White Paper

From Programs to Payoff 

Enrollment isn’t just a demographic problem for higher education, it’s also a product problem. In this white paper, Jeff Selingo argues that colleges have spent decades adding academic programs the way a retailer adds SKUs, stocking the shelves without asking whether anyone wants what’s on them. Drawing on labor-market data, interviews with economists and campus leaders, and roundtable conversations with university presidents, he shows why more inventory no longer means more students.

The report offers a four-part framework, testing demand, premium, mobility, and institutional position, as a way forward for deciding which programs to launch, grow, or retire, so that every degree a college offers actually pays off for the students who enroll in it.