Over the past few years Bradley has experienced declining enrollment with this year’s class totaling 927 first-year students compared to 2012’s class of 1,016.
The decreased enrollment can be attributed to Bradley’s inability to adjust old marketing strategies to attract prospective students in today’s society, according to Interim President Stan Liberty.
“There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with Bradley,” Liberty said. “But if you don’t change the way you message and communicate, you will lose your brand.”
Liberty said the university has been slow to use technology to reach out to applicants.
“Younger people are all mobile and into social media of all sorts,” Liberty said. “We got out of tune with that.”
Additionally, Liberty said public institutions are undergoing massive budget cuts, so they are becoming more aggressive in recruiting students. This increases competition for private institutions like Bradley.
“The marketplace is changing, and we haven’t adapted well to that,” Liberty said.
However, Liberty said the declining enrollment trend would stop after this year, because the university has been making rapid changes since June 1.
“It won’t [continue to decrease],” Liberty said. “We are taking a lot of action to stop that. We won’t go back to [the number of students we had] immediately, but there will be a steady increase.”
One step Bradley has taken toward increasing enrollment numbers was the hiring of two consultants to work with enrollment management and communication. They hope to make visual and digital changes across marketing platforms.
The university also formed a social media contract with Evolution Labs in order to create “Inside Bradley,” a social engagement platform geared at getting prospective students interested in Bradley.
Since its release earlier this week, 50 prospective students have created accounts.
“We’re really on the cutting edge of technology with this,” Liberty said.
Liberty said Bradley needs to reach different markets, such as international students.
Currently, the university undergraduate population is one percent international students and, according to Liberty, universities comparable to Bradley are made up of at least 10 percent.
“We want to add to diversity, so we are going to start aggressively recruiting international students,” Liberty said.
Executive Director of Public Relations Renee Charles said there are several marketing and communication initiatives, and it will take time to see results.
“It’s complicated because all things work in tandem with each other,” Charles said.
However, Charles said students should not be negatively affected by the efforts to increase enrollment.
“It’s been a goal of the administration that the students don’t feel any different because of [the changes],” Charles said
