Higher Ed CMO Study: Growth Ambitions
Growth has become the defining mandate for higher education marketing. Institutions are setting ambitious targets across enrollment, advancement, and reputation, yet most are pursuing those goals through disconnected functions with separate strategies, separate metrics, and separate stories about the same institution.
The gap is not ambition. It is architecture. When brand, enrollment, and advancement operate in silos, even strong marketing activity struggles to convert. This chapter examines how institutions are building toward integrated growth systems, what the CMO Study data reveals about where alignment breaks down, and what it looks like when marketing operates as the connective tissue across an institution’s most critical revenue functions.
