Let’s look first at the college-going culture in the affluent, elite enclaves of our country. There the intensity with which families compete for entry to highly ranked institutions is stunning. They play the selective higher education game with an amazing amount of knowledge – what my daughter would call “cultural capital” – and resources.

I remember last spring I was sitting in an information session at Wesleyan with my son. There was one high school student in the group who was hard to miss. He was sitting up front oozing enthusiasm, dressed in expensive, hip, yet at the same time understated, clothing. After the session ended I overheard him saying to the presenter that Wesleyan was his first choice and that he’d specifically travelled from southern California just to be at the school a second time. His slender, casually though well put together mother hovered in the background. The admissions officer engaged him in conversation.

Kids from more modest backgrounds have no idea about this intense press for a spots at the selective private colleges. Nothing in their background or their communities leads them to understand it. And I’m not just talking about poor kids or students of color. I’m talking about middle class kids who don’t occupy the cultural elite. I’m talking about the other 99%.

These students fail to understand the intense jockeying and packaging that goes into an application to an elite institution nor can they put themselves forward the way this young student at Wesleyan did. They don’t know that you need to take the SATs multiple times, and that if you don’t do well, you switch to the ACT. No one tells them the value of contacting the college rep assigned to your region and making your interest known to him or her. They have no idea, unless they themselves attend an elite private school and sometimes not even then, of the amount of “shaping” of a student’s record and activities that goes into a polished application.

Now here’s the rub – because the elite institutions receive such a large surplus of applications, and because any competent  admissions officer has to be mindful of yield (i.e. the candidate’s likelihood of enrolling if accepted), it makes a significant difference in admissions outcome if a candidate expresses a passion for that particular institution, like the student did at Wesleyan. Admissions officers see a huge number of prospective students, most of whom will not attend their institution if accepted. They pick out those who seem to indicate a genuine interest in going to their institution.

Most students from the other 99% don’t understand this. They’ve gone to public schools and have never been treated with such a selective lens. They think you take your classes, get your grades, sit for your standardized tests, and apply to college.

If individual elite colleges are not just going to rely on programs like Posse and Questbridge to do their packaging of the other 99% for them, then I think they need to change their admissions practice.. They must be willing to accept more students of modest means who do not seem to have such particular knowledge or passion for their institution. They’ll need to accept normal, not just exceptional, students. I’m not sure it’s realistic to expect this or not. The countervailing force of the elites is great and they are so much more effective at advancing their agenda.

Her question gave me a chance to collect my own thoughts about where I think we are today and where I think we are heading as a system of higher education. These thoughts are recounted here. Cynic alert: Don’t read any further if you are hoping for a rosy forecast.

The first thing that seems clear is that there will be no abatement in the applications arms race among highly selective prestigious institutions nor any curtailing of their fee increases. So long as the gap between rich and poor in this country does not diminish, and so long as the top institutions offer a path for entry into the elite classes, then those very classes will continue to bid up the value of education at one of the top ranked schools. Yes. Shockingly that means that tuition at these top schools will continue to grow faster than inflation and the gap between well-endowed institutions and others will continue to increase.

Granted, the size and affluence of the US elite classes has shrunk as a result of the Great Recession. The elite institutions will build global markets as a way to offset a downturn in domestic demand. This will keep competitiveness at top institutions high. Anyone who is hoping that Harvard or Princeton will become significantly easier to gain access to is going to be disappointed.

Top public flagship institutions will hitch their wagons to the fate of the top private institutions. The trend we have already seen of the virtual privatization of flagship public institutions will continue.  Here as well tuitions will rise and the top publics will come to look more like the top privates. There will be little effective public advocacy at the state level for social access to top public institutions, which was, during a better day, the anchor-stone of the public university system.

The vast majority of students in this country will be consigned increasingly to assembly-line, Walmart-style education – large classes, less contact with faculty, more on-line and remote content, and fewer opportunities for genuine intellectual contact. Community college enrollments will continue to grow.

So, actually, to answer her question – there will not be any sort of crash or major correction within higher education. Many of the trends we see around us will continue. It is a sad fate for the US system and, of course, doesn’t bode well for our country’s global competitiveness. I would like nothing more than to look back on this post five years hence and be forced to admit I was wrong. But I’m not holding my breath.

In truth, however, it’s been hard to fit the realities of the American higher education landscape into the dumbbell model. Where, for example, do you put the private, regional liberal arts colleges of the northern Midwest? Or the many smaller, high quality public institutions like my client, UMBC? We can now see with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, that in the recent past the growing class disparities in the American higher education system were masked by middle class families’ belief in and financing through debt of access to luxury education for their children. What occurred in higher education is similar to what occurred in other parts of the economy: a sizable fraction of the population who could not genuinely afford a luxury lifestyle bought into the fantasy fueled by debt that they in fact could. This impacted luxury education just as it impacted markets for luxury homes, clothes, and vehicles.

The future will not be so rosy. What we are seeing with the current economic recession is widening and calcification of the dumbbell structure. In fact, the highly selective institutions are doing quite well. Applications generally are up. It is true that many have suffered significant hits to their endowments. But looking down the road it is clear that the competitive culture and high demand among the affluent classes for a highly selective prestige institution will not abate. In fact, it will grow. Five years from now, the arms-race of gleaming new dorms, gyms, and marquee professors will once again be in full swing.

The saddest aspect of the growing disparity between “Walmart” and luxury institutions is the erosion of access in the public higher education system. Almost every day there is another article about public flagship universities raising fees and looking to recruit more affluent students in order to raise revenues. Steve Brint wrote an excellent overview in last week’s Washington Post.

What I find ironic about the current trend in American higher education is that the affluent classes have built a system where a disproportionate fraction of public and private resources flow to them yet they refer to it as a meritocracy and its products as meritocrats. Most members of the class surrounding higher education, who are generally liberal, somehow believe that their children achieve in this system due to merit. In fact, two alternate education systems have been built – one that provides large amounts of coddling, resources, and hand-holding to children of the privileged classes and another that provides a mundane and blunt education to everyone else. The SATs and other “standardized tests” reinforce this system.

What’s the bottom-line? The rest of the world will look on us with a chuckle as our place in the global education-based economy erodes. The class calcification that is occurring in our educational system is a distraction from global competitiveness. We are using our system to reinforce a class elite rather than educate our population.

What is the answer? For me, the most obvious point of attack is to focus on science and math education. One of the characteristics of the luxury educational system is that it is predominantly weighted toward verbal skills because it is in this area that the different child-rearing styles of the cultural elite and other classes is most pronounced. It is virtually impossible for a young person, no matter how bright, from a non-privileged background to compete in the area of verbal skills with the cultural elites. If we are to have any hope as a society it needs to be based on math and science skills, since these are taught in a style that makes them more accessible to intelligent young people regardless of class background.

If you are a member of this elite and want to work for broader access, focus on the quality of math and science instruction in your school. Lobby to have entrance requirements that are weighted toward verbal skills – such as entrance essays and the three sections of the SAT – overturned. If you work at a college or university, understand that you are part of the problem if 2/3 of your students major in non-science and math areas. (Why do we need all these humanities and social science majors anyway?) Understand that the widespread fleeing from technical disciplines in luxury institutions reinforces the dumbbell structure. Although a focus on math and science doesn’t seem that it would address class disparities in education, it is in fact our most important leverage point.

The reason I wrote this post is because I wanted to caution those involved with marketing an individual institution from falling into assumptions that did not apply in their case. In the back of my mind was a large research study I had read which was competent and very expensive but was premised on this standard model in ways that made it useless to the institution that had purchased it. This is a widespread problem: the whole industry of consultants and designers of educational marketing campaigns presume a process that is often not accurate. And it’s not just consultants. Many admissions offices make management decisions based on the standard model when in fact it doesn’t apply to the circumstance of their institution. It is very important for institutions to develop an accurate picture of how students actually find their way to their institution.

Before I leave this topic, I need to make one further point. It’s not just admissions offices, consultants and mainstream media who mistakenly overestimate the proportion of college-bound students who pursue the standard model for getting into college. It is also high school students and their families themselves. The fantasy of how you get into college has pervaded mainstream culture. It’s something you see on T.V. There are many students and parents who get seduced by the fantasy even though it is really not suited to their financial and cultural resources.

A disproportionate number of the families who get distracted by the college admissions fantasy are of-color or immigrants but it is certainly not exclusively so. Many middle class families (as opposed to upper-middle-class) also waste time believing in the steps of the standard process. There are many more cases of this on the East Coast than on the West because in the West the prevailing assumption is that students will attend a public and often local institution. The mythology of going away from home to an expensive private college is much stronger in the East.

So here’s the tricky part – if you’re marketing an institution that doesn’t fall into the standard admissions process model, you still need to take it into account. There may be key moments in the admissions process when your prospects will not be thinking of you. They will be pursuing other more prestigious options that at the end of the day will not pan out. During those moments, you will not be able to get them to pay attention by competing with the fantasy. They don’t want to hear about you. They want to believe that the process is going to work out for them. A lot of your business is done at the end of the game, once the fantasy has burst.

This is an extremely tricky dynamic. There is not one simple solution in every case. What is really required is an enormous amount of detailed research of your specific admissions circumstances so you can understand all the forces at play. The college admissions process fantasy may not work well for your institution but because it has pervaded our culture to such an extent it needs to inform your strategy.

What I want to focus on is the unintended but damaging consequence of the rhetoric that institutions use to promote need-based financial aid. Colleges reach out to students of modest means fairly aggressively, telling them that they should not rule out an expensive private education, that with financial assistance they might find that a private higher education is doable. Sometimes institutions even tell students that upon comparison they may find that the financial aid given by private institutions is so generous that they are a less expensive option than public institutions.

Without question, these claims are true in some cases. In some cases students are given such generous aid by private institutions that they can attend for less cost than local public institutions. But in how many cases? Five percent or ten percent of the students of modest backgrounds pursing higher education? What about the many students who do not end up in the private college and university system?

I spent the last week in the company of students of modest background who were all living at home while attending a local public institution. Their determination was impressive. Many travelled long distances via public transportation to attend classes then returned home often to work a part time job or attend to other family members.

In a majority of cases, these students had heard the promotional rhetoric from private institutions and had responded. They had applied to many private institutions and in every case they had been accepted at several. I met some students who had been accepted to extremely highly ranked schools, the kinds of schools that upper middle class kids kill to get into.

These students were all disappointed to ultimately learn that the financial aid they were offered was not sufficient to enable them to attend the private institution of their choice or indeed any private institution. They had waited, waited through the spring and into the summer after high school graduation to get a clear picture of their financial aid offers. Several had tried to negotiate with colleges at which they had been accepted. At the end of the day, they were forced to accept that they would not be able to attend a private residential college and had enrolled at their local commuter option instead.

The dreams of these young people were bruised during the college admissions process. As high school seniors, they learned the sad truth that the benefits of our society are not apportioned fairly. Being economically strapped creates significant barriers to achieving mainstream success, even if you think you are playing by all the rules. For these students, the rhetoric of the private colleges was hollow. Resources turned out to be insufficient to makes their dream of attending a private residential college a reality.

Granted, I do not know the details of these students’ individual stories. I’m sure that if I spoke with the private colleges that offered these students aid, I would hear another side – I would hear about parents with some net worth who were unwilling to support their children. They would tell me the students’ records were not so good that they merited generous financial aid. But that doesn’t really mitigate the point that in total the private colleges don’t have nearly the wealth necessary to serve a significant fraction of students of modest means who are ambitious and seek a quality higher education.

And so, I would suggest that private colleges and universities in their quest to recruit students of diverse economic backgrounds to their campuses moderate their promotional rhetoric. Granted, in some cases students who receive generous financial aid awards will find that attending a private institution is more doable than attending a local public. But in the majority of cases that is not the case. I suggest that private colleges and universities put some sort of balanced helpful statement on their websites and in their brochures:

If you believe that our institution is a good fit for you, then we encourage you to apply. You should not let concern about financing your education hold you back. Our institution provides generous financial aid to families of students who are unable to meet the full cost of a private higher education. In 2009, we provided more than $_ million dollars in need-based financial aid.

However, if you depend on financial aid to attend college, you should also know how important it is for you to explore all your options, including state colleges and universities in your local area alongside more expensive private institutions.  Talk to your parents in advance and get a sense from them of the kind of support they think they can provide. This is the best way to put yourself in position to weigh all your options and ultimately choose the higher education path that makes the most sense for you.

I hope that a few admissions officers at private colleges who work with students from disadvantaged backgrounds read this post. Yes, it is important to promote your institution. But it is also important to give these students a reality check, even if it means promoting your own institution less intensively. You will be doing these students a service.

You can read about this in any one of hundreds of college guides on the shelves of Barnes and Noble. One place to read about it that has significant influence is in the U.S. News & World Report Annual Guide to Colleges. Others are the college admissions coverage of the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

If you work in the industry, you are well aware of the contours of this process:

Talking with friend, families and guidance counselors and with assistance from third party sources and institutional communications, a student assembles a choice list in spring of his junior year (sometimes earlier and sometimes later).

With help from his family, he visits several schools on his list – usually in spring of his junior year, summer between junior and senior years or fall of his senior year.

Assuming he does not apply and is accepted in a binding early-decision process, he applies in the winter of his senior year of high school and is informed where he has been accepted in the spring. If he is interested in several schools to which he has been accepted, he visits two or three during the yield phase.

Ultimately he selects one school to attend.

This is not a fantasy for all college-bound students. It is reality for many of the folks who buy the books at Barnes and Noble, read the New York Times and end up attending one of the more highly selective colleges or universities. Indeed, if a student realistically hopes to attend one of the most highly selective institutions, he better had better conduct his selection process in this way or he will be at a decided disadvantage.

For the students who attend most of the higher education institutions in America, this process is not the reality, it is only a fantasy. They do not pursue this path toward college admissions for a variety of reasons based on culture and class. Although the New York Times presents this process as if it were the national norm, its true penetration in regions outside affluent enclaves of the Northeast and Mid Atlantic is small. There is less of it on the West Coast than on the East. Most students in the Midwest, South and Southwest do not engage in it. In reality, even in the Northeast and Mid Atlantic, only a minority of college-bound students conduct the college search process in this way.

But the fantasy has infected the entire higher education admissions industry including admissions offices and the army of vendors who support these offices with marketing services. Here are examples:

• College admissions offices time their marketing campaigns based on the model of the selective college admissions process. They reach back into fall of the sophomore year and extend into spring of the junior year based on assumptions about prospect behavior informed by the fantasy.
• Colleges spend considerable time and resources developing a viewbook which they mail out to students in the junior-to-senior transition period on the fantasy-based assumption that a large-scaled piece of messaging mailed at that particular juncture will impact admissions performance
• The major research firms offer research services to colleges and universities that are based on the premise that students are engaged in the fantasy.

If you want to do truly effective higher education marketing, you need to remember that in the majority of cases the process is only a fantasy. The services that vendors offer to you may not be a very good fit for your actual prospective students’ cultural and class circumstances. The general model of how to recruit students to your institution may not apply.

Instead, you need to start with fewer assumptions about the way students conduct the process and find out for yourself how your students actually do it. You need to be skeptical of the broad prognostications offered by major consulting firms at professional conferences about trends and practices among college-going cohorts. You need to take with a large grain of salt the recommendations of consulting firms as to how to conduct your recruitment marketing. The recommendations probably don’t apply to your case. And they are not reality-based. They are infected by the fantasy of the college selection process, which is much more pervasive in our national culture than it has any right to be given the relatively small percentage of students for whom it is reality.

I recently had an experience that underscored Bruce’s point and suggested that higher education institutions must not ignore social media if they are interested in recruiting diverse and under-served populations.

I was on-site at one of my clients – a highly prestigious Northeastern private college  – and I met a freshman in a focus group whom I’ll call Manuel. Manuel came from a fairly modest high school in the Los Angeles area. Many students from this high school do not attend college at all, and those who do attend in-state public institutions. Manuel was the exception. One of the best students in the school, he got excited about the prospect of attending a private liberal arts college by a presentation at his school by a Claremont colleges representative.

I was enormously impressed by this young man. Working independently, with little input from family or friends, he assembled a coherent and thoughtful list of selective national liberal arts colleges to which to apply. The list was so good you might have thought he worked with an independent college counselor. But he did not.

None of the schools that Manuel ended up applying to visited his high school. He did attend a college fair at the University of Southern California but much to his disappointment it featured in-state public institutions exclusively. As he firmed up his list, he did become aware that at least one of his colleges was hosting a reception for interested students in his area. But the reception was being held at an exclusive private school and he reasoned that the reception wasn’t targeted at him. Manuel did all of his research while flying under the radar of the schools he was considering. He never met an admissions officer nor visited any of the campuses.

Manuel conducted his research on-line. He said that he found the print materials that the various colleges sent out fairly useless. He also found little of value in the college websites. Neither gave him the information he was seeking. Instead, he focused his attention on 3rd party on-line resources and social media sites such as Unigo. He did tell me that once he settled on the particular college where I met him, he faithfully followed an independent student blog that discussed college events and issues. But he spent little time on the college’s official website.

I think Manuel’s experience holds important lessons for colleges and universities. In trying to reach beyond their traditional communities and attract new more diverse populations, on-line social media platforms are going to be very significant. Truth is, social media platforms are going to be significant for all college bound student recruitment in the future. There are Manuels of every ethnicity and class across this country and around the world. But these resources will be especially important to students who fall outside the traditional pool for private higher education. Colleges that are committed to diverse student communities ignore social media marketing at their peril.