At the beginning of every year, alleged precognitives from around the world gather to spout their own flavor of predictions, from potential meteor impacts to new fashions. While our office psychics are a little light on apocalyptic or Lindsey Lohan-related assertions this year, we have dimmed the lights, rubbed our crystal balls and focused really hard on our Lipton Tea bags to bring you seven seismic predictions for the coming year.

In all seriousness, though (we only have one crystal ball and we use Outlook meeting requests to book it), at CUnet, we’re in a unique position to make some startling predictions about what the higher education marketing space will experience in 2012. Not only do we work closely with the majority of schools in the for-profit sector, either providing inquiries, managing inquiries through agency services and technology, or providing marketing tools and services, we also have over one-quarter of all higher education inquiries running through our systems each month, approximately one million inquiries from over 250 schools. Drawing from our working relationships as well as the trends we see in inquiries, we’ve identified seven big trends ranging from program diversification to the expanding reach of not-for-profits into the proprietary education space that we expect to see over the coming year:

1. COMPLIANCE: Schools will shift their compliance focus from planning to execution.
With most of the fear and uncertainty around the Department of Education’s regulatory changes behind us, schools are now actively moving into “enforcement” mode. While many of the larger schools were early adopters of compliance-focused solutions (implementing in 2011), there remains a large number of schools that are still reacting to the changes and evaluating how to effectively respond. With compliance guidelines largely in place, these schools will now be eager to start implementing more “complete” solutions to enforce these guidelines and ensure audit trails are in place early in the year. In response to the increase in schools implementing compliance solutions, we can also expect to see a rise in the number of vendors entering the compliance solution market as the recognize the increasing importance that schools are placing on the people, processes and technology that are required to create comprehensive compliance response.

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If you’re under 35 and in Bergen County, the spot to be this evening is at the Bergen County United Way’s Young Leaders event, which begins at 6:30 p.m. in Papa Razzi at the Garden State Plaza.

A little background: at CUnet, we like to take an active role in our community. One of the ways we do this is through supporting the Bergen County United Way. Last year, we managed to raise $10,000 through a series of bake sales, charity dunk tanks and raffles (In total, our parent company, Nelnet, raised more than $120,000). This year, we’re proud to sponsor the United Way’s Young Leaders program and monthly networking events. The first of these is this evening at Papa Razzi in the Garden State Plaza.

The monthly networking events provide great opportunities for local young professionals to network and learn more about the Young Leaders organization, which promotes philanthropy, education, volunteerism and leadership.

For more information about the event, check out the event page here.

We can’t wait to see you there!

In the photo:  Matt McLaughlin (left), CUnet’s president and COO, and Tom Toronto, President of Bergen County’s United Way.

CUnet recently presented a check in the amount of $10,000 to the Bergen County United Way organization.  Every division within our parent company Nelnet participates in their own fundraising activities for their local United Way chapter.  This year, Nelnet as a whole contributed more than $120,000.

To raise the money, CUnet held special events both inside and outside the office, including bake sales, charity dunk tanks, and raffles. In addition to donations raised through activities, employees also contributed through individual donations and by pledging money to be deducted from the paychecks for the following year. In total, each CUnet employee that participated contributed more than $50 during the charity.

If you’re interested in seeing pictures from the CUnet Summer Picnic, where fundraising included the above-mentioned dunk tanks and a variety of office Olympics activities, stop over at our Facebook album here.

I wanted to share some thoughts and reflections about CCA’s annual conference in Las Vegas last week. On Thursday evening I sat at The Imagine America Foundation (IAF) Gala and watched Jack Larson receive The Pioneer Award. For those not familiar with The Pioneer Award, it is the lifetime achievement award within our circle of the education world. Jack was well deserving of the award; Career Education Corporation founder, entrepreneur and solid family man.

The Pioneer Award is one of the many awards and activities that IAF is involved in during APSCU’s events and one of the many activities that IAF is involved with during the year. For those unfamiliar with the IAF, let me explain its mission:

Established in 1982, the Imagine America Foundation is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to providing scholarship, research and training support for private sector colleges and universities. Since its inception, the Foundation has provided over $40 million in scholarship and award support for graduating high school seniors, adult learners and U.S. military veterans attending private sector colleges nationwide through its award-winning Imagine America programs. The Foundation also publishes vital research publications for the higher education sector, honors achievement in private sector education and offers faculty development training.

At Friday’s Award Luncheon, IAF presented our military students with outstanding achievement awards for scholarship and leadership. The ceremony was a remarkable recognition of the sacrifice these women and men have made for our country and to their families. The Foundation’s support of our military is only made possible from the continued support of our corporate partners.

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In just a few short weeks we’ll be gathering at the annual CCA Convention. This year, CUnet will be at booth 811 and encourages everyone to stop by and shoot a hole or two of golf with us! You can even enter onsite to win one of eight Callaway Diablo Edge Drivers that we will be giving away at the end of the show.

If you’d like to learn more about CUnet, our activities at the CCA or schedule a meeting with us during the conference, go to www.cunet.com/cca. If you sign up for a meeting with us through the site, we’ll have a special gift waiting for at the conference.

Fore!