Giving Compass' Take:

• President of Willamette University, Steve Thorsett, describes his strategy of acquiring and/or merging with other institutions in order to increase enrollment rates. 

• What are alternative ways to increase enrollment rates?  How can education donors help? 

• Learn about how to increase college enrollment with AI. 

When Steve Thorsett crunched the numbers, things looked grim.

Business was flagging. His flow of customers had fallen to a 10-year low, down more than 20 percent since 2015. By 2016, annual expenses had begun outpacing operating revenues by $14 million.

In an increasingly unforgiving market, Thorsett needed to do more than chip away at the margins of this problem. He could make cuts, but that was complicated in his industry, and would likely only speed the downward spiral. To differentiate himself from his competitors, this chief executive determined that his operation needed to grow bigger, not smaller.

So Thorsett took a classic shortcut to expansion. He found a partner that was on even shakier ground. The resulting acquisition will bring with it several hundred new consumers, allowing efficiencies of scale.

The move has other strategic advantages. Rather than duplicating what he does already, the organization he procured will help Thorsett broaden his offerings in ways that many of his rivals can’t, and at a speed that most can’t match.

Now Thorsett radiates optimism about the future — something rare these days among his counterparts, many of whom face challenges as bad as or worse than his.

Read the full article about battling low enrollment rates in college by Jon Marcus at The Hechinger Report.