Boosting University Enrollment with Gen-AI Search

Have You Done Your Homework?

What do your users actually want? This question is at the heart of much of what marketers do, and has been used to create the most lasting technologies of our time. Steve Jobs knew people wanted a phone with a camera and music on it that they could listen to wherever and whenever they wanted, so he created the iPhone.

When researching online, I don’t want to look for answers and come back feeling more confused than I was when I started. I’m seeking clarity in my searches. Aren’t we all? We have fast become a society that wants to know how best to do things, and the internet has given us the sandbox to play in.

Higher education has faced a crisis for years as more students are shifting the way they learn. With nearly a quarter of students enrolling exclusively in distance learning programs, it’s more important than ever that our institutions of higher learning continue to adapt. In many ways, schools have adapted—some with thriving online programs. But that disruption has created a new high-water mark you must strive toward for survival.

What if you could use a simple and creative digital strategy that could help your university recover and improve for potentially the next 10 years? Gen-AI search is at the heart of this new strategy to drive your website’s traffic, and to be effective, you’ll need to think like a student.

In Conversation with Andrew Cassel

Andrew Cassel is a visionary. He’s been in higher education for 15 years and is passionate about the future, technology, and how the two will converge to transform the way students enroll in college. Ironically, last fall, he was in my neck of the woods at the University at Buffalo, speaking at the HighEdWeb Annual Conference, which I attended virtually. That day, he spoke about how he helped create something truly special at Middlebury College.

“The funnel moves pretty quickly,” he says. “Once it gets down to ‌admitted students, then the challenge is how do we get them to enroll?” Cassel thinks a solution to this challenge is in generative artificial intelligence (Gen-AI)— a new world where schools use the experiences of current students and alumni to better attract future students.

As the school’s Senior Social Media Strategist & Content Producer, Cassel was trying to find a way to get people to actively participate in a social media campaign. He started with a simple Google Form asking his audience (students!) to talk about their experiences at Middlebury. Cassel then used this listening strategy to collect data and feed it to Midjourney (a popular text-to-image AI program) to create compelling and unique images. The AI image tool transformed the students words into beautiful visual stories; ones far more interesting to look at than the standard college images you typically see on social. These images were then integrated into Cassel’s social strategy with links that pointed to custom website pages that matched the visual stories, like how a student could benefit from attending Middlebury, what a student’s future career opportunities may look like, and how a student can become a changemaker.

According to Cassel, this is a scalable plan that can be applied to any educational institution, especially with the upcoming release of OpenAI’s Sora text-to-video chatbot.

Cassel envisions a world where Gen-AI is central to the enrollment process. As we’ve recently seen with Google’s updated AI Overviews, the way we search is changing. When Generation Alpha (students born between 2010 and 2024) chooses where to go to college, he expects a more immersive and interactive experience. Students will search for art schools in the Northeast to then be asked if they want a video tour. The Gen-AI tool then sifts through every video your school has ever released, from aerial drone footage to decade-old campus tours. This information is scrubbed, analyzed, and repurposed to create a personalized tour for the prospective student. Who would the student like to give the tour? Would they like a faculty member, a student, or maybe a celebrity or distinguished alumni (the legal pending, of course)? For example, if they’re looking into enrolling at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, perhaps film director David Lynch can show them around.

Although it may seem like a gimmicky parlor trick, this method provides students with a sense of authenticity. This allows them not only a moment of delight when Henry David Thoreau walks into the frame and introduces the Harvard campus tour, but also a confirmation of their sense of belonging.

A Proactive Investment

Do I expect you to jump in with both feet and start planning for ten years down the road? No. We know these technologies are evolving alongside the shift in higher education. The people who lead higher education are busy more than ever, just trying to keep the doors open. But you should always plan and try new and innovative things when resources and time allow.

So, can you afford to invest in driving enrollment with a creative new approach? That investment, whether through students, staff, or contractors, shows a commitment to the future when the future may be uncertain. Fifteen years ago, your leadership had to be convinced that social media (particularly Facebook) was vital to recruiting and enrolling new students. People like Cassel saw the runway to take off, and eventually, their bosses came around. In a similar way, we encourage you to share the benefits of AI with your decision-makers and help them understand how it can fundamentally steer the ship back on course.

With many universities actively working to create their own secure GPT models and with higher education being the most trusted industry to work with AI, the time feels right for evolution. The Middlebury example may be rooted in text-to-image, but what that Google Form did was provide invaluable, “actionable data that will inform strategy to increase enrollment,” according to Cassel. Feeding that data into your own Large Language Model can pull true insights. Involving your alumni gives you post-graduation outcomes that speak to how your students have moved through their programs and beyond. For example, how are students of color who graduated from the sculpting program doing now? This kind of research and data analysis used to take far more effort and now tells us a much richer story. And in a time where art schools are disappearing or being taken over by other universities with better resources, that research is more important than ever.

Andrew Cassel has a message to his fellow higher education visionaries and marketers: “Don’t give up. Champion what is right. Be a voice for change.” Stay persistent in showing your leadership teams that Gen-AI is a powerhouse tool here to stay and that it can be used for good. Show them that you’re willing to take the time to parse through the confusing parts and take an ethical stance on what these tools can do for your institution.

Mighty Citizen Can Help

The lens through which you curate your campaigns has always and will always determine whether you pass or fail. The question Andrew and I kept coming back to was, “Can higher education move fast enough?” Our team at Mighty Citizen has 25 years of experience working with higher education institutions and helping them better connect with their audiences. Interested in chatting with us? Reach out—we’d love to connect.