Research . . . the Way You Want It . . . When You Want It

Between 1994 and 2010, InterEd conducted more than 760 research projects for 110 colleges and universities. That's a lot of research!

Research Areas

While no two studies are identical with respect to goals, methods, or findings, here in order of frequency of occurrence are the general categories into which 90% of those 760 studies fell: (Click each for detail.)

Program Feasibility Assessment

Context is everything. You need to make decisions about what programs you should offer in the context of the specific market, the competitive landscape, your internal strengths and weaknesses, and the effectiveness of your enrollment unit. InterEd can mitigate virtually all of the knowable risk in these decisions with our 16 year historical knowledge-base and our proven methodologies and analytic tools. I want more information

New Market Feasibility Assessment

Many schools are branching into adjacent and even distant locations. While this may be a good way to expand, the elements of success – and failure – lie in the details. InterEd can mitigate the knowable up-front risk in these decisions by providing concrete guidance about whether to enter a specific market and, if so, the best way to do it. I want more information

Site Assessment

Online programs are popular and growing. However, sometimes the most successful path to growth is expanding into new geographical areas with physical campuses. When this decision has been made, it is then necessary to determine the best general location within that market. You also need to know the area's standards with respect to appeparance and physical amenities. We've been doing this kind of research for 25 years, almost a decade before we founded InterEd. We can do it quickly and inexpensively. There is an art and a science supporting these important location decisions. I want more information

Enrollment Services Audit

Whatever your enrollment goals, it it likely that you will beefit from an audit of your current enrollment practices and systems. We recommend such an audit before you decide on the direction and pace of change you should undertake, consider retaining InterEd to perform an in-depth audit of your current enrollment structure and activities. While every audit we do is customized to your specific needs, here are a few of our most popular options:

Front-end Assessment - This research assesses and stresses all the various ways that students first interact with your institution.

Sales/Enrollment Process Assessment - This research analyzes the sales process from marketing to attending the first class in order to identify strengths and weaknesses.

Pre-matriculation Services Integration - This research probes the level of cooperation and integration between the various pre-matriculation services that are vital to the comfort and confidence of all prospective students.

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Competitive Analysis

The competitive environment in which you operate is material to your decisions and ultimate success yet difficult to interpret correctly. Competition is seldom defined by a head count of institutions offering similar programs in your market. In some contexts, more programs increase your chance of succeeding. Other factors, such as service profiles, time-to-degree, and pricing need to be factored in. The answers always lie in details. Our research will answer these questions with precision, allowing you to eliminate any and all surprises of a competitive nature. I want more information

CRM & Telecommunications Systems Audit

Using enrollment management as an example, effective enrollment systems rely heavily on a modern technological infrastructure. Enrollment counselors need a central place to maintain the history of their interactions with prospective students, the information exchanged, timelines, etc. They also need a reminder system for the activities they schedule and set with their prospects. These systems represent a significant capital investment and the decision to implement should not reside exclusively (or even substantially) your IT group. These same issues apply to the management of retention, content, and instruction. An audit of any or all of these functions can save you more money, time, and even grief than you might imagine.I want more information

Retention Services Audit

To keep is cheap, to graduate is sweet! It is generally true that it is smarter (e.g., less expensive) to retain an existing customer than to secure a new one. Derivations from our empirical models show that the typical adult-centered program would reap incrementally greater benefits from a reallocation to retention management from 15% to 25% of what it spends on lead generation, enrollment, and pre-matriculation services (the front-end). Even many leading adult-centered and professional institutions budget substantially less than they would need to budget to achieve a return-on-investment at parity with their enrollment budgets.

Retention to graduation represents the sweet spot where the interests of higher education's many and diverse stakeholders converge.

While financial outcomes represent the easiest part of smarter to operationalize, the non-financial benefits of increasing retention often present stronger reasons for taking immediate action. You can get started today with these popular options:

Dropped Student Assessment - This research will discover the real reasons students leave your programs. (They're probably not what your exit interview survey tells you.)

Retention Services Assessment - This research evaluates your entire retention operation, from the first day in class to graduation.

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Assessment & Quality Management Systems Audit

Despite years of discussion about how to effectively assess education and programs, very few institutions have implemented a system of assessments and measures that can contribute to continuous quality improvement. The complicated part of such a system is no longer the technological component, but rather the intelligence required to create a system that provides actionable information to the proper people at an appropriate time.

There is no "magic bullet" here or even a standardized approach. All assessment is, by definition, custom -- appropriate to the audience and medium. InterEd can help you understand how your efforts at assessment succeed and fall short of an integrated system. The audit will also provide you with concrete recommendations for how to turn disparate projects into a unified system of management intelligence.

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Tuition Pricing

The national media would likely disagree, but we think that many programs designed for working adult and professional students are priced below their market value to employers and students. Others have already priced themselves into the zone of negative elasticity. Our audit will analyze your pricing strategy in light of your market competition and national trends. At the least, you will increase your understanding of your pricing strategy and be able to make decisions consistent with that strategy. I want more information

Features & Benefits

If you commission a study from InterEd, you can be certain that your research and findings:

• Contain concrete recommendations for action that you can count on.
• Mitigate the knowable risk in the forthcoming decisions informed by the research.
• Enjoy a 96% probability of being delivered on time.
• Are delivered and interpreted by InterEd's Senior Analysts and Executives.
• Are delivered as a Written Report, a Briefing Teleconference, and as many follow-up conversations as you need for as long as you need them to ensure your success.
• Are free of jargon, numerical and visual bloat, and "waffling" answers or recommendations.
• Provide information gathered and analyzed specifically for you, to solve your problem.
• Are never sold to anyone else, as is now standard practice in these kinds of consultancies.