Understanding that we really have not seen much from the new leadership team in terms of strategy and tactics, I am waiting for someone to tell me how it is that we will ethically and legally increase enrollment and placement rates to a level that allows us to survive and thrive. Call me a pessimist, but I can't figure out how that will happen given the realities of the marketplace. .
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OP: As you mentioned you are definitely a pessimistic person on this issue. I am not going to answer your question because you are not one to accept any answers. All I will say is that I am going to give the new leadership an opportunity to show what they have and support them as long as what they are doing is legal and ethical.
It will have to decrease before it can increase. Why? Because the reputation and perception of the school needs to be changed. Everything that we do now needs to change (and I do mean everything). We need to start by requiring students to have at minimum a GED. How is a person even admitted to college without a GED or high school diploma? Next, require a placement test and introduce remedial classes. We also need to stop playing school and actually become one. Work on having partnerships with local employers to have faith in hiring Zenith graduates. Allow instructors to actually teach. Stop running the school like a corporation and run it like an institution for higher learning. Try to obtain a regional accreditation (it speaks volumes although it is hard to attain). Reduce all of these unnecessary management positions. The company is too top heavy. There are too many Program directors, directors, managers, senior managers. This will provide more money to sustain the school a little longer while it tries to transition in a way to increase enrollment. I foresee a major decrease before it can increase, .
OP here. Seven responses, no answer to the question I posed (and one poster afraid to even consider the question at all). Either nobody - me included- is smart enough to figure out the answer, or there is no answer. In that case, the suggestion to pray might the best response received.....
I get what people are saying and the car analogy. If you feel that this is all gloomy, feel free to get out and don't let the door hit your behind. All of the negativity is so embarrassing and demoralizing. I am not saying that our situation is the best in the world but I can think of a few other situations that are much worse than the one we are in. The first that comes to mind is the unemployment line. Then, no car, house, TV, and other items that this broken car provides to all of us. Good luck to all of you in your new jobs.
Put a Band-Aid on the Titanic - The outlook isn't great for any of us, but at least we are still employed (and looking)
Competition? From whom? I mean no disrespect to the many hardworking students who are indeed applying themselves, but the Everest brand targeted the absolutely most challenged in our society. This was their targeted niche. Remember "Region 1" - it was based on bus routes and geographic clusters of poverty. Devry / Phoenix / others aim for higher quality students- simply consider Everest's adverts compared to Devry's and Phoenix's. I'm not sure what regulations other than 90/10 going non-profit makes, but if ECMC can get around 90/10, gainful employment, placement reqs, then the old business model might work again.
325: I get that ECMC is a debt collector and bought the CCI schools for a dime. What else would they do with them if they don't run them as schools? Most have leases and little to no tangible assets. So I think your car analogy is off, even though I get it. So what do you think they're planning on doing?
OP - I've been feeling the same way. We have a lot of competition out there, and they have long been much better at advertising and other forms of lead generation than we were (look at our stock price history over the last five years). At best we have a mix of the same incompetent idiots who created this mess, and a group of newbees who are starting from scratch learning the biz. We've been so reliant on targeting the hard-core Jerry Springer crowd and pushing them through the process with hand holding and (at best) high school level work, that I can't see how we have the skills to turn the ship around. What ECMC is attempting is something totally new. That takes a lot of expertise and strong leadership at all levels. Either that or they really are planning on just doing things the way CCi did. If that failed before, why would it be different now? And it's not just getting into trouble with the feds, etc, etc et al. We were really sucking from a pure business standpoint. It's troubling to be sure.
Don't think I'm trying to be rude in being so blunt, as I don't intend to be (but rather realistic), but when you see the tires, wheels, bumpers and transmission fall off a car and its bought by a junk yard, at what point do you look at it for what it is and realize the car isn't going to drive on the streets much longer?
PRAY!!