Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) has become a hot topic in college admissions and recruitment in recent years. Most recently, last year’s U.S. Supreme Court decision to end race-conscious admissions processes has led experts to wonder about the future of DEI in higher education.
It’s not an easy topic to explore. Yet, one thing is clear: Creating inclusive admissions processes continues to come with tangible advantages for colleges, regardless of the legal environment surrounding them.
Just as McKinsey research shows that a more inclusive and diverse workforce increases profitability for organizations, other research has found similar benefits for colleges and universities. Meeting the needs of a diverse audience benefits any institution in both tangible and intangible ways—if you know how to implement this concept in a way that is both reasonable and fair to everyone involved.
The Business Case for Higher Education DEI
Repeatedly, studies have shown that embracing DEI when recruiting an incoming class has a significant positive effect on the institution. Students become more likely to feel like they belong, which improves their yield and retention. They’re also more likely to be engaged on campus, leading to better academic performance and ultimately better career outcomes.
In addition, faculty at schools that embrace DEI tend to be more motivated and also become more likely to stay at that institution. This increased job satisfaction leads to lower turnover. The result is reduced costs in recruiting high-quality faculty and building a stronger academic body.
Finally, institutions with strong diversity programs will see their students become more likely to be engaged in their communities after graduation. That reflects positively on the school, while also creating stronger alumni connections that ultimately help the school succeed.
Beyond these research-backed business benefits, DEI in college admissions also has other advantages. From expanding your audiences to connecting better with Gen Z and even impacting your accreditation process and college rankings, we’ll discuss these benefits in more detail below.
A New Way To Think About DEI
Traditionally, the concept of diversity in day-to-day higher education contexts has been almost problematically simple. Especially in marketing materials, it can too easily get reduced to ensuring a diverse population of students on the cover of a viewbook, which audiences will perceive as inauthentic and forced.
More modern approaches to DEI recruitment are more comprehensive. They focus on underlying pieces, like promoting programs that make students from all backgrounds feel included. And they actively avoid cliches, like using a picture of an African American student when discussing financial aid and affordability.
Most importantly, though, they broaden the definition of DEI. Messaging geared toward religious minorities, international students, rural students, and students with disabilities is just as important as racial minorities. Through careful segmentation, each of these audience groups can receive messages and outreach relevant to their needs.
Expanding Your Audience for Recruitment Efforts
First, and perhaps most importantly, embracing a DEI-focused approach in your student recruitment expands your audience. Put simply, if more students feel like they will belong at your institution, more of them will likely apply, pay their deposit, and ultimately join your incoming class.
Building a more inclusive recruitment strategy, in other words, can help you attract a broader audience. Take the above-mentioned students with disabilities as an example. According to the Pew Research Center, about 13% of the United States population lives with a disability. An intentional approach to DEI that considers all of your diverse audience unlocks a broader swath of the population, ultimately helping you fill your class.
Creating Messaging That Resonates With Gen Z
In addition to expanding your recruitment audience, embracing DEI in your admissions efforts also plays directly into the preferences of the generation you are trying to recruit. Much has been written about Gen Z as a more diverse audience than any before them, valuing the above-mentioned authenticity more than any generation before them as well. But it’s also vital to mention just how important DEI has become to this cohort of prospective students.
According to one study surveying 5,000 high school students, 60% of incoming college students become more likely to apply when the college’s recruitment materials and website highlight DEI efforts. More than half of the respondents would be more likely to apply if the college recruiter shared their ethnic identity, while 25% have decided not to apply to at least one college for fear of being treated unfairly.
The implications are clear. DEI messaging, especially when going beyond the surface level and remaining authentic, clearly resonates with incoming students. It makes your communications more likely to stand out in the noise of college recruitment, ultimately helping you stand apart from institutions not prioritizing it to the same degree.
Promoting Personal Growth In Your Student Body
Another case for DEI in both admissions and overall higher education is long-standing: it not only opens doors for diverse students but also promotes personal growth for your majority populations.
Being around peers who are not like you and come from different backgrounds can open new worldviews. One study showed that students recognized how these experiences made them become more aware of their own biases while placing greater value on this expansion of their views.
Put differently, a strategic emphasis on DEI in your recruitment effort ultimately benefits your entire student population, far beyond your incoming class. The student experience will be more positive, and ultimately lead to better outcomes for all students.
Accreditation and Ranking Impacts of DEI Initiatives
Any list of the importance of DEI would be incomplete without discussing accreditation. In part because of the benefits mentioned above, accreditation agencies like the Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE) and the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) now explicitly require institutions to show evidence of their DEI practices.
Here’s how the AACSB announced this strategic decision to its current and prospective member institutions:
AACSB-accredited business schools are committed to creating welcoming environments that foster diversity, inclusion, and belonging… The guiding principles help steer accredited schools in their behaviors, values, attitudes, and choices as they relate to each school’s strategy, operations, and efforts toward building a community of belonging.
Building DEI initiatives into your recruitment practices, in other words, can become an important component of achieving and reaffirming accreditation. Agencies will continue to look positively upon schools that can clearly show these initiatives in recruitment, student life, and academics.
In addition, your DEI initiatives could also impact popular rankings that are used frequently in marketing and recruitment efforts. Last year, for example, U.S. News & World Report announced that it would adjust its ranking factors to include “increased weighting on a school’s success in graduating students from different backgrounds.” While not explicitly related to DEI, this change along with the magazine’s renewed emphasis on social mobility shows a clear ancillary effect for schools looking to improve their diverse recruitment practices.
Building New Strategies To Reach Students from All Backgrounds
Put simply, the importance of DEI for college admissions remains significant and only appears to be growing. Expanding your audience, resonating better with Gen Z, promoting personal growth, and building the potential to improve your rankings and accreditation status are significant reasons why schools can and should continue to emphasize it in their recruitment efforts.
The how, of course, is a different story altogether. Going deep on initiatives while remaining authentic and avoiding the appearance of lip service remains crucial. But at its most fundamental, it also means putting tools in place that make information needed throughout the recruitment process more accessible for students from all backgrounds.
For example, first-generation students—who are disproportionally likely to be minority students—will not be as familiar with higher education, admissions, and financial aid jargon as their peers. They’ll have more basic questions and will need answers to those questions at times that might not be within regular business hours.
For these students, AI-enabled digital assistants can become a core tool in the admissions process. The ability to quickly and conveniently get answers to core questions can make students more comfortable with your school, without introducing potential implicit bias from admissions counselors more used to dealing with some demographics than others. Meanwhile, the ability to easily pass off more complex questions for those more personal interactions can be just as valuable.
Of course, plenty of other potential strategies will be important in this arena, as well. Feedback sessions with students, for instance, can confirm the authenticity and relevance of recruitment communication while also suggesting improvement opportunities. A more thoughtful assignment of prospects and territories to the right admissions counselors can also go a long way.
Use the Right Tools
Reaching students from all backgrounds is no small feat. But with the right tools in place, it can become a manageable goal for the coming recruitment cycle. Learn how AtlasRTX can help in that endeavor, building a new, automated, and relevant ‘front door’ for your admissions communications that optimize your communication regardless of your students’ demographics, backgrounds, and disabilities.
