“I had more control over things as a fighter pilot.”
That’s what a colleague said to me recently—and he wasn’t kidding. Before coming to enrollment management, he flew combat aircraft off the deck of an aircraft carrier in the Navy. He is now a Vice President for Enrollment at a private college.
I asked him, somewhat jokingly, which was more stressful. He laughed, thought for a moment, and gave me that answer.
I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.
Because he’s right. Enrollment management has always been demanding. But it has never been less controllable than it is right now.
Think about what an enrollment leader actually controls: staff, processes, communications, financial aid strategy. What they don’t control is the market in which all of that work has to perform nor do they control the students and the faculty, the curriculum, or campus facilities.
And the market in 2026 is volatile in ways that compound on each other. The demographic cliff is no longer theoretical—WICHE projects a 13% decline in high school graduates over the next 15 years. Yield rates at private colleges are eroding as students apply to more schools, commit later, and treat the enrollment decision like a negotiation. Discount rates have climbed above 50%—and in many cases far higher—forcing net tuition revenue down to unsettling levels. Covid, digital communications, the Supreme Court’s 2023 admissions ruling, and collapsing public confidence in higher education have forced institutions to rebuild their recruitment strategies from the ground up.
None of those forces originated in the Admission office. None of them can be solved there.
Here is what I think presidents and boards most need to hear: the right mental model for enrollment leadership today isn’t the pilot at the throttle. It’s the navigator reading changing winds—making sound adjustments in real time, with imperfect information, while keeping the institution oriented toward its destination.
Too often, boards and presidents evaluate enrollment performance against targets set in calmer weather, without accounting for new headwinds and conditions. The most useful question for a board today is not whether enrollment hit its target. It is whether the institution is reading the weather honestly, setting a destination that fits the conditions, and giving its leaders the instruments they need to navigate.
That conversation is harder than a scorecard. It is also where strategy lives.
J. Carey Thompson is the founder of CVET Enrollment Strategies, bringing 40+ years of senior enrollment leadership experience across admission, financial aid, career services, communications, athletics, and institutional research. CVET partners with private colleges and universities to develop comprehensive, evidence-based enrollment strategies. Learn more at cvetconsulting.com.
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