Aperture Content Marketing

Mature students are often just as career oriented as their younger counterparts—and may even be more market savvy, bringing with them a mindset informed by years of working experience and a checklist of goals they expect to achieve with their educational investment. By highlighting the unique ways that community colleges can support mature students’ career ambitions, these institutions can drive enrollment and serve a growing segment of prospective students. Support your career marketing efforts with information-rich, engaging content from Aperture Content Marketing’s extensive library. Our multichannel platform gives community colleges the tools they need to reach mature students where they are with digital assets, social media, and print magazines. Contact Aperture today to learn more. #careerreadiness #enrollmentgrowth #communitycolleges https://lnkd.in/gJKtd3zi

Attracting prospective students with promising career plans is only half the equation. To get them to stay, you need to convince them that you can get them across the finish line. Mature students face hurdles that their younger classmates frequently don’t, and if community colleges can demonstrate that it’s possible to fit the demands of coursework around their existing responsibilities, mature students will be more likely to take the leap. To that end, institutions can highlight flexible options like online and on-demand learning, and alternative start dates and schedules for courses. Financial aid is also critical in encouraging mature students to enroll, particularly when community colleges can help them balance the logistics of paying for school with preexisting student loans, retirement planning, or other financial priorities. Testimonials from your students who have achieved success as adult learners are a concise and compelling way to illustrate that while it may be challenging, it’s possible. Read the full article for more ways that community colleges can win over mature students with career-oriented marketing. #careerreadiness #enrollmentgrowth #communitycolleges https://lnkd.in/ggn-my-F

As mature students evaluate their potential courses of study, they’ll face competing priorities. The more you can prepare them for what to expect on a given career path, the more confident they’ll be in choosing the one that’s right for them. Wherever possible, community colleges should lay out the requirements and expectations facing students on the road to a given career: certifications, courses, timelines, and as many other checkboxes as can be identified. This way, mature students can determine whether a given path accommodates the responsibilities they already have. In addition to telling students what they can expect on the way to a career, institutions should provide them with a realistic idea of what they can expect to get out of it. Collect relevant, current information on job markets, including data like pay ranges, expected benefits, and turnover rates, and make it available to your mature students. With it, they can decide whether a career path meets their standards and gets them closer to the goals which brought them back to school in the first place. Read the full article for more ways that community colleges can win over mature students with career-oriented marketing. #careerreadiness #enrollmentgrowth #communitycolleges https://lnkd.in/ggn-my-F

Mature students are frequently working adults, with all the responsibilities that role entails. Community colleges can win them over by acknowledging these hurdles and providing students with the resources they need to manage them. In many cases, that can mean helping to arrange childcare, food, technology, and other essentials—but career readiness resources are also key. While mature students may have already been in the workforce for years, changing fields—or even changing roles within their field—can be a challenge to navigate. Guidance on resumes, interview practice, and other career counseling will be invaluable for students managing such a significant transition. Marketing these services tells mature students that your institution is committed to their career success. Read the full article for more ways that community colleges can win over mature students with career-oriented marketing. #careerreadiness #enrollmentgrowth #communitycolleges https://lnkd.in/ggn-my-F

As a community college, your institution is in the business of connecting students with career opportunities. You have what mature students are looking for, but you need to let them know what’s possible. With so many conflicting responsibilities on their plates, mature students want an efficient path to their career goals. Connect with these students by emphasizing your institution’s established routes to career success. Those routes may include guided pathways programs, partnerships with local employers, transfer programs to four-year institutions, and apprenticeship or internship programs—wherever your institution has smoothed the way for career opportunities. This gives mature students a clear picture of their available choices, and builds confidence that your institution can get them where they want to go. Also key is ensuring that training programs don’t overemphasize youth as a proxy for inexperience. Mature students already face anxiety about integrating with younger classmates, and may conclude that they’re ineligible for on-the-job learning if marketing materials focus too closely on the traditional college-graduate timeline. Read the full article for more ways that community colleges can win over mature students with career-oriented marketing. #careerreadiness #enrollmentgrowth #communitycolleges https://lnkd.in/ggn-my-F

Community colleges have a great deal to offer mature students, and connecting with this key market is no longer optional as nontraditional students, by some measures, outnumber traditional ones. Institutions can distinguish themselves and attract mature students by demonstrating that they can provide a reliable, achievable path to the kind of career these students want—one that accounts for mature students’ unique needs and priorities. Whether they already have a specific career in mind or not, prospective community college students are increasingly career driven. As higher education costs balloon, investment in a degree is no longer the sure bet that it used to be, and this generation of pragmatic students want to know what kind of return they can expect. This goes double for mature students, who are likely already working full time, may be supporting a family, and have all the responsibilities of adulthood to juggle. If they’re going to sacrifice precious funds and free time, they’d like to be sure it’ll pay off. Read the full article for ways that community colleges can win over mature students with career-oriented marketing. #careerreadiness #enrollmentgrowth #communitycolleges https://lnkd.in/ggn-my-F

Whether students ultimately want to transfer to a four-year institution, pursue soft skills for their current roles, or even just expand their horizons, community colleges have an opportunity to fill a growing humanities gap in higher education. Colleges have an incentive to promote the value of their humanities programs, and highlight the successes of their alumni. Aperture Content Marketing offers a rich library of community college marketing content, customizable to your programs and needs, and supports your outreach with microsites and print publications. To learn more about how Aperture can help you promote your humanities offerings, contact us today. #communitycolleges #careerreadiness #employabilityskills https://lnkd.in/gJKtd3zi

Humanities skills act as enhancers for almost any career. In 2021, the AAA&S found significant percentages of humanities degree-holders in education-related roles (10.5%), business and financial operations (12%), and arts, design, entertainment, and media (7%). Some (9%) were even working in STEM roles such as healthcare and engineering. The sheer range of career fields for humanities majors highlights the transferability of their skillsets. And while repetitive tasks are increasingly being folded into automation efforts, the jobs most resilient to automation are those that require flexibility and critical thinking—which are core humanities learnings. Read the full article to learn how humanities degrees are setting community college students up for success. #communitycolleges #careerreadiness #employabilityskills https://lnkd.in/ghVTRRSi

For many community college students, the path to a financially rewarding career is a chief priority. Humanities degrees are often compared unfavorably to STEM degrees on their earning potential, but a study by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences shows that the reality is somewhat more nuanced. While the median earnings for humanities graduates were ten to twenty-five percent lower than science or business graduates in most states, they were also forty percent higher than the earnings of workers without a degree. And while the study is focused primarily on four-year degrees, we’ve noted before that humanities courses are a prime target for community college students who are ultimately seeking to transfer. In addition, while holders of STEM degrees may out-earn their humanities counterparts early in their careers, the disparity doesn’t last long. Earnings tend to even out over the first decade, and remain comparable after that. Read the full article to learn how humanities degrees are setting community college students up for success. #communitycolleges #careerreadiness #employabilityskills https://lnkd.in/ghVTRRSi

Humanities courses teach students to communicate clearly and precisely, think critically, and problem-solve creatively. They teach research skills and encourage interdisciplinary insight. These soft skills can be thought of as “meta-skills,” which can be applied in almost any field and enhance the concrete training and job performance of their owners. Graduates in the humanities go on to leverage these abilities into success in a wide range of fields. Read the full article to learn how humanities degrees are setting community college students up for success. #communitycolleges #careerreadiness #employabilityskills https://lnkd.in/ghVTRRSi