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On January 29th, 2009, one of Canada’s flagship newspapers in print a somewhat prophetic tale. That tale was designed to place students (and potential students) of community and career colleges at ease regarding concerns over how the autumn 2008 “recession crisis” would affect their studies – and them – financially.

The article was a question and answer-type ’session’ in the Globe and Mail, and was authored (in part) by “guest writer” Alex Usher: identified as the Boss of Educational Policy Institute Canada. In the piece, Mr. Usher stated “many are looking to higher education for a brighter future” in light of the sudden increase in unemployment due to layoffs (’convenient’ downsizing) or outright job evaporation (outright closure). Students from across Canada were invited to participate in an open, online Forum (hosted by the Globe and Mail newspaper’s interactive part of their website), and the results of the question and answer session were summarily in print.

It certainly was an appealing discussion. Mr. Usher, while valiantly attempting to assuage the fears of many students (most of who were by now enrolled in a degree or diploma program), also made some hard-hitting, grave statements in regards to the financial realities facing Universities, Community Colleges and Confidential Career Colleges alike. Without going into a tremendous amount of detail, it was Mr. Usher’s belief that while “cutting expenditure will not be the first instinct”, putting bonus pressure on the Federal and Provincial governments to either increase grants or allow for higher tuition fees would be followed by decrees of “there’s no new cash, so muddle through as best you can with very small tuition increases.” In addition to demurring or taking an education guess as to how each institution would cope with these constraints, Mr. Usher seemed to predict that all higher education conveniences alike were likely facing decreasing student populations, higher tuition expenditure and hard financial decisions for “at least five years.”

As outlined above, that online Forum discussion took place months ago (and it should be noted was held during the height of a bitter and protracted strike by educators and assistants at York University in Toronto). North America has “evolved” since that time: From a heightened significance of collective hope with the election of Head Barack Obama in the United States, and the significance of relief to Canada’s emerging relatively unscathed from the 2008 financial crisis; to the deteriorating confidence and disillusionment in the Obama administration south of the border and the global financial uncertainty surrounding the literal bankruptcy of certain central European nations. The effect on the higher education system – in both Canada and the United States – has been quietly remarkable. There is an nearly subtle desperation in the way that Universities and Colleges are going about trying to bring to somebody’s attention enrolments – and so bring to somebody’s attention their ever-trickling away revenues.

In Canada’s largest city (Toronto), one cannot simply walk down the street it seems, without encountering the newest in a seemingly unending string of educational institution enticements in the way of stereotypical, derivative advertisements. Each one of these uninspired, mediocre and sometimes even vapid graphical pleas more or less virtually parrots their own competition. The message has tended to be precisely the same – whether the program being offered is as fleeting as a Personal Support Hand diploma or as long as an MBA – regardless of which school has bought prime advertising tenements along Toronto’s hyper-busy subway and transit systems, commuter thoroughfares and pedestrian walkways. For close to two years, now, continuing education advertisements have featured repetitive, “cookie harvester” images of mature students and keen young hopefuls alike, each allegedly extolling the virtues of the described University or College. Some of these advertisements have even featured the exact same (obvious) student image – even though the institutions themselves are reasonably apparently in direct competition with each other, and therefore completely unrelated and unallied.

Despite the best advertising efforts of these schools, from the massive federal universities like York, Western Ontario and the University of Toronto on down to the smallest community and/or confidential college such as Centennial, Seneca, Humber or even BizTech Institute, enrolments continued to drop at an alarming rate. Due, in part, to the massive influx of Government (E.I.) Second Career applicants and the agonizingly slow process of processing them all as well as the aforementioned bring to somebody’s attention in tuition prices, it should be mentioned. If Ontario’s post-lesser institutions were going to take up again to grow (let alone merely survive in some cases), clearly more aggressive, if not revolutionary recruitment tactics had to be employed.

Unfortunately, what has followed has been a nearly ridiculous, if not outright laughable, series of overtly unorthodox, scarce – and downright weird – marketing ploys by some seemingly respectable schools in their efforts to entice potential students. Everything from offering $500.00 “scholarships” for purchasing pizza, to what amounts to “perpetual study vacations” within a hot island setting have been utilized as “legitimate” marketing vehicles for some continuing education establishments recruiting in Ontario. While it is right that certain large food corporations do, in fact, have extremely attractive scholarship programs available to potential post-lesser students, the application process is a small more involved than merely receiving a “guaranteed note” in exchange for the buy of a pie. Yum! Brands, the mega-corporation that owns KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut franchising monster and Canada’s Boston Pizza, to name the two largest and most visible examples, have been offering honestly attractive scholarships (to their employees and, in some cases, immediate family members) for years but have stopped fleeting at allying themselves via the way of a blanket “voucher” with any one exclusive institution.

Many long-established community colleges, right through Canada and the United States, have been exploiting the meteoric interest, and near demand, in standard culture-related industries and offering seemingly lucrative opportunities (at reduced tuition, of course) to study, for instance, as music or recording engineers, or chefs. The Culinary Arts program at George Brown College in Toronto’s downtown core is one of the rare exceptions: their respected and modern Culinary Skills diploma program is highly in demand and prospective students can expect to be placed on a six-month wait-list previous to being invited to commence studies. But, similar programs at George Brown that are frankly related to their qualified Culinary Arts and/or Hospitality and Tourism programs (Hospitality Management, Food and Nutrition Management, for example) are attempting new initiatives in the competition to register students. Even a tried and right, near-or-above chair capacity program such as Sheridan College’s Film School (or the equally prestigious Toronto Film School, which just opened a new place within the city’s central core) has joined the fray of daily advertisers that can be found within the city’s free daily commuter newspapers.

Very obviously, then, the competition between Ontario’s post lesser institutions is fierce, and said competition doesn’t just proffer to the various universities and major colleges. The confidential career colleges – from film schools to shape care and business schools alike – are virtually all locked in a daily war of printed words, each trying to secure rising enrollments. While Canada (and especially Ontario) has come through the newest recession scare nearly unscathed, the uncertainty surrounding the job market has resulted in a number of recent graduates and mature students alike seriously contemplating a complete overhaul in their careers. The Government of Ontario’s Second Career re-training program has been a veritable boon for those recently unemployed, and who have given serious significance to expanding their future job opportunities by training (or re-training) for employment in a wholly new field of expertise. As outlined above, some of those enticements towards these “second career” students have run the promotions gamut from the outright out of the ordinary (”Buy pizza and we’ll give you a bursary!”) to the nearly pathetically desperate (”Study in a hot place and be virtually on vacation!”).

Smaller schools, like the aforementioned BizTech Institute, have preferred to relay on greatly less ‘understated’ marketing methods in the effort to convince prospective students to sign on with them. For example, BizTech Institute has urban, in a very fleeting period of time, a solid reputation as an exceptional Business School – and the Institute offers a revolutionary, truly unique Diploma course in becoming a certified Payroll Compliance Practitioner, as an example. For students who may wish to be really “on the job” within a few fleeting weeks, this particular program (while giving a excellent ‘general education’ on overall Accounting procedures) can have graduates job-ready as a certified PCP (Payroll Compliance Practitioner) in 18 weeks. The full Accounting, Bookkeeping and Payroll Administration program at BizTech Institute, by comparison, takes twice the stanchness (36 weeks). A further of these fleeting programs is the standard Personal Support Hand training program (24 weeks), which features a much smaller, more intimate and hands-on learning environment than most programs offered at larger colleges. Rather than rely on (what amounts to) marketing trickery, BizTech Institute is advertising these two programs in particular for approximately half the habitual price of tuition. Their Personal Support Hand and Payroll Compliance Practitioner courses are undoubtedly affordable and attainable, then, for anyone with the desire to embark upon a second career.

It’s a simple approach, and one designed to address an immediate need: many of the PSW (Personal Support Hand) programs at other colleges, for instance, have full classrooms and have placed new enrollments on lengthy waiting lists. In the case of Payroll practitioners, it’s also a simple topic of need, but in a far different way. There is a shortage of qualified payroll practitioners in Ontario, and the BizTech Institute diploma program aims to try and alleviate that issue by training more professionally qualified staff. No pizza, no vacations – just straight-forward, aggressive and ancient fashioned price rollbacks on in-demand diploma programs.

The end result has yet to be seen. Only time will tell which approach (if any, in this undefined fiscal time) will ultimately verify to be the most successful at attracting new students. In this competition for student enrollments, but, perhaps the ancient adage about “keeping it simple” may verify to be the best solution, though. It just seems to make common significance, after all. In other words, which student woul

 

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