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Forecasting

enrollment and tuition forecasting

Is Final Final Final Projection the right Final file?

Scenario planning allows your institution to better plan for what happens when things change, and it can be automated to update in near real time if you need. But it's very hard to keep track of all those scenarios unless you have a robust system that was designed for collaboration from day one.

Why We Built Plaid Forecast

“I’ve got a PhD in robotics engineering, and you’

Is Enrolment Forecasting Cooperative or Collaborative?

Institutional Researchers can unintentionally end up as gatekeepers to the collaborative enrolment forecasting model. They've built it by hand, using tools and skills available to them at the time, but the models aren't built for scale. Plaid Forecast is.

Enrolment Forecasting in Support of SEM

SEM prompts consideration of the many variables, both academic and administrative, that impact a student’s experience, progress, and future enrolment. Data, or the lack thereof, influences an institution's ability to define what future student populations may look like.

The Role of Data Governance in Enrolment Forecasting

While some might argue that a forecast is just data about students who aren’t even real, the forecast is a great place to tie in data governance. In our research, every data governance leader recommended starting small, with a pilot. An enrolment forecast is a great pilot initiative.

Forecasting Enrolment in New Programs

New programs introduce complexity to your enrolment forecast. By definition, they do not have past history to rely on for a prediction – what is an enrolment professional to do? Here’s how to handle them in stride:

Effective Partnerships Between Academic Units and Central are Key

Answering, “How many students are we going to have?” involves not only predicting the future but defining the parameters in which it is possible. Neither central administration nor academic units can successfully forecast future enrolments without the other.

The Data Only Updates 3x Per Year?

Snapshots can also be helpful with enrolment forecasting – in particular, many users I speak to don’t want their forecast to change daily, instead every second week or even every month.

Still Rolling Over Manually?

We used to update our scenario data monthly during the fall term and at end of the fiscal year. After this all was quiet until the dreaded rollover to the next academic year in summer.

What Programs Do We Even Offer?

Working in Institutional Research, I often was asked questions around “What programs do you offer?”, or “How many programs are there?”. You’d be surprised that answering these questions is not as easy as it sounds.