Academic recruitment strategies at colleges are universities are changing, driven by drifting social attitudes toward the value of a college degree and technological advance. American colleges and universities are competing to adapt their image to be more attractive to prospective students in the coming decade.
“The days when a college degree was a virtual guarantee of future employment and opportunities are long past, and many high-demand occupations are accessible now with certifications that can be obtained in a relatively short period of time,” said Dr. Ray Perryman, president and CEO of The Perryman Group, a Waco-based economic research and analysis firm.
Constantly monitoring the popularity and long-term credibility of academic programs available for new students is one way to help ensure they’ll sign up for your college. For example, earlier this year, Baylor University announced a new undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering.
Still, there’s so much more that’s involved with student recruitment these days.
Population and Politics in Play
Births in the U.S. peaked in 2007 and fell in the years following the Great Recession of 2007-2009. That structural dip in college-aged individuals — known as the enrollment or demographic cliff — is now arriving at higher education’s front door.
According to the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education’s Knocking at the College Door: Projections of High School Graduates analysis, “2041 will see about 13% fewer [high school] graduates than in 2025.”
The report notes that a decline in high school graduates does not translate directly to declining postsecondary enrollments, “which have trended down since 2010” for a number of reasons.
“The market of 18- to 22-year-olds is definitely declining,” said Dr. Mary Landon Darden, president of Higher Education Innovation, LLC, an organization that uses research findings to develop solutions for colleges and universities to succeed in a competitive education landscape. “And not only is that demographic declining, but overall, fewer people are seeking higher education, particularly male students.”
But that’s only a small part of the prospective market. A new market is opening up for older, possibly married individuals with families and full-time jobs who are returning to higher education for new or increased levels of training.
“The prospective student market today is less than 16 percent traditional and more than 84 percent non-traditional,” Darden said. “In the future, I believe everyone will be returning to higher education multiple times during their careers. We need to be prepared for that.”
The U.S. has long held the reputation for the best higher education in the world, with the country’s international student tuition revenue exceeding gold, silver, platinum, diamonds, and gems combined, according to the Progressive Policy Institute. Many world leaders hold an American degree, but recent international enrollments have faltered in part due to current immigration policies and heightened security measures for student visas. The result is a 17 percent decline in overseas students in 2025, contributing to a 7 percent decline in total enrollment, at an estimated cost of $1.1 billion.
Has the Hunger for Higher Education Changed?
“I will tell you one thing,” said Ross Vandyke, Baylor’s associate vice president for enrollment management, marketing, and recruitment, “we’re not just recruiting the student. We’re also recruiting the parents because in many ways, it’s a co-purchase. Generation X parents — of which I am one — they want to know three things: What’s it going to cost? What are the outcomes going to be? And will my student be safe? And not just from Baylor, but any college or university. Parents are influencing those decisions by saying, ‘Hey, in this market, in this world, you’re going to have to do something that’s really going to turn the machine.’”
In an October 2025 Pew Research Center survey, almost 70 percent of respondents said they felt that higher education in the U.S. was headed in the wrong direction. Some 80 percent said colleges and universities are doing a fair or poor job of keeping tuition costs affordable, and more than half gave the same rating for preparing students for well-paying jobs in today’s economy.
There are very real consequences to the decline of prospective students in the coming years. The Inside Higher Ed and Hanover Research 2025 Survey of College and University Presidents reports nearly 20 percent of college presidents said it was somewhat or very likely their institution would merge or be acquired in the next five years.
Since March 2020, at least 49 institutions of higher education have closed, and more than 40 have merged, impacting more than 50,000 students, the BestColleges Closed Colleges tracker counts.
Changing Recruitment Strategies
Recruitment has to change, first of all, because the landscape has changed so dramatically, Darden pointed out.
“The old ways of doing that — that they did for hundreds of years — are no longer effective,” Darden said. “I’m beginning to see a shift from the four-year degree model to three years, and graduate degrees to more certificates and other kinds of credentials that are stackable, which gives you job skills you can utilize right away, and they count toward your degree in the long run. That’s a really smart way to do it.”
There are also partnerships with businesses and industries, allowing students to secure paid internships, college money, and scholarships, eventually leading to placement.
Read more: Baylor students navigate different paths toward career preparation
“We call this ‘relevance,’” Darden continued. “That is, the qualifications earned have to be relevant to the needs of society and the job market that’s out there. For example, healthcare is always going to be there — we need more nurses for sure. That profession will always be solid.”
An important hurdle colleges and universities face is the financial reality of the people they’re recruiting, economist Perryman noted.
“When combined with reductions in public-sector grants and aid programs and subsidies for university research, a substantial disconnect occurs,” Perryman said. “Education costs in universities have far outpaced inflation, while middle-class earnings have not.”
Indeed, education costs are rising, private four-year college tuition and fees costing students an average of $45,000 per year, according to the College Board’s 2025-2026 Trends in College Pricing and Student Aid report. That’s a four percent increase over the previous academic year.
Baylor sits above the national nonprofit average, with students’ yearly tuition estimated at nearly $64,000, an increase of 6.5 percent over the 2025-2026 school year.
“Here at Baylor, we offer a significant amount of academic scholarship and institutional aid, and that’s in addition to what the state and federal government may provide,” Vandyke said. “In fact, 95 percent of our students are on some form of scholarship or financial aid. We also have the Baylor Benefits Scholarship, which provides full tuition to select incoming freshmen with significant financial need and an adjusted gross income of $50,000 or less.
“We are learning to be more creative in our offerings,” he continued, “and I think you’re going to see a lot of new opportunities for prospective students in the coming months and years.”
Meeting and Greeting
On April 18, 2026, Baylor welcomed more than 4,000 people to its Premiere recruitment event at the Mark and Paula Hurd Welcome Center. Prospective students and their families toured the campus and residence halls, met faculty, and gained insights into applications and financial aid.
“We don’t turn anyone away, even younger students who are already planning their future in middle school,” Vandyke said. “We are probably one of the last schools putting on events like this, but it works. Baylor is a large university — we have nine schools and colleges, and you’re looking at 140 majors — and we think it’s important that students see our accomplishments in person. We have a working stat that one out of every three students who step foot on campus ends up enrolling in the University.”
Baylor’s acceptance rate lingers around 51 to 52 percent, though it consistently boasts a post-graduation job placement rate above 90 percent. But it’s getting harder to reach prospective students and even harder to keep their loyalty, Vandyke said.
“Historically,” Vandyke said, “once a student had committed to a college by May 1st, that decision was final. You weren’t allowed to contact them and say, ‘Hey, if you come to Baylor, I have a better deal.’ That’s all changed. Nowadays, some colleges and universities are trying to poach students right up to their first day and beyond, even sending them a note like, ‘How’s that first semester working out?’”
“The marketing involved in attracting new students and keeping them has never been fiercer than it is now,” Vandyke added.
Looking to the Future
Recruitment is largely a mirror held up to each academic institution to see how well they have prepared to meet the expectations of prospective students and their families. Technology has changed the academic landscape, and expectations for careers are very different from how they were even 20 years ago.
“A common view is that AI is much more likely to replace an accountant than a plumber,” Perryman said. “In reality, though, every major technological advance in history — literally dating back 5,500 years to the wheel — has ultimately created more jobs than it has destroyed. Those who are well-educated have a much greater probability of being beneficiaries, but the short-term effects of this ‘creative destruction’ tend to garner the most attention.”
Read more: Economic uncertainty leads more grads to pursue advanced degrees
Higher education is becoming more savvy and more creative, and it’s learning lessons fast if it wants to continue to attract the best and the brightest.
“But a lot of colleges and universities just don’t know what to do,” Darden said. “They have decades of experience, they’re as prepared and educated as anybody on the planet, and yet some are failing to respond to the radical changes in our society and the world. We have to stay ahead of all this change, particularly with artificial intelligence. If we don’t stay ahead of it, then it’s going to eat us alive.”
In January 2024, University President Dr. Linda Livingstone said, “The world needs a Baylor.” The comment was made in conjunction with thanking those who gave to the Give Light philanthropic campaign. The money would help ensure that Baylor “continues to have a distinct position and voice in higher education,” Livingstone added.
“I would echo that sentiment,” Vandyke said. “We are very, very unique, and we need to focus on staying agile and maintaining a welcoming environment. But our secret sauce has to be that we continue to think about what our students need to learn so that they can have successful careers in 10 years, 20 years, and more.”
There is also the idea, Perryman added, that higher education should promise so much more than training a student to step into a particular job.
“We do not live in a world where one leaves the educational experience and has all the skills and knowledge that will endure throughout a career,” Perryman said. “Colleges and universities should train not the accountants, scientists, and engineers that can be replaced by AI or whatever comes next, but rather those who can embrace new phenomena and build on them. The greatest career benefit is not what students will know when they graduate, but the ability to continue to learn over a lifetime. Marketing and recruitment should point to this depth of learning that creates the comparative advantage that lies uniquely at the heart of the higher education experience.”
Higher education has always been focused on knowledge and skills, but it’s also one of the few environments where students are pushed to reflect on who they are, what they value, and how they relate to others who are different from them. In a world obsessed with employability, higher education observers beg something deeper is at stake: humanity — and humans’ ability to use it to change the world.
“I would be remiss if I did not add that, while recruitment must have a greater career-oriented focus than in prior generations, the current state of the world cries out for poets, philosophers, historians, writers, and thinkers of all stripes,” Perryman added. “Make sure that the folks with those critical capabilities know that they have a home.”
