Retention: Who’s Job Is It, and the Physics of the Resultant Downward Vortex If It’s Not Assigned

In a number of schools I’ve visited in the past two decades, enrollment has been decreasing. When I first started with FACTS in 2008 after leaving a Diocesan’s Office for Catholic Schools, I was told to search the database for large enrollment schools.

Two of them stand out in my mind, because they were both in my hometown of Pittsburgh, PA: St. Bernard, and St. Elizabeth.

Both in the South Hills of Pittsburgh, they were also two of the largest at the time.

My supervisor said, “Look at these – St. Bernard…800 students. St. Elizabeth…745 students. Why haven’t you contacted those?”

I said because they’re not at that level today. St. Bernard had about 450 students, and St. Elizabeth had about 375 students. We were also using a database that couldn’t be updated by the user. Changes had to be made through one administrative assistant, who assisted everyone on the sales team. And with 16 representatives, that’s a lot of phone calls and changes to make.

Both of these schools did not use FACTS for their tuition management – one did all their billing manually, and, when they decided to meet with me, their new business manager discovered that they were not collecting over $100,000 in tuition every year. Consequently, tuition increased – not just because of inflation and salary/benefit increases, but to make up the shortfall of the previous year. Tuition increases led to enrollment decreases. Those who remained didn’t fulfill their tuition obligations. Rinse. Repeat.

As for the other school, they changed to FACTS when it acquired the competitor they were using. However the terms of the agreement stated that the level of service would be maintained – and that meant keeping the same processes that were in place as the competitor, rather than using “The Better Way” that was FACTS’ distinctive difference. Enrollment continued to decline because parents got tired of paying late fees when they insisted they paid their obligation on time. Indeed, they paid it – but mailed checks are subjected to mail delays. And “date paid” and “date received and processed” are different dates when everything is done with paper.

With enrollment decreasing, schools began marketing efforts via this new thing call a “Web site” – which, for many faith-based schools, was a Web page on the affiliated church’s Web site. What did they put on that site? Their tuition. Parents took one look at that chart, thought to themselves, “We can’t afford this,” and didn’t even see what the school offered.

So, while schools were not being very successful in attracting new enrolled students, those in the upper grades were leaving as tuitions increased. Further, if families had multiple children in the school, withdrawing the oldest one usually meant taking all the brothers and sisters along for the change because parents didn’t want to have to go to two different schools for activities, or more fundraisers to participate in.

I saw these things happening in the schools I worked with at the Diocese, and saw the trends repeated throughout the portions of the 5 states I served during my time with FACTS. A couple of years into my tenure, I created a white paper on retention that I left with the prospective customers I met with, and it was suggested I turn it into a book since school administrators liked books rather than papers.

The big question I’m always asked is, “How did things get to be this bad?” That’s easy to explain. It’s called, “Gravity.”

Here’s an experiment you can do at home. Fill your kitchen sink with water. Then, place a small, floating object on the surface – like a pea.

Without disturbing the pea, pull the stopper out to let the water drain.

You’ll see the pea float along for a while while the water drains. Then, watch what happens when the water level becomes lower and lower.

My book on retention was published in 2011, and updated in 2018 to include a chapter on the Millennial Generation – which every parent in the PK-12 space is a member of. It contains 12 strategies to retain students – actually, to retain parents – as part of your school community, since it costs less to keep a customer than it does to find a new one.

One of those strategies deals with supporting growth. While it will cost money if the downward vortex continues, it will also cost money to create and support growth. The difference is that one is making up for loss, while the other is fostering success. The latter makes a great case statement for donors to provide generous funding for that growth to continue; the former just says help us stay afloat for another year.