Planning for the Future of a College Town
Starting with a discussion on "growth", West Texas A&M shared their historic data with our team and a short narrative to give context. They're no small school, with a student body hovering around 10,000 students, but their market niche was growing for their online MBA courses (see the below graph provided by WTAMU). They shared a vision with us - to become a competitive MBA program for online students across the country and provide a landing point for Junior transfers from other, smaller community colleges and 2 year prep-schools. We put together some graphics to help them project that vision into the coming decade to better prepare them for capital improvements.
Our first step forward was in projecting data out over the next decade. This started with a simple linear model and quickly evolved based on the input of WTAMU stakeholders. Linear projections for the overall head count were a good starting point, but we all agreed, those projections failed to capture the individual needs and goals of each college. It also did not consider the potential impact of changing the marketing approach of WTAMU. We instead, asked WTAMU for their goals for 2027, and then began to work backwards towards a manageable plan for their ambitions.
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What Do You See in the Future?
Predicting the future isn't always about algorithms and regressions. In this case, WTAMU's leadership wanted to accomplish a few things:
- Taper Freshman Enrollment
- Expand Online Enrollment, Especially for Their MBA
- Become More Competitive With Transfer Students
In this case we combined expected FTE projections with these goals and operated on percentages and forecasts based on trends. A mathematical model ideally would have captured these results, however, given budget limits and team capacity, the task was expedited to an Excel Document and interpreted based on leadership's goals. A bit like drawing a picture for another person, it took a few tries, but we ultimately converged the data with the narrative of leadership. Below are the resulting charts.
- Taper Freshman Enrollment
- Expand Online Enrollment, Especially for Their MBA
- Become More Competitive With Transfer Students
In this case we combined expected FTE projections with these goals and operated on percentages and forecasts based on trends. A mathematical model ideally would have captured these results, however, given budget limits and team capacity, the task was expedited to an Excel Document and interpreted based on leadership's goals. A bit like drawing a picture for another person, it took a few tries, but we ultimately converged the data with the narrative of leadership. Below are the resulting charts.
Who Comes from Where?
WTAMU was also very interested in knowing where their students have been historically coming from. Below are two GIFs generated to visualize where Texas native students have been coming from and where Non-Texas students have been coming from. This work revealed that WTAMU has been gradually expanding its Texas presence as well as its student body from California, Colorado, and New Mexico. It also reflects the expansion of the online MBA program.