7 Benefits of Outsourcing Your Admissions
BETTER. FASTER. CHEAPER.
Outsourcing admissions represents a powerful opportunity to meaningfully grow your university’s enrollment.
A Note Before We Begin
It’s completely understandable that university leaders hesitate to relinquish any degree of control over the admissions process. Concerns about accountability, brand integrity, and the quality of the student experience are valid and common.
Yet despite these legitimate worries, outsourcing admissions—when done thoughtfully and selectively—offers compelling advantages. In short, the right partnership delivers results that are better, faster, and cheaper.
At first glance, that phrase can sound like settling for less in exchange for cost savings. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The reality is that “better, faster, cheaper” is precisely why successful outsourced admissions partnerships are formed. Experienced partners bring efficiency, scale, proven best practices, deep expertise, and sophisticated technology—capabilities that most institutions would take years and significant investment to develop internally.
Important clarification:
This is not an endorsement of the traditional Online Program Management (OPM) model. We believe most OPM arrangements do not serve the long-term interests of institutions. They frequently prioritize their own growth over your mission, limit your control, and restrict your future options.
What we are advocating is the strategic outsourcing of selected aspects of the admissions and enrollment process. When structured properly, this approach actually increases institutional control, protects brand integrity, and strengthens long-term revenue potential.
So how exactly can outsourcing admissions benefit your university?
Here are 7 key advantages:
1. Quickly optimize underperforming markets, programs, or funnel bottlenecks
Struggling with a challenging geographic market, specific degree program, or persistent bottleneck (inbound/outbound calls, application conversion, etc.)? A targeted, limited-scope partnership allows you to test new approaches with minimal risk before committing major internal resources. Fresh eyes often bring new insights, energy, and validation—or clear evidence that a different direction is needed.
2. Leverage specialized expertise, processes, and technology to capture, track, segment, nurture, and convert prospects more effectively
A strong outsourced partner should demonstrably improve lead capture, attribution accuracy, and marketing ROI. That’s their core business. They arrive with mature tools, refined workflows, and data-driven insight—often giving your institution breathing room to build internal capability while benefiting from immediate performance gains and valuable knowledge transfer.
3. Deliver immediate, high-quality, “right now” prospect engagement—both inbound and outbound
Today’s prospective students expect instant, personalized responses across multiple channels. Institutions that cannot meet this expectation lose ground quickly. A capable partner typically provides:
- Immediate, professional response via phone, email & SMS text
- 24/7 inbound/hosted TFN
- Human Focused but AI Powered
- Strategy, analyses & reporting
- Expanded coverage 9:00 AM – 8:00 PM (your time zone)
4. Improve overall operational efficiency and performance
Healthy competition sharpens performance. Many institutions see immediate improvement in their internal team simply from the presence of a high-performing external partner (A/B testing effect). A good partnership also helps break down silos, reduce political friction, and refocus the entire organization on shared enrollment goals and data-driven decisions.
5. Rapidly identify marketing inefficiencies—and what actually works
“The leads are terrible” is a complaint we’ve all heard (and sometimes said). An outsourced partner closes the feedback loop quickly with transparent, actionable data—allowing you to optimize campaigns in real time rather than waiting months to discover what isn’t working.
6. Launch, grow, or revive programs, markets, and funnel segments with focused resources
Universities have finite time, people, and budget. Outsourcing specific programs, modalities (e.g., online, graduate), learner segments, underserved markets, or reactivation efforts (old inquiries, prior applicants, alumni outreach) allows internal teams to concentrate on higher-priority opportunities while still pursuing growth in other areas.
7. Achieve lower cost-per-enrollment and reduced overall organizational expense
When structured effectively, the partner should deliver higher enrollment numbers at a lower cost-per-enrollment than fully internal operations. Beyond direct marketing costs, compare fully loaded internal expenses (salaries, benefits, management overhead, HR, training, technology, facilities) and the advantage often becomes clear.
Final Thought
There is no question that universities can—and many do—successfully grow enrollment entirely in-house.
However, the right strategic partner brings measurable advantages: deeper and faster prospect engagement, access to best-in-class practices and technology, nimble execution free of internal politics, and stronger long-term financial outcomes.
Better. Faster. Cheaper.
From where we stand, that’s still a beautiful combination.
Since 2008, Education Connex has helped nonprofit universities grow enrollment with focused, transparent, mission-aligned strategies that deliver measurable return on marketing investment.
We’d welcome the opportunity to speak with you.