Finding the right fit for ones’ college education can be a task in itself. While most entering freshmen take campus tours, talk to multiple advisors and jump through other hoops to find the perfect school, one online service is making the enrollment process easier for both the schools and the students.
Higher Ed Growth is a post-secondary education marketing agency that bridges the degree searching process between prospective students and schools.
Through its education portals, such as TrueDegree.com, Higher Ed Growth funnels students’ degree and campus preferences, interests and location to match each individual with a school that could be described as the “perfect fit,” taking out the time, money and stress typically spent on finding the right school.
Between TrueDegree.com and Edu4Military.com, a portal that concentrates on connecting service members to military-friendly colleges, there are about 30,000 to 50,000 enrollment inquiries a month, Higher Ed Growth founder and CEO Frank Healy said.
The perfect match isn’t a one-way street. Schools are also looking for students who will meet the academic standards, Healy added.
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“Schools are always looking to add more students to their roster, even schools that turn away students are looking for students,” Healy said. “They’re just looking for students that have a very specific set of skills.”
The Tempe, Ariz.-based agency also offers various tools to solve the problem of handling enrollment inquiries, statistics and marketing that administration offices often struggle with in large volume.
Such tools include its EDU server that is used by colleges to reach potential students, and its HEG Enrollment Advisor that helps manage inquiries and facilitate an easy online experience for both the students and the schools.
As schools push for higher enrollment rates, most prospective students seeking to enroll in college via Higher Ed Growth are females who fall between the ages of 27 to 40 years old, Healy said.
Over the last two decades, the amount of females enrolling in college has spiked to outpace their male peers.
In 1994, 63 percent of females pursued a college education in the fall following high school graduation, while 61 percent of males enrolled in a university, according to the Pew Research Center.
By 2012, the percentage of females enrolled in college following high school graduation jumped by 8 percent to reach 71 percent, while male enrollment remained at 61 percent.
A similar pattern can be seen along racial lines, with the biggest jump in female enrollment being among Hispanics and African Americans.
Among Hispanics who completed high school in 1994, 52 percent of men and women went on to pursue a college degree. By 2014, 76 percent of Hispanic women were enrolled in a higher education institution, outpacing Hispanic men by 13 percentage points, according to Pew.
For African Americans, men were more likely to pursue a college degree after high school in 1994. However, in 2012, the amount of African American women enrolled in college jumped by 21 percent to reach 69 percent, while male enrollment remained stagnant at 57 percent.
As interest in higher education grows for minority students, Higher Ed Growth is gaining interest from various college administrations. The agency recently earned a spot amongst the fastest growing, privately-held companies in 2014.
In a list published by Inc. magazine, a publication that focuses on growing businesses, Higher Ed Growth was ranked No. 4,791 out of 5,000 privately-held companies across the United States as the fastest growing of its kind.
The findings were based on revenue earned over a three-year span between 2010 and 2013. Jumping by 49 percent from 2010, the marketing agency raked in $8 million in revenue in 2013, according to Inc.
