For the fourth year in a row, CUnet and LeadsCouncil are conducting the Higher Education Marketing Benchmarking Survey to help our industry better understand how recent changes in higher education are impacting marketers and to identify current trends and best practices.

Last year, with input from higher education marketing professionals like you, we were able to create an insightful snapshot of marketing trends in higher education. The 2012 report helped to foster a better understanding of what is happening in our industry, and it provided useful statistics to higher education marketing departments across the country.

Results from this year’s survey will be analyzed against results from the past three years to develop the 2013 Higher Education Marketing Benchmarking Report. In return for your participation, you will receive a complimentary full copy of this report.

To participate in this year’s survey and sign up to receive your complimentary report, click on one of the following links:

• State sues Brockton for-profit school over ads ( Boston Globe)
• Local For-Profit University Pays Financial Aid Fraud Settlement ( KPBS)
• EdX Rejected ( Inside Higher Ed)
• Is Momentum Shifting For Private For-Profit Colleges? ( Seeking Alpha)
• WaPo Ducks Liability in For-Profit College Gripes ( Courthouse News Service)
• USC formally launches its online college ( Greenville Online)
• ‘Education Index’ Captures Online Learning Trends ( edSurge)
• A Vocabulary Site Shows How to Tailor Online Education ( The New York Times)
• Online Education Lifts Pass Rates at University ( The Wall Street Journal)

• Can Grand Canyon Lead For-Profit Out of The Abyss ( Investor’s Business Daily)
• The Future: Los De Abajo ( Counterpunch.org)
• For-Profit Fiasco: California Public Colleges Turn to Web Courses ( The Nation)
• MOOCs, Sensors, Apps and Games: The Revolution in Education Innovation ( The Washington Post)
• Big Data and the Big Opportunity to Reform Education ( Business2Community)
• The Minerva Moment? ( Inside Higher Ed)
• "Not about Doing Education on the Cheap" ( Bacon’s Rebellion)
• Stanford to help build edX MOOC platform ( The Washington Post)
• Utah surpasses all others in digital education, new study finds ( The Salt Lake Tribune)
• College Grads Earn Nearly Three Times More Than High School Dropouts ( The Wall Street Journal)

Greetings, faithful readers. It’s seven days since Social Media Week ended and we’re still digesting the amazing amount of information delivered there, but I couldn’t wait to bring you the above video. The “NextGen-Ed: Video Games, MOOCs, and Skill-Sharing” session featured Anya Kemenetz, a contributing writer for Fast Company Magazine that has also written several books on the transformation of higher education (full disclosure: I stole that phrase directly from the subtitle of Anya’s “DIY U”), and Gabe Zichermann, an leading expert on gamification with a list of achievements fair longer than I can do justice to. It was one of the most thought-provoking sessions at the conference, with topics ranging from Baumol’s cost disease (because, when you need a cost disease, nine out of ten experts recommend Baumol’s) to fluid intelligence (my coffee is still pretty dumb, though).  Give it a watch, if you get the chance. And now, another steaming plateful of higher education news headlines for you:

• For-profit schools group unveils best practices (AirForceTimes)
• Capital: Obama, Rubio Put Higher Education on Notice (The Wall Street Journal)
• Florida May Designate A Single University as State’s Online Hub (Sunshine State News)
• Is Online Learning Moving at a Dangerous Pace? (EDTech)
• Distinguishing Statistical and Substantive Significance in Studies of Online Learning (Education Week)
• Eric Cantor Promotes For-Profit Colleges In GOP ‘Rebranding’ Speech (The Huffington Post)

• Eight Brilliant Minds on the Future of Online Education ( Bloomberg)
• Grand Canyon’s DREAMers ( Inside Higher Ed)
• Local College Students Are Giving Out Compliments for Free ( Boston.com)
• My Valuable, Cheap College Degree ( The New York Times)
• A Case for College: The Unemployment Rate for Bachelor’s-Degree Holders Is 3.7 Percent (The Atlantic)
• Schools and For-Profit Managers Don’t Mix, Skeptics Say ( NBCNews.com)
• Role of Accreditors in Student Learning Discussed Wednesday ( Diverse: Issues in Higher Education)
• Venture Capitals’ Massive Terrible Idea for the Future of College ( The Awl)

• Can Virtual Classrooms Recreate A Traditional College Experience? ( Mashable)
• States Slash Higher Education Budgets – Again ( The Fiscal Times)
• University of Phoenix Online Platform Receives Patent ( International Business Times)
• Higher Ed’s Biggest Problem: What’s It For? ( The Chronicle of Higher Education)
• College Dropout Crisis Revealed in ‘American Dream 2.0′ Report ( The Huffington Post)
• Cal Grant Eligibility Rules Put Squeeze on For-Profit Colleges ( CBS Local)

• California State U. Will Experiment With Offering Credit for MOOCs ( The Chronicle of Higher Education)
• For-Profit College Shuts Down, Leaving Students Out in the Cold ( The Huffington Post)
• For-profit college Rasmussen cuts tuition amid industry-wide enrollment declines ( Minnesota Public Radio)
• Community College Funding Shrinks, For-Profit Enrollment Grows: Treasury Report ( The Huffington Post)
• Measuring the Success of Online Education ( The New York Times)
• 4 Online Education Program Considerations for International Students ( U.S. News And World Report)

Frequently on the CUnet blog, we discuss the nitty gritty details of marketing in the education sector. Over the last year, we’ve kept you updated on new media usage in education, taken some deep looks into how analytics inform evidence-based business practices, and, hopefully, provided our readers with valuable insight into effective marketing strategies and tactics. That being said, 2012 was an absolutely great year for higher education advertising campaigns, so let’s take a look back and reflect on some of the visionary, entertaining and just plain cool campaigns that schools have produced over the last year.

10. The University of San Francisco

Produced by Hub Strategy, the University of San Francisco rolled out clever advertisements that graced the sides of bus shelters, billboards and even spread to online banner advertisements and print media early this year. Eschewing the traditional San Francisco imagery of the Golden Gate Bridge, the advertisements were tailored to speak to San Franciscans by providing witty, on-brand commentary and in-jokes about the school.

9. Ozark Technical Communication College

Cost Comparison – Community Colleges vs. For-Profit Colleges from OzarksTech on Vimeo.

Ozarks Technical Community College, a school in Springfield, MO with an enrollment of 15,000 students, launched a local television campaign that plays to one of the school’s strengths by comparing their $3,300 annual tuition to the cost of large proprietary competitors like Bryan University and ITT Tech.

Attacking the price-point of a school may seem like a low blow, but marketing isn’t about being nice. Good campaigns are designed to find the pain points of an audience and craft a compelling narrative about your own brand. Another interesting point about this campaign is that it showcases the ability for small, local schools to exploit that close-to-home aspect of their character when competing with national brands. While the national brands do frequently do some tailoring of television ads for local markets, that tailoring is limited.

8. University of Bristol

Okay, yes, yes, I know. QR codes are kind of old news and, realistically, they do seem to be ignored by most consumers, but the University of Bristol’s QR-code billboard is an awesome idea. Instead of plopping an ugly, white and black, two-dimensional square on an existing advertisement, the school used the iconic imagery of the Clifton Suspension Bridge for its billboard, hiding the QR code within the bridge’s form. “It was important that whatever we did to get the message out there had to live up to the extremely high academic standard and overall world-class reputation of the university,” Bristol’s direct of communication strategy and marketing, David Alder, told The Drum. “Hence the rather clever use of QR code in the design creative and the use of the design out of doors, meaning that more people could actually interact with it and discover what the ad is trying to get across.”

7. American University

Originally created in 2010, American University’s WONK campaign was recognized with a CASE Circle of Excellence Award in 2012. The AU Wonk campaign is a integrated university-wide marketing campaign designed to promote American University’s brand objectives by strengthening the school’s academic and research reputation, enhance the quality and diversity of both undergraduate and graduate enrollment and improve engagement, support and advocacy among alumni. The school worked with SimpsonScarborough, a company that specializes in higher education brand strategy and market research, to conduct thousands of quantitative and qualitative interviews to form the underlying brand strategy and identify triggers and the campaign tone. In total, the school spent about $555,000 during the development and enactment of the campaign, which spanned social media websites, physical out-of-home advertising displays, a redesign of the school’s Welcome Center and on-campus events.

That total price may seem high, but initial results seem to indicate that it was well spent. American University reports that campus campaign awareness is extremely high (around 90 percent), the university’s website has seen a 35 percent increase in traffic and a 21 percent increase in page views, and the school’s admissions website has received an 88.9 percent increase in traffic.  Fall applications for the school also increased by 25 percent.

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The total cost of education has been growing faster than the rate of inflation for decades, and 2012 seemed to be the year when the effects of this trend finally entered the public consciousness. Not a week goes by without another article appearing in my news feed on the sky-rocketing cost of tuition, or massive student debt. Everyone was talking about it, from the 2012 Presidential campaign trail, to the Occupy Wall Street protests, to the education blogosphere. On a recent trip to Denver, I spotted a billboard that read, “Kiss Student Loans Goodbye”. Upon further inspection I realized that it was part of a Denver transit system marketing campaign to encourage transit usage. I was amazed to see that the concept of student debt has become such a part of everyday life.

So when I started thinking about what 2013 might hold for higher education, I couldn’t shake the thought that this year must bring with it action. Action on the part of politicians, who are feeling pressure from their constituents to do something to curb the cost of education. Action on the part of colleges and universities, which will be forced to examine their traditional way of doing business. And action on the part of consumers, who will begin to make more conscious choices around their post-secondary education.

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A hale and heart greeting, faithful readers! I hope you all had a fantastic Turkey Day, regardless of whether you partook of the gobbling bird or not. This week brings with it some exciting news. On Wednesday, the CUnet Movember team staged a night of musical entertainment and witty repartee from host Jen Capstraw (who also doubles as our senior email strategist). With this month coming to a close, it looks like CUnet’s team has beaten last year’s fundraising record which, sadly, means that yours truly will (again) be streamed eating the hottest pepper in the world from CUnet’s very own offices. Stay tuned for updates on the date and location.

It’s also been a pretty great week for news. Some of the highlights from this week’s higher education news round-up include Grand Canyon Universities entrance into a Division I NCAA conference, a U.K. college where students actually attend school inside of a real business, some interesting new research about Millennials’ perceptions on online learning, a great profile on Strayer President Michael A. Plater, and a look at an innovative crowd-sourced language learning software. Bon appetit!

• Grand Canyon University Joins Division I NCAA Conference ( Inside Higher Ed)
• For-Profit College Losing Out to State Schools Charging Less ( The Seattle Times)
• A School Where Courses Are Designed By Business ( The New York Times)
• Profile: Michael A. Plater, Strayer University President ( The Chronicle of Higher Education)
• Millennials Support Online Education, Concerned About College Costs: Poll ( The Huffington Post)
• On online learning site Udemy, quarter of approved instructors earn $10k or more ( GigaOm)
• The Cleverest Business Model in Online Education ( MIT Technology Review)

(and for all of you who doubted that I could find a Thanksgiving-themed lasso-related picture, take that! Today’s image comes to us from Ephemera Obscura’s wonderful Etsy store, stocked to the gills with all of your vintage postcard needs).