Traditionally, colleges used a similar mix of marketing tools and techniques to attract new students. The typical approach included: a high-quality set of recruitment brochures on select programs of study; a college catalog that was attractive and easy to navigate; a local community reputation fostered by years of publicity; a group of sought-after academic programs with distinctive reputations in a select few areas; accreditations; and active and loyal alumni bases.
Beyond the Credential Factory: Why Higher Education Must Shift from Management to Flourishing
For decades, higher education leadership has obsessed over “student success” as a purely operational metric. We track retention and graduation rates and postgraduation outcomes with the same linear precision that
Yoshitaka Iwasaki
August 3, 2026
