Mettille, who if you haven’t read his book, The Admissions Officers Malaise, you should. He’s a guest on a separate episode, but we’ll give Teege a shoutout. I think I’ve given Teege a shout out, like, five or six times on the podcast. So, he owes me a dollar.

One of the things that he spoke about, and I’ve been talking to him about for years at this point, is that the issue that most investments on enrollment office are really judged by three things: how many leads or inquiries does it drive, how many of those apply, and how many of those enrolled? And for the most part, lots of folks really focus on that top level, that first rung, which is where all the redundancy is, and which is where all the extra work is, right? I think there’s so much opportunity, as we’ve talked about numerous times over the past few months, for, in light of all of the challenges that you just outlined, many of which have been the same challenges for years and years, unfortunately, I don’t think there’s ever been a year where admissions officers are being asked to do less work.

And so, I think that’s the opportunity here for innovation and, say, are there different ways that, especially with the advent of AI, and I know we plan on talking about this in a little bit as well, are there ways for institutions to use technology better to identify and reach students? And again, coming from your experience as a father who’s seen the process, watching families in your circle now going through the process, I’d love for you to give us a thought, a high-level view of your thoughts there.

[00:20:21] Gordon: Yeah, I mean, we set out to build something that was disruptive and satisfied, sort of, all of those painpaints, both on the student side and on the institution side. And so, we’ve created a platform as a company, where the matching, the activity starts with the institution, right? So, it’s the opposite of how you apply today, meaning that the institution is able to find those perfectly matched students for their strategic initiatives.

I will tell you, every time you talk to an institution, they know exactly the students that they’re looking for, right? They know the majors that they need more applications for, or the schools within the school that they need more application for, and they know down to the high school where they’re going to get the best fit, right? And they know the students that might be one flight away if they happen to be students that are going to be out of area. They really get who they want, right, as far as big picture to attend their institution, for what value props that they have to provide, the real trick is how do you connect with those students, right?

And so, that’s the platform that we set out to build. And to your point, I think you can use, and certainly, teach AI to do some of that, right? So, we’re seeing it popping up in other businesses, where essentially, AI is smart enough to make recommendations, right? So, if you tell it the characteristics as an example of an institution and you tell it the characteristics of a student and you say, “Is this a good fit?” AI can answer that question, right? And so, that takes away a lot of work, if you can structure those two sides of the equations to work together.

And I think the other thing you can do with AI today is you can offload some of the work from the admissions team, right? I think admissions is a deeply personal side of higher ed. And that should stand the test of time. It will stand the test of time. An admissions decision is personal. It’s between an institution and that particular admissions professional team and that student on a, kind of, a one-to-one basis. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t automate some of the work that goes into the day-to-day of someone on the admission side. And you can’t help them and be their expert assistant.

I think we’re seeing that AI tech is a perfect fit for some of that. It’s a perfect fit for doing some qualification, for doing some engagement, right? It’s not going to make the decision. We shouldn’t trust it to make a decision. As sometimes I tell people who are new to AI and they say, “Oh, well, can’t AI just write that code?” And I’d say, “Would you jump on a plane if I told you that the autopilot was written by AI, not a human,” right? And the answer is probably not. But are there other valuable things that AI can do for us? Are there other pieces of code that AI can write? Of course. Same thing applies to the admissions world today.

[00:23:09] Gil: Yeah, and I think what you just outlined too is I mentioned this before about the process of admissions and how the stressors of travel is a good example of this. I feel like we do the big focus on the top of the funnel, the biggest wedge of the phases in the process, because it’s all under the guise of being personalized throughout the experience. And I feel like many folks have this perspective that, “I go to the college fair because I want to be in front of the families and make an impact on their decision to apply.” But I think if we were honest with ourselves, most of the time, we’re answering the same questions over and over, over again, what’s your average GPA score? What’s your average SAT? Do you have an English program? How do I start a club, right? These are the things that every school is answering multiple times, many times in that order, throughout those face-to-face interactions.

And what I would piggyback on what you spoke about is we think about the redundant processes, that’s where the robots come in, right? And that’s where the AI can help with those pieces. But as you mentioned, it’s a more personalized experience towards the bottom of the funnel. I think that’s where the admissions officers have greater impact. And I did a research study on this a number of years ago when I was at Chegg, in partnership with Stamats. It was the TeensTalk Report. Google it. It’s still there somewhere. But the reality is that admissions officers, when you ask students how important or impactful an admissions officer was to their decision to attend an institution, really, not all that important at the beginning and discovery phase of the process. Where they become the most important or among the most important is at the end of the process and focusing on yield and focusing on being there when students are asking questions about paying for school or asking about the real fit on campus and making those connections to a current student, helping them with coming to registering for admitted student day, whatever it is.

And so, I would say that the big opportunity here is not replacing people but redeploying people. And I know we’ll talk about that in a little bit, but it’s that opportunity to get the people doing the people work again and let the robots do the redundant work, right.

[00:25:17] Gordon: You nailed it.

[00:25:17] Cadence Ad: Discover future applicants, delight enrolled students, and amplify fundraising performance with our Cadence engagement platform’s live chat and chatbot solutions. Designed exclusively for higher ed by higher ed professionals, Cadence helps you engage your audiences with the perfect balance of AI and personal connection.

We leverage proactive outreach and anticipate common roadblocks, knowing the most significant decisions often start with the smallest conversations. Our powerful AI ensures instant support and is smart enough to know exactly when to hand off to a staff member. And if nobody is available, it allows for easy follow-up.

Effortlessly integrated with your website, we proudly feature an industry-leading 85% self-service rate. It’s never been easier to make every message count.

[00:26:09] Gil: Yeah. So, with that in mind, I’d love for you to, kind of, let’s talk about where this is all headed. You know, I know we’ve had a number of experiences thinking through and looking at the college admissions process. Look into your crystal ball and say, what is the next, what are the next couple of years going to look like.

[00:26:27] Gordon: Yeah, before I do that, let me tie a couple things that you just said back together through this whole discussion that we’re having, right, which is, let’s go back to that 16, 17, 18-year-old, right? And let’s go back to the fact that we have email personalization tools that are a decade old now. And we think that those are personal communications. And then let’s weave in AI today.

Well, I think if you look at our kids today, they trust AI. Now, they know that it’s not perfect, and they know its limitations, but they’re using it in their studies at an incredible rate. And they trust it. And, you know, you talked about something else that you mentioned there, right? Chegg, and all the study tools that they have that Chegg makes available. Well, I’m here to tell you today’s students, while there’s a ton of value there, still there, what they’re doing is they’re saying to ChatGPT, “Hey, I have an exam for the second section of this biochemistry class, prepare me a study guide. Give me some questions,” right? My son came to me. Let’s see, where are we? We’re in June now. He came to me in, I think, it was January or February, and said, “Hey, dad, can I have ChatGPT premium as a college expense, right, for our budget that we jointly manage?” And I said, “Sure. What are you doing with it?” And he’s like, “Oh, whenever I have a test, I ask it to make a study guide for me.” And of course, we as parents are thinking to ourselves, “Oh, my gosh, be really careful with plagiarism and all that.” And he’s like, “No, no, we’ve got a hard and fast rule. You can’t submit anything that’s been created by ChatGPT in an assignment, or you’re going to be in, you know, deep academic trouble.”

But he’s like, “If I want a study guide for an area that I just can’t figure out, ChatGPT will prepare that study guide. And oh, by the way, it will help me if I’m getting answers wrong on a question as I’m preparing for tests.” Well, think about that for a minute, right? We used to go sit in a conference room somewhere on campus and try and study with our friends and ask our friends questions. Well, if you look at the current generation, they’re doing exactly the same thing, but they’re so much more efficient at it, so much more effective at it. They don’t have to take the time of somebody else to help explain it to them. They’ve got a study partner in ChatGPT today, right?

So, the reason I tie all that back is we can make the same mistake again and assume that AI is not a way to communicate with a 16, 17, or 18-year-old. But I would say, just like last time, they’re going to prove that they’re way ahead of us in how they want to engage and how they’re…

[00:28:51] Gil: Absolutely.

Yeah, I didn’t want to interrupt you there, but that was on my mind the whole time you were responding to that last line of thoughts. I think you ended with a little bit about the future. Was that, am I right on that?

[00:29:01] Gordon: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:29:03] Gil: So, let’s fast forward and let’s think about what we’re going to experience,, assuming that maybe there’s a little buy-in from the emissions world on the AI side of things, right. And we… and I believe there is, right? When I think… I was at the Ellucian Live conference a number of weeks back. And we recorded some episodes there. And the overall narrative at that conference, AI was at every conversation, right? and there’s not going to be one AI to rule them all. There’s going to be applications of AI at different phases and support the process, financial aid, college search, student success. There’s going to be ways to leverage those types of tools throughout. And so, I am cautiously optimistic that higher ed is going to ride this wave more effectively and efficiently than we did, say, social media, right? And I think we had some adoption issues, and we still do to this day. But I think that there’s an opportunity here.

So, with that said, there’s a number of factors at play, right? We’re still going to experience many of the challenges that you outlined. And we need to address those. So, I would love for you to, kind of, give us your, like, like I said, your crystal ball vision for how the next few weeks are going to, a few weeks… how the next few years are going to play out.

[00:30:09] Gordon: Pretty sure I can nail the next few weeks. Next few years, you’ll have to fact-check me in a couple of years from now. Let’s see, right? So, some things we know are fact, right? There’s got to be pressure on enrollment. We know the enrollment cliff is real. So, you got top, as I mentioned before, you’re going to have top line pressure on these institutions. That is their revenue. And top line pressure creates cost control pressure, in order for the business to be sustainable.

So, I think you’re going to see pressure on institutions to manage their administrative costs. I think you’re going to see those admissions teams, like I said, busier than ever, but probably, not with the same level of staffing they have today. I think that the value prop of higher ed is going to continue to be really high. I think you’re going to continue to see students apply to more institutions in order to have more choices.

It only makes sense, right? It only makes sense, especially when they can take advantage of free admissions days or making application fees more accessible for families that can’t afford to apply to 10 schools. I think the reality is that students are going to realize that more choice is more helpful. So, the institution is going to have more applications, but at the end of the day, that student that was applying to five schools, now applying to 15 schools, could still only go to one. And that is a harsh reality, I think, for the next three, four, five years on the institutions, maybe longer.

And I think you’re going to see a combination of technology, right? AI’s technology, not necessarily a product. You’re going to see a combination of technologies and innovators trying to be disruptive as a result of that backdrop. That’s what we’re trying to do at Concept3D with FlippedApp, is make it a solution that meets all of those needs and delivers a better admissions experience for the student and a better match for the institution.

And I think that the future, as far as that dynamic goes, it’s just increasingly complicated. I think higher ed has to deal with a lot of complications. It’s a complicated business. It’s a big business. It’s an expensive business. But the degree of difficulty over the next few years is without a doubt going to increase.

[00:32:21] Gil: Yeah, and I would love, yeah, as our last, kind of, question here, is to think about, again, the people resources of all that. Again, admissions counselor was my first job. Still got a passion for that space, right? And I like to think about the people in that area, because I feel like we’ve done a good job as an industry of really cutting off that narrative of, “AI is coming for everybody’s jobs,” right? That’s not necessarily the case when it comes to this profession, like you mentioned. It’s very complicated, it’s very unique, and it’s one of the hardest jobs in the world. But again, I think it comes to the matter of where the resources are. And you mentioned rising costs and decreasing revenues. And I think these are all things that the media has been pounding home. Many podcasts have been pounding home about the state of and the future of the industry.

What are some thoughts and, kind of, recommendations that you might have, coming from the business side of things, right? This is the beauty of being an ed tech company. You, you still have to run it like a business, which higher ed is a business, but maybe there’s some lessons or some thoughts that you have. If you were in this situation at where and higher ed were your company, what would be some of the things that you would recommend and do?

[00:33:32] Gordon: Yeah, I think you got to be really strategic, right? You got to think about what you’re good at. I think you have to really sharpen the pencil on your value prop. I think that you have to think about how to innovate. Acknowledge the reality of the situation going forward. And accept that there are going to be tools that are going to help you, with all of the above, right?

And so, I agree with you, AI is not here for people’s job. I love the example that I just gave with my son saying, “Hey, ChatGPT, prepare me a study guide for this exam,” right? That didn’t take anyone’s job. But you know what? It added a ton of value and it made that whole experience for him a lot more efficient, the experience of studying, right?

And so, it’s the same thing for jobs throughout an institution. And for us at Concept3D, we do the same, like, you actually, that was, kind of, your segue. We do the same thing, right? We have a internal tool now that answers tons of questions about our features and our products, so that everybody in the company can ask the question of a tool that we have and get back answers.

Did we replace anybody’s job there? No. Did we get more efficient? Absolutely. Did we create a better experience for our customer? Absolutely, right? And so, I think that’s what, you know, that’s what higher ed needs to continue to focus on. Focus on the customer. Focus on delivery of that promise to that student. Acknowledge the backdrop. And just get laser-focused.

But somewhat selfishly, given the industry that I’m in, but I think it’s ubiquitous across, certainly, businesses in the U.S., is let technology drive better business outcomes, right? So, that example that I just gave on how we’re using AI within Concept3D today, driving better business outcomes. It’s making us more efficient.

The other thing I would say on the admissions side, if I was talking to somebody in admissions, is acknowledge that some of the things that are somewhat of a tough pill to swallow, for example, admissions rates going up, just acknowledge those. Don’t try and fight some of those trends. You can’t fight the trend that there’s less students. You can’t fight the trend that they’re applying to more institutions. You can’t fight the trend that recipe adds up for most institutions in that you need to increase your admissions rate. That’s okay.

Providing access to those students and giving them the choice of coming to your institution, that’s a good thing, right? I think we think of it sometimes as, it’s a bad thing if admissions rates are really high. I’d say it’s a good thing. And so, that’s where I’d focus, but it probably starts with strategy. Figure out what you’re trying to accomplish over the next five years and have a strategic plan and go execute against it.

[00:36:15] Gil: Well, we’ve given everyone a lot to talk about and think about, which is always for a good podcast. Gordon, for folks that want to connect with you and continue this conversation, what are some of the ways that they can get in touch?

[00:36:26] Gordon: Honestly, the best way for me is, like, LinkedIn. I love networking. I think the whole higher ed space does a great job of networking. And so, yeah, hit me up on LinkedIn. Make sure you shoot me a little message saying that, yeah, you heard the podcast. Otherwise, first name dot last name at concept3d.com always works. But I think LinkedIn is a fantastic networking tool.

[00:36:46] Gil: Awesome. And we will put a link to your LinkedIn, as well as information about FlippedApp, which you mentioned earlier, in the episode notes for our listeners. So, check those things out. And get in touch.

So, thank you, Gordon, again, for taking the time. And thank you to our listeners. We will see you next time on FYI.

Bye!

[00:37:09] Cadence Ad: Grow your student community, help them stay, and encourage giving with Cadence, higher ed’s premier engagement platform from Mongoose. Designed exclusively for higher ed by higher ed professionals, Cadence helps you engage your audiences with the perfect balance of AI and personal connection. Talk to students, parents, and alumni on their time and how they want. Empower your staff with integrated text and chat inboxes that gather all conversations in one place.

Reach out to learn more about how our best-in-class service, support, and integrations have helped colleges and universities like yours have smarter conversations. From text to chat, make every message count.

Author: