Visit www.proretention.com to download the white paper. Community colleges are considered to be a critical contributor in creating employment and filling skill gaps among U.S. workers. However, the decline in enrollment at community colleges is a growing concern as more schools are failing to meet their enrollment goals. A U.S. Census report released on September 24, 2014 indicated that community colleges and 2-year junior colleges experienced a 10 percent decline in enrollment from 2012 to 2013. The white paper titled “Unlocking the Potential of Enrollment CRM at Community Colleges” highlights the need for implementing Constituent Relationship Management (CRM) and the key features that CRM systems offer for addressing declining enrollment at community colleges. About ProRetention: ProRetention our flagship product, a comprehensive Student Lifecycle CRM is designed to help universities track, manage, service and engage students. Enrollment CRM increases effective nurturing and conversion of inquiries into students, Success CRM raises service and engagement levels leading to student success, and Advancement CRM encourages their fund raising and institutional participation.

1. Unlocking the potential of
Enrollment CRM at
Community Colleges
Winning Strategy to Increase Enrollments

2. Introduction .............................................................................................................. 3
CRM Adoption in Community Colleges .................................................................. 4
Need of CRM in Community Colleges .................................................................... 4
Key Features of Student Lifecycle CRM ................................................................. 6
Considerations for Student CRM Investment .......................................................... 7
Summary ................................................................................................................. 9
Table of Contents
2

3. Community colleges are considered to be a
critical contributor in creating employment and
filling skill gaps among U.S. workers. The
sector received additional exposure recently as
President Obama proposed a program of free
community college tuition for any qualified
student.
But unfortunately, demographic trends have
shown a decline in the number of graduating
high school seniors in some regions. And the
improving economy, while generally good
news, has led to diminished demand for the
type of career-focused programs that are a
staple of community colleges.
As a result of these factors, community college
enrollment has been in decline. A U.S. Census
report1
released on September 24, 2014
indicated that community colleges and 2-year
junior colleges experienced a 10 percent
decline in enrollment from 2012 to 2013, while
enrollment at four-year colleges grew slightly
by 1 percent.
Introduction
3
Figure 1: Students enrollment at different levels of college1
1 – News Release: College Enrollment Declines for Second Year in a Row, Census Bureau Reports. Available online at
http://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2014/cb14-177.html

4. Community colleges are responding to enrollment
declines in a number of innovative ways. Many
have added online coursework to expand their
reach and make their classes more accessible
to working adults. Others are looking to recruit
some students from outside their traditional
service area (such as international students),
expanding relationships with 4-year institutions,
or adding new program offerings. One area
where community colleges lag other types of
institutions is in the use of Constituent
Relationship Management (CRM) systems.
These systems, which help automate and
systematize the recruiting and enrollment
process, have seen explosive growth in use
among traditional public and private 4-year
institutions over the past several years and the
majority of 4-year schools have implemented
CRM systems. But use of CRMs at community
colleges remains comparatively low, with some
estimates of CRM usage at well under 50%.
CRM Adoption in Community Colleges
The declining enrollment rates referenced
above have led the leadership at many
community colleges to seriously consider
bringing CRM technology to their institutions.
CRM systems have a proven track record of
helping to boost enrollment at 4-year institutions.
Community colleges are seeking to benefit
from CRM technology in the same ways that
4-year institutions have, including:
• Creation of a comprehensive database of
prospective students, with detailed histories
of communication “touch points” with each
prospect
• Automated outreach processes that
maximize the productivity of the institution’s
enrollment staff
• More efficient follow-ups on inquiries - and
no more prospective students “falling
between the cracks”
• Arepositorywherestandardizedcommunication
pieces can be created and managed
centrally, and made available to enrollment
staff communicating with prospective
students
• Access to detailed reporting and
dashboards, to get a much higher level of
insight into what’s working – and not working
– in the enrollment process
• Better communications within and between
departments (enrollment, marketing, financial
aid, etc.)
• Overall improvement in the number and
quality of students enrolling at the institution
Need of CRM in Community Colleges
4

5. In an ideal scenario, CRM systems can facilitate communications well beyond the recruitment and
enrollment cycles. Best-in-class systems now embody a “student lifecycle CRM” approach, where
the system can facilitate communications and engagement with students from prospects through
alumni. These student lifecycle CRM systems build on a single student database to manage
relationships with:
5
Prospective
Students
Enrolled
Students
Graduated
Students
Enabling enrollment teams to maximize the size and quality
of their entering classes
Facilitating ongoing communications
and engagement to maximize student success,
retention and graduation rates
Enabling community colleges to stay in
contact with graduates, to facilitate
fundraising, mentoring programs,
internships, job opportunities, and other
important connection points
Figure 2: Student lifecycle

6. A review of the latest Enrollment CRM functionality currently in use at 4-year colleges and universities
provides further insight into the reasons as to why these systems are getting more attention from
community colleges. Features of Enrollment CRM systems can include:
Key Features of Enrollment CRM
6
Centralized Database
A single, searchable
database of information and
history of interactions with
each prospective student
Mobile Apps
Mobile versions of the
applications for both
prospects and staff, to enable
system functionality to be
available via mobile phones
and tablet devices
Inquiry Management
An automated system to
record and assign
incoming inquiries from
prospective students based
on factors such as school
district, intended program
/ major, or identified “high
priority” characteristics.
Import
Capability to import lists of
students from multiple
external sources
Automated Workflows
Automated communications
workflows that facilitate
ongoing communications with
prospective students via email,
text, social media, and direct
mail.
Keep Warm Hubs
Ability to set reminders and
ticklers for follow-up outreach
Event Management
Ability to manage recruiting
events, including sending
targeted invitations, tracking
RSVP’s, tracking attendance,
and collecting student
feedback following the events
Knowledge Library
Creation of a repository
of approved marketing
documents, to ensure that
counselors are sending
out consistent, approved recruiting
materials and re-use
when required
Student
Enrollment
CRM
Dashboards
Detailed reporting
provided in intuitive,
easy - to -understand
dashboards and reports.
Ideally, report formats and data can
be customized on a departmental
and individual basis. Reports can
often be scheduled to be delivered to
concerned stakeholders automatically
via email on a specified day of the
week or month
Figure 3: Features of Student Enrollment CRM

7. As community colleges reach the point where
they are ready to acquire a CRM system, a
number of important considerations emerge:
Additionally, the systems can benefit from the
ability to build a CRM system for educational
institutions “from the ground up”. This means
that core structures can conform to the unique
needs of schools. For instance, instead of data
structures that address accounts, clients and
contacts, student lifecycle CRM’s can be built
around structures such as campus, department,
area of study, academic term, and type of
award (certificate, associates, bachelors, etc.)
Integration with internal systems
Another critical issue to consider is the
requirement for integration of a CRM with existing
institutional systems. If the CRM is considered
purely for the Enrollment Management cycle,
integration with existing institutional systems
(the most critical of which is the school’s
Student Information System (SIS)), is not as
essential as it would be for the current student
lifecyle (from class start to graduation). It is
important to choose a CRM vendor who has a
track-record of successful integrations with
various SIS systems. As part of this process,
school staff will want to carefully consider the
integration points that will be required to get the
most highly functional and streamlined CRM
installation for their school.
Colleges may also want to consider opportunities
to integrate smaller systems at use at the
school into the CRM. In many cases, providers
of these systems will offer documented
Application Programming Interfaces (API’s)
that will make integration fairly straightforward.
Top management commitment
The impact of CRM on a community college
can be dramatic and transformational. But
educational institutions, perhaps more than
most organizations, often face a great deal of
internal inertia and resistance to change. For a
CRM system implementation to be successful,
it is imperative that there is buy-in at all levels.
Without leadership support, the system will not
get the visibility and resource investment
required to ensure success. And without full
supportatthestafflevel,theprocessimprovements
offered by the CRM system could be greatly
hindered.
Commercial CRM vs. Education CRM
Many colleges have implemented leading
CRM systems from the commercial sector, with
successful outcomes. They benefit from the
wide commercial acceptance and broad usage
of the systems. But the systems generally
require a significant amount of enhancement to
address the specific needs of a particular
community college, leading to high customization
and support costs. Additionally, these systems
often are priced on “cost-per-seat” basis, so
system costs will go up as usage within the
institution grows.
Alternatively, some vendors have developed
CRM systems specifically for educational
institutions. These systems can require less
customization, with much of the functionality
required by a college available “out of the box”.
Considerations for Student CRM Investment
7

8. 8
Student Lifecycle CRM systems typically offer
an integrated student database that allows a
college to track student interactions from
prospect to post-graduation. Even if an institution
plans to implement these modules on a
phased basis, it is wise to choose a CRM
system that offers a full lifecycle growth path.
Cost
Faced with low tuition levels and diminishing
state financial support, community colleges are
invariably under tremendous budgetary pressure,
and the idea of implementing a major new
system may seem financially unrealistic.
Fortunately, the cost of some CRM systems is
coming down, and new, lower-cost systems
with high functionality have become available.
With the urgency to reverse downward enrollment
trends, the investment in a CRM system is
becoming more readily cost-justified for many
colleges. Often times, CRM’s can pay for
themselves in the form of enabling increased
enrollments for an institution.
And happily, many schools find that there are
many manual processes in place that can
easily be replaced by the CRM. A huge benefit
of a CRM is the elimination of home-grown
processes using spreadsheets, personal
emails, or even handwritten documentation.
Point solution vs. Student Lifecycle CRM
There are a number of Student Success
applications available to community colleges
that provide useful functionality for addressing
retention issues. But these applications are
generally stand-alone in nature, and do not
function as a component of a comprehensive
CRM system.
By contrast, some vendors offer a “Student
Lifecycle CRM” that goes beyond recruiting
and enrollment, and extends to support and
engagement of currently enrolled and
graduated students.
For community colleges, the Student Success
module for enrolled students often focuses on
improving student retention, providing a
number of mechanisms to communicate and
engage with enrolled students. One popular
function for enrolled students is an Early Warning
System that identifies at-risk students while
there is still time to effectively intervene.
The Engagement module of a Student Lifecycle
CRM system typically facilitates communications
with students who are no longer at the school,
whether they discontinued their studies,
transferred to a 4-year program, or graduated
and entered the workforce. The ability to maintain
communications and engagement with these
individuals can be beneficial for everything
right from re-enrollment of students who
dropped out to fundraising and job opportunities
from successful alumni.

9. About ProRetentionTM
ProRetentionTM
is a student lifecycle CRM solution, creating meaningful engagement for the student
from the time he is a prospect to graduation and beyond. ProRetentionTM
eliminates uncertainties
faced by universities and colleges in tracking, managing, touching and servicing prospects,
students, and alumni.
ProRetentionTM
is a product of QuScient Technologies, a leading solution provider for higher
education institutions.
Email: info@proretention.com
Phone: +1 (347) 380-7697
www.proretention.com
www.quscient.com
ProRetentionTM
is a product of ProRetention, Inc.
An award-winning education solutions provider
QuScient Technologies
A group company of
Summary
9
Declining enrollments are leading more and more community colleges to implement Constituent
Relationship Management systems. With the availability of education-specific CRM’s and lower-cost
solutions entering the market, the benefits seen by public and private 4-year colleges that have
implemented CRM systems are becoming available to community colleges. Many schools are viewing
the automation of the enrollment process through a CRM system as just the first step in creating a
lifecycle approach to communicating and engaging with students.