People used to say to me, when they found out what I did for a living, “why do these colleges and universities you work for need to market? Many are already highly selective. Why does a school with a surplus of interest need someone to help them with their marketing?”

I would explain to them that there was not a school in America, with perhaps a single exception, that did not want to be something other than it was. A school with a strong, traditional preppy culture wanted to be more bohemian. A school with bohemian culture wanted to be preppier. A school with little diversity wanted to be more diverse. A school with a great deal of diversity wanted more non-diverse, i.e. “white” affluent students. And every single school wanted to ascend to a higher rung on the prestige ladder. Regardless of how esteemed they were, they were restless to achieve the prestige of the school above them.

This restlessness has been part of higher education institutional culture for the past twenty years. Things have never been good enough. There has always been a rung to grasp that is just out of reach. I, along with an industry of consultants, analysts, and ad men, have sprung up to help colleges and universities get to the next level. Because prestige is a zero-sum game – one institution’s gain is another institution’s loss – the work has been never ending. So long as everyone else is restless and striving, there is no way for an institution to avoid playing this game. The rules of the game are set beyond the boundaries of a particular institution. One ignores the game at one’s peril.

Today we find ourselves at an interesting juncture. There is no evidence that the core dynamic of the prestige higher education market is changing. Indeed, if anything, the class system among colleges and universities is becoming more entrenched. What is changing is the marketing environment. Just as in other sectors, the ability of middle-class families to finance a prestige lifestyle through debt has diminished. This means that the total size of the market for prestige institutions has shrunk. Financial aid resources at institutions are stretched. Colleges are beginning to face the reality that they may be unable to finance their aspirational dreams of a few years ago. They may be forced to make unpleasant trade-offs.

Are we passing from an era of aspiration to an era of consolidation in educational marketing? The constantly expanding market of the past twenty years led everyone in higher education to dream big. Today, things are much more challenging. It is essential that institutions execute well and think clearly and cogently about the nature and capacities of their markets. Can they really invest $1/4 million to shift their campus culture from preppy to bohemian? Can they really focus so intensively on the next rung of the ladder or do they need to make certain they are is secure on their own rung?

If in fact we are passing into an era of greater clarity and rigor in educational marketing, I for one will greet it with open arms. There’s been far too much silliness, extravagance, fantasy, and slip-shod thinking in the marketing of institutions the past 20 years. We’ve had our own bubble mentality. I’m ready for the serious times to begin. Let’s work with realistic budgets and realistic appraisals of our place in the market. Let’s treat resources as if they are limited and tie them to outcomes. Let’s use metrics to measure our performance and assess our marketing efforts. The basic game is not changing, but times require far more professional, skillful execution. I, for one, am eager to jump into this new environment which will test what we’re made of as marketers.