In years past, knowing the competition used to be relatively straightforward for admissions and marketing offices.
Colleges used to identify peer institutions to compare programs and tuition, analyze their marketing, and determine where they might be missing out on perspective students.
Although that competition hasn’t disappeared, the bigger challenge lies in convincing prospective students to choose college in the first place.
Students can now pursue certificates, apprenticeships, employer training, and online learning rather than enrolling in a conventional four-year degree program. Artificial intelligence also offers immediate access to information that could previously only be gleaned from lectures and hands-on labs. For students worried about the cost and return on investment of college, entering the workforce immediately may be an increasingly attractive option.
This new reality means colleges aren’t just competing against each other but against a much broader question of whether a degree is still worth the investment.
The answer from higher education experts isn’t to dismiss those alternatives. Instead, institutions may need to become more flexible about what a college education looks like while doing a better job of demonstrating what a degree still provides.
There’s still value in a degree
Despite skepticism of the value of higher education, employers haven’t stopped valuing degrees and credentials.
Research from Gallup and Lumina Foundation found that 74% of employers expect the importance of degrees or credentials within their organizations to either remain steady or increase over the next five years.
Daniella Paradise, a research analyst at the Institute for Higher Education Policy, said the evidence continues to demonstrate the economic value of bachelor’s degrees.
Young adults with degrees from public four-year colleges collectively earn roughly $140 billion in additional annual income nationally after accounting for college costs, according to IHEP research cited by Paradise.
Over a lifetime, bachelor’s degree holders earn between $1.9 million and $4.1 million, compared with a high of roughly $2.9 million for associate degree holders and $2.7 million for people with some college but no degree, according to research Paradise cited from Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce.
But those numbers don’t mean institutions can simply tell prospective students that college pays and expect them to enroll.
“Students and families are asking more nuanced questions than simply whether college is worth it,” Paradise said. “They want to know whether a particular institution or program will lead to good career prospects, whether they can afford it, and whether the investment will pay off without unmanageable debt.”
Stephen Santa-Ramirez, an associate professor of higher education in the University at Buffalo’s Department of Educational Leadership and Policy, said he has seen a similar shift. Students and families are increasingly focused on debt, affordability, career outcomes and whether a degree offers opportunities they cannot obtain through a less expensive pathway.
That distinction is significant for enrollment marketers. Students aren’t necessarily rejecting higher education outright. They’re asking institutions to prove that their particular programs are worth the investment.
Students are demanding receipts
Hillen Grason, vice president for enrollment management, admissions and outreach at Drexel University, has observed a similar trend.
Families and students are thinking carefully about what they are investing in a four-year degree and what they can reasonably expect in return, he said.
At Drexel, those conversations center heavily on experiential education and the university’s cooperative education model. More than 90% of students choose to participate in co-op, according to Grason, and nearly half receive a job offer from their co-op employer upon graduation. Drexel projects that 96% of its graduates are employed or pursuing graduate or professional education in their field within a year of graduation.
Those are the kinds of outcomes prospective students increasingly want to see.
“Institutions are being asked to show their value and justify their cost,” Grason said.
“To many people, the moniker ‘University’ or ‘College’ doesn’t hold the credibility it did 10 or 20 years ago because so many organizations with these titles have not delivered on the promise of higher education. Understandably, students and families now want to see the receipts.”
For enrollment teams, that means broad promises about a transformative college experience may need to be accompanied by much more concrete evidence.
Paradise said students deserve clear information about costs, debt, and post-college outcomes.
“Institutions should demonstrate how they help students succeed by keeping costs manageable, supporting completion, and preparing graduates for careers in an evolving labor market,” she said.
But demonstrating value doesn’t have to be limited to salary and employment figures.
Santa-Ramirez said institutions need to articulate what students receive beyond the credential itself, including transferable skills, experiential learning, networking, mentorship, and opportunities for long-term career mobility.
The language traditionally relegated to a recruitment brochure is no longer enough, he said. Institutions need to connect academic learning more clearly to what students hope to accomplish after graduation.
Avoid turning the alternatives into the enemy
One response to increased competition could be to defend the traditional bachelor’s degree against certificates, apprenticeships, and other alternatives.
Another is to incorporate them.
Paradise said different educational pathways can complement one another rather than compete. She pointed to LaGuardia Community College as one institution that has created opportunities for students to move between noncredit programs, certificates, alternative pathways, and degree programs.
That flexibility recognizes that a student’s education may no longer follow a straight line from high school to four years of college to a career.
Murugan Anandarajan, a professor in Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business and vice dean and academic director of its Dornsife Office for Experiential Learning, also doesn’t view alternative credentials and four-year degrees as an either-or proposition.
Certificates and apprenticeships have become credible ways of building technical skills, particularly in rapidly changing areas such as AI, analytics, and cybersecurity, he said.
“I don’t see alternative tracks replacing the four-year degree. I see them complementing it,” Anandarajan said.
Students may ultimately combine degrees, certificates, employer training, and online courses as their careers evolve.
Santa-Ramirez similarly sees an opportunity for certificates and stackable credentials to expand student choice while compressing the traditional model, he said. Stackable credentials, for example, can allow students to reach milestones on the way toward a degree rather than waiting years for their first credential.
A competition for time
The changing profile of college students makes that flexibility increasingly important.
Nearly three-quarters of undergraduates work at least one job while enrolled, 41% work full time, 30% are older than 25, and nearly one in five care for dependents while pursuing their education, according to IHEP data cited by Paradise.
That means institutions aren’t simply competing for tuition dollars.
“They’re also competing with their students for mindshare or for time, for limited dollars,” said Drumm McNaughton, founder and CEO of higher education consultancy The Change Leader Inc. “The competition has gotten much more intense than it ever was.”
Santa-Ramirez describes the competitive equation in similar terms. Institutions, he said, are increasingly competing against any pathway that promises a quicker, less expensive, and clearer route to employment and financial stability.
The bottom line, he said, is that the
competition is about “time, overall cost, course flexibility, and perceived return on investment.”
For a working adult, the alternative to college may not be another university. It may be picking up additional hours at work, caring for children, or completing a shorter credential that fits more easily around existing responsibilities.
It can even be another college with a fundamentally different model. Santa-Ramirez said prospective students are increasingly considering accredited online degree programs with lower tuition that allow them to avoid the expense of living on campus and paying associated fees.
As a result, convenience takes on a new meaning.
It isn’t necessarily enough to put a degree online. McNaughton said institutions seeking adult learners also need structures and support systems that reflect when those students are actually available.
Paradise said institutions should similarly recognize that students may move among different types of credentials throughout their lives.
Schools that embrace that reality use data to understand student outcomes and communicate openly about their value will be better positioned to earn prospective students’ trust, she said.
Change itself may actually be the competition
Even alternative credentials aren’t necessarily higher education’s most significant competitor.
“I don’t think colleges and universities are primarily competing against each other,” Anandarajan said. “Nor do I think they’re simply competing against vocational schools or online learning platforms. They’re competing against the pace of change in the workplace.”
AI is reshaping entry-level work, occupations are emerging and technical skills have increasingly short lifespans, he said.
Anandarajan’s research, including a survey of more than 600 employers, found that technical competence matters, but employers consistently emphasized communication, professionalism, critical thinking, teamwork, reliability, and adaptability when evaluating early-career candidates.
That could provide colleges with a stronger answer to the question of what a degree offers that a narrowly focused credential may not.
But institutions must deliver on that promise.
AI makes the issue especially pressing. For example, if college amounts to receiving information, students now have tools that can summarize concepts and answer questions almost instantaneously.
McNaughton said that should force faculty to focus on higher-level skills.
“You can get understanding and knowledge from AI,” he said. Instead, he said assignments should push students toward critical thinking, teamwork, data analysis, and drawing conclusions.
Anandarajan similarly said successful institutions won’t simply add AI courses to their catalogs. They will embed communication, judgment, collaboration, and problem-solving throughout the student experience while teaching students to work alongside AI.
“Ultimately, success won’t be measured by how many graduates receive a diploma,” Anandarajan said. “It will be measured by how well graduates perform in their jobs and adapt to changing roles.”
Give students a reason to choose your college
As a result of these changes, the new competitive environment has created a marketing challenge.
McNaughton said colleges need to show prospective students possibilities.
“Possibilities get people excited,” he said.
A statistic about lifetime earnings might demonstrate the financial value of college, but it doesn’t necessarily help a prospective student imagine what life could look like because of it.
Because of this, McNaughton believes colleges need to combine emotion with evidence.
“Emotions are going to trump logic all the time,” he said. “You’ve got to have both, but higher ed institutions need to find a way to tap into people’s emotions to say, that’s something I want to do. And once they do that, you give them the facts to back it up.”
With higher education facing multiple disruptions, the facts may matter now more than ever.
Students want to know what programs cost, whether they are likely to graduate, what graduates earn, and whether the experience will prepare them for a changing workforce. Paradise argued that institutions need to make that information accessible. Grason said they need to “show the receipts.”
Santa-Ramirez puts the challenge in an even simpler question: “Why should I invest my time and money here?”
The institutions best positioned to answer the question, he said, will be those willing to move beyond the status quo. That includes combining affordability and flexible learning formats with strong student experiences and career preparation designed for students with different needs and circumstances.
Importantly, doing so doesn’t mean abandoning the four-year degree in favor of shiny new alternatives. Instead, a more flexible model in which degrees, certificates, experiential learning, and other credentials can work together rather than compete for students might be the best path forward.
The challenge for institutions lies in making it clear what each option offers and how it can help students reach their goals. Cost, time, and career outcomes are top of mind for prospective students, which means the value of a degree can’t simply be assumed. It must be made visible – with the receipts.
