In higher education, trust is more than an expectation; it’s currency. And students are spending it every time they choose a school. The investments that students make are significant. Beyond money, students invest their time, dreams, and aspirations, as well as their emotional, mental, and intellectual growth. In one of my marketing and communications leadership roles, when news of a violent crime reached my desk, I realized that students and their families also invest their safety. It has become even more real for me as a current college parent.
For instance, a common bone of contention at small colleges is the word “family.” At another campus where I led marketing and communications, data collected from key audiences revealed that the “family-like environment” was the most valuable part of the experience. However, a vocal group of students, like on many campuses, openly and unapologetically challenged both the narrative and the data. These competing realities pushed us to examine our trustworthiness as an institution.
Those of us who remember the early days of hip hop music remember the phrase, “Word is bond.” In the jazz-like, poetic flow of rap lyrics, it was a declaration that what someone says is like a binding contract. If higher education marketing has taught me one thing, it’s this: your word, as an institution or as any representative therein, has to be your bond. This isn’t a marketing challenge; it’s a call to earn students’ trust by being a good steward of their investments.
The Misplaced Priority
The problem is that trust isn’t always where conversations about marketing to prospective and current students begin. For decades, we’ve seen a higher education marketing playbook built largely on a foundation of prestige and reputation. As a marketer who has seldom had a seat at the decision-making table, I know all too well what it’s like to receive an edict from the administration to simply tell the community how great the institution is – without any further direction. Instead, higher ed positions marketing as self-absorbed images of manicured quads, students in labs, and exciting sports shots on top of the hot pursuit of rankings and the promise of a degree as a golden ticket to career stability. In the meantime, that playbook has stopped working.
While trust in most higher ed institutions has increased in the past year, the lack of it has been silently problematic. According to Gallup, those “with little or no confidence” in higher ed declined from 32% in 2024 to 23% in 2025, noting that this is still far off from the 57% of people expressing confidence in the sector when Gallup first began measuring trust in higher ed in 2015.
Even more eye-popping are the sentiments of college presidents. According to Inside Higher Ed and Hanover Research, only 16% believe that higher ed has been “at least moderately effective in responding to declining public trust,” an increase from 8% in 2025. A mere 2% of presidents surveyed say that the sector has been “highly effective” at addressing trust. There is, however, a sigh of relief, with 51% saying that their institutions have begun some sort of programming to address public trust in the last year and more planning to do so.
The Most Important “P” (Not Paired with an “R”)
My experience at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) has shown me that the faculty and staff can move the marketing needle like nothing else. HBCUs are infamously known for their struggles with facility upkeep and employees who are almost all stretched thin. Yet, when you ask an HBCU alum about their experience, you are treated to stories about that financial aid or dining hall staffer who was like an aunt, the professor who was like an uncle, or the president whose wisdom and attention ushered these alumni into their careers. While these proud graduates continue to fight for better resources, the people who served and taught them prove to be the most important part of their experience.
My HBCU experience reshaped how I approach the marketing mix in higher education. The traditional marketing mix consists of seven Ps: product, price, place, promotion, physical evidence, people, and processes. If I had my druthers, I would make people the second P because it’s people, not tactics, that are the drivers of trust.
While the presidents surveyed by Inside Higher Ed and Hanover indicated that they are looking to PR as a tactic, a wiser investment would be to develop a talent strategy. This means partnering with human resources to understand where faculty and staff see the value in their experience. The more that those faculty value their experience, the more they will be engaged, which delivers better student experiences and drives institutional trust. Second, leaders should partner with HR to develop a more robust talent attraction and acquisition plan. This means providing job candidates with a quality experience from the application to onboarding. Finally, institutions should put in place a talent retention plan to ensure that they are doing everything possible to keep the top-performing faculty and staff
Of course, nothing is guaranteed. Students will always be unpredictable, and some of the best faculty and staff will move on regardless of the best strategies and plans. We know that culture eats strategy for breakfast. Campuses can’t be treated like fiefs where leaders hire friends and reward compliance over competence. Students are very good at getting the “tea” on institutions’ employment practices. And a campus culture that rewards the wrong things doesn’t stay internal for long.
When people become the strategy, leaders don’t have to go out of their way to be trusted. An institution getting this right carries more weight than a bump in rankings. It’s the confidence and decisiveness that students show when they pay that dorm deposit and register for their first semester of classes.
The right people understand that students have a lot to gain and a lot to lose, and they want to protect the brand in the process. The right people understand that word is bond.
