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Delgado Community College is a public community college with campuses throughout the New Orleans, Louisiana metropolitan area. Delgado serves more than 15,000 students with degrees and training focused on today’s in-demand jobs to drive the local and regional economy.
Looking beyond enrollment
One of Delgado’s mottos is “Be in that number!” meaning be one of us, be successful, and be well-employed. A motto that more fully speaks to the benefits of enrollment – breaking the barriers of education to challenged populations, increasing the number of graduates, and getting graduates into better-paying jobs. With those ideas in mind Michelle Greco, Director of Enrollment Management, was looking at their potential to enrollment numbers and needed to find a way to decrease the gap. “With seven campuses serving the New Orleans area, we can extend workforce development and continuing education even further, but only if we can get those potential students from applied to enrolled,” says Greco.
You have to ask to find out why
Greco had two subsets in mind – students that were new to Delgado and some that had withdrawn in Spring 2022, but her team didn’t have time to do the kind of outreach needed. “We wanted to find out why these individuals were not moving forward to actually register for classes. They took the first step to apply, so what’s holding them back?”
Having past experience with the Inceptia team using Verification Gateway, Greco knew they would extend the care with the students that her office would, so she talked with her team about using Inceptia’s Student Outreach Programs targeted towards new and returning students. Within these programs, the Inceptia team engages with students to address barriers, reduce melt and student anxiety while promoting school connections and enrollment.
“A lot of things sort of happen at the spur of the moment, and in everybody’s world, especially right now. Inceptia was able to accommodate a quick-turn request to best meet the timing with these potential students,” says Greco. “I was able to upload my list and within a day, an Inceptia support representative called me a few times to make sure that I was successful with the uploads, that they could see the data, and I uploaded the right number of participants. I really appreciated that extra attention during that time period when there wasn’t time available for me to do this special project.”
Reaching out made the connection
The outreach audience consisted of 2,031 students – 219 that had withdrawn from Spring 2022 and 1,812 that were new to Delgado. “With help from Inceptia, I was able to provide the students I wanted to reach out to, so they could encourage them to enroll and address whatever was holding them back. I didn’t give them an “easy” list as these prospects hadn’t demonstrated much interest in the past.”
Inceptia worked through the outreach candidates using a multifaceted time and delivery connection strategy. These connections resulted in 582 total enrollments for the regular term and term B combined. Of these enrollments, 524 were new students and 58 returned after having withdrawn.
“I’m excited that were able to make the connection for so many students. The tuition from those hours resulted in a huge return on our outreach investment with Inceptia for our students and our school.”
We uncomplicate financial aid
Inceptia is a nonprofit organization committed to innovative, effective, and uncomplicated solutions for verification, financial aid management, smart borrowing, financial education, student outreach and repayment wellness. To learn more about our Student Outreach Programs, contact your Business Development representative or visit inceptia.org.