Higher education serves a variety of students and constituents. Prospective traditional students and adult learners, current students, alumni, donors, employers and community leaders each have a unique set of needs and objectives. Colleges and universities must develop a successful program of interaction and communication with each of these constituencies in order to attract new students, retain existing students, attract donations, and build a positive community image.

How well are you serving your constituents?

Student Insights has introduced an innovative market research service to help colleges work more successfully with the many groups that it serves.  The Modular Research Program is an accurate and highly-affordable market research service for higher education.

The Modular Research Program employs a unique standardized approach to market research.  Based on our extensive work with a large number of colleges and universities, Student Insights has developed a set of core research areas for each constituency.  Feedback on each core research area is gathered with a standardized survey and presented in a standard format.

The benefit of this standardized research approach is twofold.  First, it provides colleges with a reliable and tested approach that has been refined through years of higher education research.  In addition, it enables research to be conducted quickly and at price that is a fraction of traditional custom research. 

The Modular Research Program consists of several modules:

Prospective Adult Learners – Basic and Advanced
Current Students
Alumni
Donors
Employers
Community Leaders

You can order each of these modules separately or combine them into a comprehensive research program for your institution.  Each module is presented in a 40 – 60 page PowerPoint file with concise, easy-to-read charts and narrative.

Do you have institution-specific questions that you would like to add to the module?  No problem.  We will gladly incorporate your customized questions at a surprisingly reasonable cost.

Prospective Adult Learners – Basic ($5,000)

Adult learners are an important opportunity for most colleges, both as full-time and part-time students.  This Adult Learner Module helps colleges understand the educational preferences of adult learners as well as their awareness and perception of your institution and your key competitors.  The report includes:

• Preferences for college size, setting, distance and tuition
• Preferences for class timing, course load, and instruction format
• Your institution’s market position versus primary competitors
• Rating of your institution’s key attributes and comparisons with competitors
• Top-of-mind descriptions of your college
• Communication gaps and priorities with adult learners

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Prospective Adult Learners – Advanced ($8,000)

The advanced version of the Adult Learner Module includes everything from the basic version as well as a detailed analysis of market position in specific demographic segments. This report enables the development and benchmarking of highly-detailed communication plans targeted by:

• Gender
• Race
• Family Income
• Degree objective (i.e. bachelor, masters, etc.)
• Intended area of study
• Geographic sub-region (i.e. county- and multi-county regions)
• Full-time/part-time status

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Current Students ($3,000)

The Current Student Module measures current students’ satisfaction and identifies factors to enhance retention.  The analysis includes:

• Ratings of your institution’s overall favorability and performance in key areas
• Institutional strengths and opportunities for improvement
• Preferences for class timing, course load, and instruction format
• Intentions to complete studies at the your institution
• Barriers to completing studies
• Willingness to recommend the institution to others

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Alumni ($3,500)

The Alumni Module measures alumni satisfaction with their educational experience and their ongoing relationship with the college.  The report also gauges interest in alumni activities and the willingness of alumni to become donors in the future. The analysis includes:

• Ratings of your institution’s overall favorability and performance in key areas
• Institutional strengths and opportunities for improvement
• Effectiveness of alumni relation efforts, including communications and events
• Opportunities to enhance alumni relations programs
• Degree of participation and interest in alumni activities
• Willingness to recommend the institution to others
• Opportunity and barriers for alumni to become future donors

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Donors ($3,500)

The Donor Module provides a comprehensive view of donors’ opinions of the college, measures the likelihood of future donations, and identifies opportunities for strengthening donor relations.

• Ratings of your institution’s overall favorability and performance in key areas
• Institutional strengths and opportunities for improvement
• Effectiveness of interaction with donors, including communications and events
• Perceived effectiveness of institutional use of donated funds
• Willingness to recommend the institution to others
• Opportunity and barriers for future donations

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Employer Module ($4,000)

The Employer Module measures how your institution is perceived overall and as a provider of qualified employees to businesses and organizations in your region.  This module includes:

• Your institution’s market position versus primary competitors
• Rating of your institution’s key attributes and comparisons with competitors
• Top-of-mind descriptions of your college
•  The quality of your institution’s graduates as employees;
• Recommendations for better preparing graduates for the workforce

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Community Leader Module ($4,000)

The Community Leader Module measures how your institution is perceived overall and as a contributing member of the community.  Respondents include political-, educational-, non-profit and other leaders.

• Your institution’s market position versus primary competitors
• Rating of your institution’s key attributes and comparisons with competitors
• Top-of-mind descriptions of your college
• The degree to which your institution contributes to the community
• Recommendations for making a greater contribution to the communitytop

Student Insights’ Modular Research Program is the most advanced, affordable option in higher education research today.  Contact us today to see how it can help your institution successfully grow and meet its diverse set of challenges.