What’s Fueling the Next Wave of HBCU Enrollment Growth

Kevin Tyler 

Hello, and welcome to Higher Voltage, a podcast about higher education that explores what’s working, what’s not, and what needs to change in higher ed marketing and administration. I’m your host, Kevin Tyler.

Welcome back to Higher Voltage. So pleased to have you all with us today. I am pleased to welcome Tanya Clark from 3 Enrolment. So Tanya leads HBCU partner development at 3 Enrolment, otherwise known as 3E, and what she does there is translate data into action so campuses can attract, retain, and graduate best-fit students. Tanya is known for turning IPEDS insights and net tuition revenue math into clear playbooks that presidents and VPs can execute. I think it’s important here to add that Tanya is a proud University of Alabama graduate and a completely devoted Crimson Tide fan.

And in her role at 3E, she has launched the HBCU Data Challenge, which uses IPEDS data from 2023 to showcase how historically Black colleges and universities, HBCUs, stack up against their peers, debunking myths and highlighting current enrollment trends. And so every week in the football season of 2025, the challenge focused on a different metric each week and included practical tips for enrollment strategy. Tanya, I am so pleased to have this conversation with you on Higher Voltage. Welcome.

Tanya Clark

Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to talk about the challenge and just higher ed and our passions all together.

Kevin Tyler

Yes, same. So I would love to start this conversation with some of the trends that we’re seeing in HBCU enrollment. I’ve seen some really hopeful trends upward, of course, in enrollment and applications. What are some of the most exciting metrics that you’ve come across in this work that you do for 3E?

Tanya Clark

Absolutely. Lots of exciting trends I’ve seen this all-2025 enrollment term. Really strong enrollment at the top of the funnel, meaning there’s been a lot of intention with enrollments. Higher male admission rates, some of the highest ever seen, over time, ever. I know at Jackson State and Alabama A&M University, they had record-high male freshman classes. In the culture that’s very well received, and I just really like the way they are shaping their classes. So that’s one trend that I’m really excited about.

And then also retention metrics. I really like to see the freshmen come in, but I like to see them staying and graduating as well. So just that first-to-second-year persistence has been a very exciting trend for me. And I’ve noticed a lot of growth in a few different programs, specifically Tuskegee University, Hampton, as well as Morehouse as well. So they have very good transfer retention, and I would like to see that growth nationwide across all HBCUs. Let’s finish what we started.

Kevin Tyler

I am so excited and inspired by the upward trend we’re seeing, especially in HBCUs, of male enrollment. Right, there’s no shortage of news or headlines that talk about how men are not matriculating at the same rate as women, and that’s going to create all sorts of problems for the future. But that trend is especially hitting hardest in African American communities, and so it’s really exciting to see this upward trend in enrollment among Black and African American men.

Tanya Clark

Absolutely.

Kevin Tyler

So, there are lots of reasons why we’re seeing this uptick in application and matriculation, enrollment, etc. What are some of the reasons you attribute to this surge? Right, I think that some of them are political, but there are others as well at play.

Tanya Clark

Definitely. I believe as far as the institution side, as far as them attracting these increased numbers of applications and students, ultimately enrolled students, would definitely be intentional strategy across the entire institution. From the first engagement on the website, the content that is being created for this generation… we know that this generation lives on their phone, they’re on TikTok, Instagram, they’re all about notifications. So the schools that are really speaking to the students with that type of intentional marketing, they are the schools that are winning.

And a lot of schools have got, well, some schools have got on the trend of meeting students where they are. That means belonging, really paying attention to the outcomes of the students, not just that first day, that first week, the excitement of school, but really following up with the students and really having an intentional relationship for them to belong to the school.

I think that HBCUs have gotten really sharper as far as who they are recruiting as well. They are looking at not only, you know, those students with the high GPAs, but they are looking at STEM students. They are looking at, you know, athletes. One of our partners at 3 Enrolment, Jackson State University, had a surge of enrollment, you know, with football, just belonging marketing. They had a lot of students that really plugged into the Sanders family, the coaching, the excitement, and just the growth went through the roof, and students could see themselves there. The social media really put them in a mindset of “I want to go there, I want to belong,” and it’s really increased a lot of numbers across the board. And I would say it would be really an intentional strategy to get the population that you need.

Kevin Tyler

Couldn’t agree more. And one of the things that I think about when it comes to HBCUs in considering these upward trends in enrollment is kind of like the “Oprah effect,” right? When Oprah says that one of her products she loves is one of her favorite things, can the company sustain the flood of interest that then comes right after that? And so HBCUs are somewhat in the same kind of boat, right? Like, we see this new popularity, and are they positioned or equipped well enough to accept all this new interest and all these new bodies who want to come to their campuses? I’m curious if you have seen any sort of shift in the marketing strategies that are kind of responding to these trends really thoughtfully.

Tanya Clark

Absolutely. You know, you have with the strategies that are in place, alignment has to be in place to receive the momentum that comes with the applications and such. I know a few institutions that I have been speaking with, they had a surge of growth on the undergraduate side. So in most HBCUs, they’re going to have a gap in capacity on dorms, availability as far as parking, buildings, and they have really had to dig into some new plans to increase the amount of dorms available, increase the classrooms, and there’s a lot of construction going on.

I visited Alabama A&M University this fall, new construction was going up everywhere. And a lot of these institutions that are running into these growth hiccups, I would say, because they didn’t think about that when all these applications came in, they’re really focusing on online and grad learners as well. So it gives them still the population as far as students, but also just marketing to those students that they probably were not doing outreach before when they were trying to increase the undergrad classes. So really just shifting in their focus and increasing the buildings and capacity while doing that to switch back to going hard for more applications, I would say.

Kevin Tyler

Yeah, that’s great. So I wanted to have that kind of table-setting conversation as kind of an “appetizer” for the work that you’re doing at 3E with the HBCU Enrolment Challenge. And I’m curious if you could tell us more about the weekly scoreboard, how it works, and also, if you don’t mind throwing in some background about Intelligent Recruiter, that’d be dope too.

Tanya Clark

Absolutely. Alright, so the football challenge did not start off as a challenge for a winner. It really gained a lot of momentum with LinkedIn and just my peers, they really got really excited about the challenge. I followed HBCU football teams, so each week, of course, you would have the lineup, and I would do a weekly metric to compare the two schools against each other. And that would be the win or the loss. It would be things like application growth, admit-to-enroll movement, yield and engagement trends, retention and persistence, discount rate, net tuition revenue… so just a lot of different metrics like that. We went eight weeks and, over time, we had a composite scoreboard that really just weighed the data, and it ranked all of the teams 1 through 35. I had weekly content, and I had a scoreboard website where schools would know the winners by Wednesday, I would announce the new metric on Monday, and I would do highlights on the schools that actually won that week, first through third place.

Really just putting a spotlight on their growth. It wasn’t to really single out anyone as doing bad. It was really just awareness and visibility, you know? It really became a… one time I got a reply from a school saying, “Well, where did you get this data from? How are you getting this information?” And I’m just like, “It’s IPEDS, you know? It’s not here to hurt you, we’re here to all grow together”. And now that has turned into a very positive conversation. So it was really a fun way to have camaraderie, also allow each institution to know where their peers are performing, how they are really increasing the effectiveness of strategy on their campuses.

So I think it will honestly grow into being something looked at as a positive and something people look forward to. I’m moving into women’s basketball this season, and I’m doing that so I can really capture the schools that don’t have football teams, you know? There are a lot of schools that have some sports and not the other. And also just to really have a spotlight on a different gender. We’re going to see what the women’s basketball teams do this season. So I’m really excited about that. It’s really created a way for me to have conversations with institutions and really highlight their growth as well as areas for improvement, and just to see where I can help them the most.

Kevin Tyler

That’s so great. I think you partly answered one of my questions around how closely you’re working with these institutions, and it sounds like somewhat closely to gather not only information but to share results as well each week. Are there other touchpoints throughout the eight-week cycle that really informed how the program worked?

Tanya Clark

Absolutely. Each week I did weekly outreach through email campaigns, sending the playbook. I did a playbook each week, so it would be like “The Retention Play”. So it would give you different ideas to make sure that your students are not only starting but finishing. The touchpoints that we have at 3E, I would provide solutions and then build conversations from there. Each week on LinkedIn as well, I would tag each winner. So I have a few networks that I am a part of, I would tag those networks and really just invite everyone to engage and just really be a part of the competition. It created a lot of excitement there, it created a lot of inbox conversations that have created conversations.

But I look forward to more engagement with a lot of the schools. I know a lot of communications just get lost in emails, like “I didn’t even know that you sent me that email,” and then after a while, they finally get it. So I want a way to really get it out to the enrollment leaders, the institutional leaders all together, so they know the numbers, they know their competition, and they just know that we’re here to help them with solutions in a different way, not just a cookie-cutter method.

But we really focus in on partnerships on a one-by-one basis, you know? What works for one school will not work for another school. What works for one culture will not work for another culture. And all schools are different, they all have their different foot stamp, their blueprint… it’s just different. And me coming from… I’m from Alabama, so I went to Alabama A&M every summer as a kid through different science and math programs all the way through freshman through junior year just for general courses. So I’ve always been a part of the school, I really understand the culture there. But when I came to Atlanta and visited Clark Atlanta or Spelman, totally different culture. It’s an HBCU, but you get something different everywhere, and each student deserves that different storytelling that that school or institution has to offer, to know whether they belong or not.

Kevin Tyler 

Amen. I totally agree with that.

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Kevin Tyler

I’m curious if there is anything that you learned about the HBCU sector that you didn’t know before because of this new initiative that was surprising to you.

Tanya Clark

Um… I would say the lack of communication between different departments. So, you know, financial aid operates as financial aid, and admissions operates as admissions, retention operates as retention, as opposed to it being an enrollment system, a whole culture where everyone is on the same page. So it creates fluidness for not only their strategy but also for the student and how they feel less friction as they are going through the processes of not only learning about your school but becoming a student and hopefully becoming a graduate. So just really the lack of communication between those different departments, understanding that one cannot move without the other.

And also, the lack of some resources. As you said, I went to University of Alabama, but I really have the empathy and the heart for HBCUs as well, being a product of an HBCU through a part-time basis. But I really feel that the lack of resources as far as technology, like Intelligent Recruiter… having that extension from the admissions department that can always handle the questions of a student. I remember when I went to Alabama A&M, we would have to go from one building to the next building for registration, get a signature here, come down here to pay… it was just such a long process, it was crazy. University of Alabama, we got on the phone, put in the call numbers for a class, submitted it, and it was headed to the next department. So it was just less friction, it was less reasons for a student to say “I—this is too much for me today”.

And also, with Intelligent Recruiter, it just speaks to the need of the extension of the bandwidth of an HBCU. You know, you have probably six people working in an admissions department, some less, for a smaller private institution, and you have to think they have to do tours, they have to go do visits, they have phone calls. I was in the office of one smaller HBCU… the phone rang so many times a young lady was going to do one thing and she got off track so many times just by the phone ringing, and I can just only imagine how the student that was waiting on this task felt. But they don’t understand that the bandwidth there is just not available.

So a tool like Intelligent Recruiter, it really is an extension of your culture, your story, your institution just all around. It really speaks to the student about your institution only. If a student has a question about “how do I submit my transcript?”… so instead of them getting hung up on 50 times or calling and leaving a message because no one is available, they can go straight to their website, that’s where Intelligent Recruiter lives. So say for instance it’s Florida A&M University… they were the winner of our challenge and we made up a prototype for them, maybe it will be called “The Rattler,” right? So “The Rattler” is there, you can ask “The Rattler” this question, it’s going to take you directly to the information that you need and answer the question with empathy, very customized to you, not just a Google answer.

And so it creates less friction for a student to say, “maybe school’s not for me” or “maybe this semester is not going to be the semester for me”. Every student needs that answer, sometimes at 3:00 o’clock in the morning, sometimes at 1:00 o’clock in the afternoon, sometimes at 8:00 when they think that the admissions team will be there and they’re not there. But “The Rattler” is always there to really smooth that process for the student. And actually the team… it creates feedback for the admissions department, they know the questions that are being asked, the students that are really engaging and who they really need to interact with that day sometimes if it is a higher-level situation. But I would say just bandwidth issues, going back to the question… I know I got off on the Intelligent Recruiter, but I’m so passionate about it because I really know the need for it in the HBCU culture or just atmosphere all together.

Kevin Tyler

I think that that’s right. And I think that the issues that you raised in that response are so reflective of so many different types of institutions, but they seem to hit HBCUs so much harder because of the lack of resources across the institution. And I think those get amplified as needs arise and as other problems kind of fall on the plate. And I think that Intelligent Recruiter and the way it sounds like it works makes this a more student-centered experience rather than an institutionally focused experience, which obviously is one of the pillars of higher education marketing — is making sure that you see the audiences you’re trying to speak to and meeting them where they are. And I’m excited about how it is helping schools like Florida A&M — shoutout to Yolanda over there for winning the first season of the challenge — and what it can do for not only engagement but also obviously enrollment and retention.

Tanya Clark

Yes, it really can help not only the institution, but the student really feels like they have someone talking to them just face-to-face, you know, really looking at them, hearing them, understanding them, and meeting them exactly where they are. That creates a relationship with the student that is first of all trusting, that they know… it’s almost like your mom, you know, if you call your mom or a dad normally they’re going to pick up the phone, right, if they’re available? And sometimes even if they’re not available, they’re going to pick up the phone and say, “Hey, do you need anything? I’m a little busy but hey, I’m here”. Intelligent Recruiter is always here.

A sense of belonging has been found to be one of the real factors that really focus on a student really graduating and really retaining interest in a program. We don’t know all the different roadblocks that a student may face… it may be transportation, lack of money, you know, first-generation students—nobody has done this in my family before, so how am I supposed to know the answer? So just having that 24/7 assistance there and just someone to hug you and understand where you are in the form of AI is top-notch. And in our institutions, in our culture, we need that to make sure we continue to increase those male classes being, you know, record-breaking this year, to make sure we continue to focus not only on those applications but on the outcomes of the students, meaning the jobs that are available, meaning the resources that are available. So you create a strong alumni where legacy will build the school and the applications alone in the future. And that’s something that you see a lot at like Spelman, Morehouse, Hampton, Tuskegee, Howard… that has a strong legacy base. Oakwood University I’m working with and been speaking with them in Huntsville, Alabama where I’m from… strong legacy because they have Christian values, a Seventh-day Adventist institution, music focused… so every school has this niche, but just that sense of belonging will go very far if you just do the small things in the beginning.

Kevin Tyler

Yeah. And I think that the history of underfunding of HBCUs means that these institutions have a lot of catching up to do to expectations that have evolved with the pace of time. Right, so students that they’re trying to attract have the same expectations as everyone else in the world around customer service, around how to find information, etc.. But HBCUs are just uniquely poorly positioned to meet the expectations that have been created by this fast-paced technological world. And so I’m really glad to see that these investments are being made in order to close the gap between HBCUs and other types of institutions who kind of have this unlocked.

Tanya Clark

I’m so glad you brought that up because not only in these legacy-type of environments, you are producing these very prominent and successful graduates that are, you know, products of these HBCU institutions. Their level of customer service and needs and expectations have arisen and they expect, whether it’s their—you know, their institution, alumni institution or not, they expect for the institutions to grow as well. They don’t want to go back to the same dorms that they had when they were there in the ’80s or ’70s. They expect to see growth and advancement. And so a lot of the state schools, larger-box schools, will win some of those students because institutions are just not looking at what needs to happen, looking at the competition around them and understanding that just because someone graduated from your institution does not mean that they want their children to experience the same, you know, growing pains or lack of that they probably experienced at some point. Especially in 2026, right? And I think that’s very fair.

Kevin Tyler

Yeah, 100%. I’m curious if you can share some of the top-line results that were realized from the first season of the challenge.

Tanya Clark

Absolutely. I really saw record-breaking applications this enrollment season. Also, really the focus on decreasing the discount rate. You know, schools are a business ultimately. In order for them to grow, they have to worry about the bottom line just like any other business, and a lot of schools have not operated like that in the past. There have been a lot of grants and just philanthropy given to a lot of institutions, and they are really sitting down looking at the full picture, not just going off of favoritism or what they think would be the right strategy, but really just focusing on real data. Not just focusing on the emotions and what worked in 2010, but really looking at, you know, the market, where they are in the market. Really trying to meet the student where they are.

Tanya Clark

If you are not focused on the student interaction and the relationship that you’re building before they even set foot on campus, you have lost the game altogether because some students, they have so many different options… you know, they can make money through social media, a lot of children are looking at just trades right now. So it’s a competition out here, and you have to be on the forefront for a student to know about you, to feel like they have more questions to see if they would be even be interested, and then ultimately to see if they even belong there.

So just… I’ve seen an increased activity in just events before the application even happens. So maybe a senior visit Saturday. Outreach in different states because they had a decreased number of students in their neighboring states and they want to get those students to them. Also, a lot of strength in retention efforts. And that’s by engaging with the students earlier. Something like Intelligent Recruiter… “Have you filled out your FAFSA before spring or for fall?” Just doing those checkpoints. “How have you been feeling lately?” and giving resources for mental health awareness… giving stats on how to really ace your first set of exams… study sessions that may be happening at the math lab… you know, just really checking in on students like a lot during the quarter. That has really retained students and really really got them ahead of the problems before the problems got ahead of the student.

So I think that those have been the biggest trends that I’ve been seeing on campus. One of the most powerful examples came from Jackson State University, one of our partners last year, where enrollment leaders really shared how disciplined their strategy became. So they paired that with data, they became very transparent, they fueled the areas that really needed the most growth, and they had one of the strongest cycles on record to this date. So I’m really proud of them for that, and I hope that they continue to build strategy partnering with 3E in the future to make sure that that happens even more.

Just because you tweak one area doesn’t mean that you can not look at other areas, and as you grow you’ll see that maybe this worked this fall season, but in spring that didn’t work, so we need to go back over here and fix this. And just having a partner like 3E that’s really looking at all of that information for you, really that “eagle’s eye,” it’s really—it’s really important because students, they want a school that they feel safe at, not just, you know, a fly-by-night institution where “Oh, we’re going to be open tomorrow?” or “You know, will we have funds for new resources? Will our science labs really have the equipment that we need?” That’s not anything a student should ever worry about, and some institutions, they really probably do worry about that.

I know I talked to one school as far as the growth… they had a surge of applications, they ran out of dorms, and so they were sending students to hotels in the city. This is a very small city, they were sending students to hotels, and I was just like thinking just to myself like, “Oh, my mom would not go for that at all! Like, Tanya, this school is out the door for you. There is nowhere for you to stay and you are not staying at a hotel.” So whether it’s one of the most top affluent schools that you can think of, best major school for you, “You’re not going there staying at a hotel. Sorry. You need to go to Plan B or C,” you know? And so that type of trust is what they need from the beginning.

Kevin Tyler

One of the things that I think is so compelling about this initiative that you’ve launched is that it really forces institutions to look at all of the inputs that go into its marketing program, right? Like, we can only tell the stories that exist and that are true about a campus. And when we say that we do XYZ and that’s not like really proven to be true in the data or the experience or the data… whatever it is, then we are not telling a true story. And so I’m really grateful for this like reassessment of the experience and its value to the marketing program, because if we are not telling the truth, then we are not going to get the right people. And as you say in your work at 3E, we are looking for the best-fit people to attract, retain, and graduate. And if we are not looking under all the rocks around what the living quarters look like, what the class rigor sounds like, what kind of support services are available… we’re not assessing that all of the time, then we are not always telling a really true story. And I think that goes to the constant care and feeding of the business that you talk about, right? Like, if we’re not delivering on what the promise is, then we are behind the eight ball.

Tanya Clark

Exactly. So behind. Because let me tell you, if you’re not telling your story right, TikTok, Instagram, the students that are really there, they’re going to tell the story for you. So the trust is built a lot of times through the real-life students. So we have one product where we do a social media management or social media influence product… we make sure you are telling the right story. You’re showing the dorms, you’re showing the gym, where you would be going to work out facilities if you are into athletics or want to know that you can stay up to date on your fitness while at school. So all those different stories are really being projected in the right and honest way to let those students know they belong as well, because the other content that’s out there by the real attendees, it may overshadow what you’re telling as far as your own story. So I see that a lot with HBCUs. You know, you can’t go to some pages and actually see, feel, and taste almost what the experience would be like, but definitely if you go to an actual student, they’re going to give you the good, bad, and the ugly. So I would say, like you said, don’t get behind the eight ball on the storytelling. Be honest.

Kevin Tyler

Exactly. One thing is true about higher education marketing is that it is always happening whether you at your institution are doing it or not.

Tanya Clark

Right. Right. Yes, it’s crazy. And bad news travels a lot, sad to say, a lot faster than good news. So yeah. So I would definitely always want to stay up to par on my social media and just the interactions with students, because that’s where students are at this day and age… they are on the phone. It’s right in front of them.

Kevin Tyler

Yeah. The last question I have for you is one that I ask every single person who passes through the “quote-unquote” Higher Voltage doors, and that is what you think higher education is going to look like in five or ten years?

Tanya Clark

Oh wow. That’s a really good question. I would definitely say more outcome accountable, right? Not only do they want students to come in and have a great experience, but the outcomes for the students will really be held to a higher standard across the board, because there are so many different options, like I said, for these next generations that, you know, maybe you have to focus more on the outcomes, not just an experience while you’re there, to really hold the population that we really want to hold, especially in the HBCU population and culture. It’s really important for us to have a stronger foundation, and education to me will always be the key.

Whether you work in your major or not, just being in a university, it makes you more universal. You know how to talk to people, you know how to interact, you know you can finish something, you know? You know how to struggle, you know how to win. It just gives you so many different experiences that our culture really needs, but definitely the outcomes will matter. So just being more accountable on that side. Also, more student-centered. It won’t just be all about the name of an institution, but really the institutions that are really focused on the student, their… just their experience, their outcomes, their camaraderie, their experiences abroad, off the campuses… you know, how are we linking them to other parts of the world and with different people that don’t look like us? You know, just those student-centered institutions will really be the institutions that grow. I don’t think it will be about name or just the most popular, but it will be focused on “What’s in it for me? Where can I get the most for me as a student?”

And then also finally, it’s going to be, I would say, very data transparent, meaning that there’s an increased use of AI, there’s an easy way to find out the information that you need. So like you said, just clarity, being honest and open will really take you a lot farther in an institution because information is at our fingertips. Resources are at our fingertips. So if we don’t give it to the student, I think we would lose that sense of trust or a sense of belonging in the beginning. So I think that just data, just being transparent with the student upfront will definitely be needed because we’re dealing with a different type of student. We used to have to wait on information for a while or go to the library, be in the Dewey Decimal System, find books, go through the encyclopedia… literally, am I dating myself? I know I am, but literally, it’s a different experience, you know?

Seriously. It’s like… I don’t even know if my niece knows what a Dewey Decimal System is. You know? Like, do they really know about Britannica? They don’t. It’s all about right here, right now, and yeah, you have to really create a way to augment the entire experience from beginning to end to get the outcomes that we need at the institutions. So I would think that all of those would definitely be different in a way, just to have the access that we need to the students and get the outcomes that we’re looking for overall. That would be very important.

Kevin Tyler

I agree. Tanya, thank you so much for this conversation. I’m so thrilled about the work that you’re doing, not just at 3E but also on behalf of HBCUs in the country. I can’t wait to see what this next season of your work looks like and what we learn about the sector and how we can continue supporting a critical component of the higher education industry. Thank you so much, Tanya.

Tanya Clark

Thank you so much for having me.

Kevin Tyler

That’s it for this week’s episode of Higher Voltage. We’ll be back soon with a new episode, and until then, you can find us on Twitter at @VoltHigherEd, and you can find me, Kevin Tyler, on Twitter at @KevinCTyler2.