The Differentiation Question Isn’t the Only Question Potential Students Are Pondering
For years, higher education marketing has focused on answering one fundamental question:
Why us?
Why should a prospective student choose this institution over the one down the road? Why this campus, this program, this community? Why spend four years here? What differentiates us from other colleges and universities (though, spoiler alert: sometimes we struggle with this one)?
Those questions still matter. But increasingly, higher education institutions need to answer a question that comes before all of them:
Why higher education?
The Value of Higher Education is Being Questioned
The value of higher education is being questioned in ways it wasn’t a generation ago. College costs have risen, career paths are changing, and artificial intelligence is already reshaping the workforce. Students and families have good reason to ask what they’re getting in return for the significant investment of time and money that higher education requires.
The financial case for college remains compelling for many students. The College Board reports that full-time workers with four-year degrees earn about 60% more than those with only a high school diploma; college graduates also have lower unemployment and poverty rates and are more likely to have jobs with health insurance and retirement benefits.
But this “ROI” is more complex than simply, “Yes, college is worth it.”
The return varies by student, program, institution, cost, and, importantly, whether a student completes the degree. A 2025 Brookings analysis found that the financial return to a bachelor’s degree has not declined, while the Federal Reserve research has identified non-completion as one of the biggest financial risks students face—38.2% of first-time college students don’t have a degree within 8 years. Majors play a part here as well. So do loans.
But there’s another financial challenge that comes before students can even weigh that return: understanding what college will actually cost them.
Published tuition can create a financial wall before a prospective student ever reaches the consideration stage. The sticker price isn’t necessarily the price a student will pay after institutional aid, scholarships, tuition discounts, or other financial aid—but students have to understand that before they can factor higher education into their plans at all.
If institutions want students to seriously consider whether higher education is worth the investment, they also need to give them a realistic understanding of what that investment might actually be.
That nuance is important because good enrollment marketing isn’t about convincing every student that college is right for them. It’s about giving students the information they need to decide whether it is.
And that means higher education marketing has another job to do.
Before institutions sell themselves, they need to sell the value of higher education.
How Higher Education Institutions Can Sell the Value of a College Education
Sell Outcomes, Not Experiences
Walk through almost any college website, and you’ll see plenty of beautiful campuses, residence halls, recreation centers, student activities, and smiling students.
There’s a reason for that. The college experience matters. But it shouldn’t be mistaken for the product (treating a college education like a product has long been taboo in enrollment marketing, but…higher education is one of the most expensive purchases people make).
Institutions can spend a tremendous amount of time showing prospective students what their four years might feel like without clearly explaining what those four years are intended to produce.
What will students know when they graduate? What will they be able to do? What opportunities will their education create? What skills, relationships, and capabilities will they take with them?
Career outcomes and return on investment are part of that story. So are the less easily measured outcomes of education: learning to communicate, solve problems, make decisions, and navigate complexity.
The point isn’t to stop selling the experience. It’s to make sure the experience isn’t standing in for the value of the education.
Sell Students On Future-Proofing Their Careers
Students aren’t choosing a first job. They’re choosing how they’ll prepare for a career that may change dramatically over the next several decades.
The tools they learn today may be obsolete tomorrow. The technologies they use in their first job may be replaced. Some jobs will change, and others may look completely different. The World Economic Forum predicts that 65% of elementary-school students will work jobs that haven’t been invented yet, which feels right to me—when I graduated college, Content Marketers, Social Media Directors, and Digital Designers weren’t jobs; all three of those are active roles here at The Parish Group!
That’s where higher education can make a more compelling case for itself.
Technical knowledge matters, but so do the capabilities that allow people to keep learning: problem-solving, judgment, communication, collaboration, adaptability, and the ability to approach unfamiliar problems.
As AI takes on more analytical and technical tasks, employers increasingly value distinctly human capabilities such as building trust, navigating social dynamics, and exercising judgment in ambiguous situations.
That’s a different way of talking about career preparation. Instead of promising students that a particular degree will prepare them for one particular job, institutions can explain—and showcase (there’s a great opportunity here for a case study involving an alum working in AI, for example)—how an education prepares them to keep adapting as the world of work changes.
Showcase What Critical Thinking Can Combat
“Critical thinking” is one of those phrases higher education has used so often that we’ve almost drained it of meaning.
Instead of telling prospective students that college will make them better critical thinkers, show them why critical thinking is vital.
Today’s students are navigating a world filled with AI-generated content, misinformation, scams, persuasive advertising, and increasingly sophisticated attempts to capture their attention and influence their decisions.
- 83% of consumers failed to identify AI-generated advertisements, even though many entered the study confident they could spot the difference.
- Roughly one-third of Americans report having personally experienced an online shopping scam, and a record number of Americans reported AI scams to the FBI in 2025.
- 75% of Americans say they see inaccurate news at least somewhat often.
- And Pew Research has found that a median of 72% of adults across 25 countries consider the spread of false information online a major threat to their country.
The value of critical thinking becomes much clearer when we put it in those terms.
Students don’t just need to know how to find information. They need to know how to evaluate it. They need to question claims, assess evidence, recognize persuasion, and make informed judgments when the answers aren’t obvious.
That is a pretty useful skill set for the world they’re entering.
Education is About Expanding Your Horizons
Not every valuable outcome of higher education can be measured by a salary.
Education introduces students to ideas, disciplines, people, and perspectives they might never encounter otherwise. It challenges assumptions and asks students to consider possibilities beyond what they already know.
That’s increasingly valuable in a world where so much of what we consume is personalized.
Our social feeds, search results, and entertainment are designed to give us more of what we already like. Education can do the opposite. It deliberately introduces us to something unfamiliar.
Research and writing develop critical-thinking and communication skills, but the educational value also comes from exposure to different people and viewpoints and the opportunity to challenge our own thinking.
That may not fit neatly into a career-outcomes chart. It is still part of the value of an education. And it’s enticing to the right kinds of students.
Community—and That All-Important Belonging—is An Undersold Type of Education
Higher education talks a lot about belonging. But we often market community as an experience students will have rather than something they will learn through.
Young adults are experiencing a significant decline in in-person connection. Nearly three-quarters of 16-to 24-year-olds report feeling lonely, while young adults spend substantially less time with friends in person than previous generations.
College can offer something increasingly difficult to find: a place where people live, learn, work and grow alongside one another.
Students learn how to collaborate with people who think differently. They learn to navigate disagreement, build relationships, contribute to a community, and be accountable to others.
Those aren’t just nice additions to the college experience. They’re human capabilities—and ones employers increasingly value.
If institutions are going to talk about belonging, they should explain—and show (insert case study or video on mentorship, teams, or group work here)—what students learn by belonging.
Give Students the Tools to Decide if Higher Education is the Education They Need
Ultimately, selling the value of higher education shouldn’t mean selling it to everyone.
Not every student needs a four-year degree. Not every career requires one. And students deserve enough honest information to determine whether the investment makes sense for them.
That means institutions have to set expectations, too.
It means helping students understand what an education will actually cost them—not simply the published price, but the financial picture after aid, scholarships, discounts, and other institutional support.
If completing a degree is an important part of realizing its economic value, then selling the value of education also means explaining the support available to help students complete it.
It means being honest about what college requires from students, what the institution can provide, and what outcomes students can reasonably expect.
A degree isn’t a guarantee of a particular salary. A college education isn’t automatically transformative simply because someone enrolls. And the experience will not be the same for every student.
But institutions can give prospective students a clearer picture of what a higher education is—and what they can expect it to provide them.
Before we give students the tools to answer, “Why us?”, we need them to be able to answer, “Why higher ed?”
If your institution is thinking about how to make a stronger case for the value of a college education—or how that message fits into your broader enrollment strategy—I’d love to talk. Schedule a conversation with me.
