How to Market the Liberal Arts
By Aaron Basko, Associate Vice President for Enrollment Services, University of Lynchburg
Foundational to academia, the liberal arts are often regarded with a—somewhat unjust—ambiguity, putting higher education marketing teams at risk of ineffective marketing if not institutionally defined.
The study of “ultimate things”—topics that should be studied because they’re worthy to be known—is how Dr. Larry Arnn, the president of Hillsdale College in Michigan, described the College’s understanding of the liberal arts in a recent interview.
Whether it be for this particular goal or another, it is noteworthy that Dr. Arnn’s explanation addresses the “why” behind studying the liberal arts clearly and persuasively.
For centuries, the value of a liberal arts education wasn’t really in question. It was the door to the professions, government service, church leadership, and most of the jobs that conveyed social standing and wealth. It took young people away from their normal lives and gave them a chance to think about what was important. It trained them for life in a society where they were expected to provide leadership and to understand civic duty.
Fast-forward to today, and it feels like the liberal arts are under siege. Liberal arts majors across the country are struggling to attract majors. Some are being eliminated. Many small colleges, that used to wear the Liberal Arts identity with pride, are now trying to justify their relevance in an age of practicality.
Can the liberal arts still be one of our selling points? How do we make the case in our marketing that a liberal arts education is still a worthwhile investment?
Know What Students Think
I recently conducted a focus group in which I asked students their perceptions of our multi-disciplinary, themed general education courses. These courses have creative titles and tackle large, wide ranging topics that faculty are often passionate about teaching.
Students shared that they feel like they are still recovering from the last couple of years, and that they are trying to put life back together again into a framework that makes sense. They see these classes as something that works against that. Instead of “tackling life’s big questions,” they were searching for opportunities to solidify who they are and to gain skills that will help them navigate an overwhelming world full of too many opinions and choices. “I just tried to pick the one that sounded the least weird,” one student said. Their worldviews are fragile and in flux, the last thing they want is to have them blown up without an obvious reason.
We often market these courses, and the liberal arts in general, as experiences that will challenge students in their accepted beliefs and upend their preconceived notions. This is a pre-internet view of the role of college. Today’s students are exposed to 24-hour news from around the world and more diversity of opinions than anyone could absorb. What they really need is something that will help them integrate their fractured lives.
That is how we should be marketing our Liberal Arts programs and courses – as experiences that can help them make sense out of the world. Great texts and past thinkers can help them build a framework of values that can sustain them through future moments of crisis. Faculty become guides, not deconstructing the world, but helping students learn to reconstruct it after the shattering of the last few years. The Liberal Arts become the pathway to meaning, and a tool students can use to shape a view of the world they can live with, but not be overwhelmed by. That is an education that meets them where they are.
Recruiting Parents
A colleague of mine also recently conducted focus groups on college choice and was amazed by how openly students talked about the influence their parents had over their college choice. “Several said, ‘My parents thought this would be the best choice for me, and they were right.’ I couldn’t believe it. As a Gen Xer, I would have been horrified to admit that my parents had picked my college!
Enrollment marketing can make the most of this strong connection by appealing to parents in the way we promote the liberal arts. There is a strong myth out there that the most important thing to parents is that students study something practical, with a clear job path. But the truth is that most parent’s primary motivation is for their student to be happy. Finding a well-paying job is really just a proxy for happiness, which is much harder to measure. What most parents are really seeking from a college is the reassurance that it can open doors for their student that will lead to doing something they are excited about and can do successfully. Opening doors is what parents have been trying to do for them since they were born, and they want to know that we will take the baton.
This understanding makes it clearer how we should be marketing the liberal arts to parents. We need to show them that in these majors, students will have the kind of close contact with faculty that will help them to find a path to success. We need to tell them that these faculty will be looking for opportunities to open professional doors for them. This approach creates the sense that students are on an “inside track,” with trained adults who are on the lookout for opportunities for them to conduct research, participate in research, attend conferences, and receive other types of professional development.
One of the easiest ways to accomplish this is to create a direct linkage between students and alumni. Faculty and staff can be the bridge to highly successful graduates who are willing to open doors. Having successful alumni visible and active in our programs demonstrates to parents that the process works, and that what we teach actually helps students navigate life.
A Liberal Arts Checklist
As we look for ways to promote our Liberal Arts programs to a new generation of students and their parents, it makes sense to sit down with each program and create a mini-marketing plan designed to help them make their case. For each area, ask for answers to the following questions:
How can your program help students to create a better life for themselves?
What one skill do you teach better than other areas of campus?
How can you help students define their values and build resilience that will help them in the future?
What are you currently doing to open doors to professional development opportunities? How are you promoting this?
How can you demonstrate that your program seeks to give students an “inside track” to mentorship and opportunities they would not get from larger majors?
What current student or recent alumni successes can you point to? How can you make those outcomes easily available for students and parents to see?
How can you engage successful alumni directly with students in high-visibility ways?
The answers to these questions will help your programs better express the “why” they have to offer to students and families. The liberal arts are no longer an assumed good. It is our job to make the case for why they can still be one of the best paths for students to find a successful future.
