State’s colleges make a pitch for new students

Jennifer Knight

Friday, Sept. 27, 2002 | 11:07 a.m.

Nowadays, if a university or community college wants to attract more students, it can't just open its doors and wait for them to arrive.

It has to go after prospective students via advertising as they tune in, turn on -- or open a magazine.

The proliferation of trade schools and Nevada's low "go-to-college" rate require the state's institutions to compete for every bit of their enrollment, advertising and college officials say.

And given the state's budget crunch, the institutions are forced to do so with an ever-shrinking supply of advertising money.

"I think that it is a more competitive marketplace than ever," said Jim Ferrence, media director at Paladin Advertising, which has the Community College of Southern Nevada as a client.

"We have to compete against the University of Phoenix, Nova University and other trade schools that have much bigger budgets."

Ferrence said that some of the chain trade schools have advertising budgets as large as $2 million. CCSN spends less than one-fourth of that, or $425,000 a year. UNLV spends even less, about $63,000 a year. Yet both of those budgets have been sliced in half during the last year because of budget constraints.

While advertising is often considered an expendable item in the budget, school officials say they are more reliant than ever on high-gloss magazine ads, quick radio spots and catchy television commercials to reach the MTV generation.

"We market movies. We market art. Why wouldn't we market education?" said John Cummings, CCSN's adviser to the president on governmental and legislative affairs. "We have some of the most dismal go-to-college rates in the country. We have a responsibility to turn that around."

Five Nevada institutions advertised in the regional edition of a recent issue of U.S. News & World Report, for example. The regional edition of the magazine goes out to about 20,000 households in Southern Nevada.

CCSN's glossy ad shows a smiling young girl with a college textbook and reads: "Every day before I go to work, I'm learning how to get a job."

While CCSN's message emphasizes the relationship of education to good jobs, UNLV's touts the high-minded ideals of academics. Its ad promotes the university's honors program and reads: "The most compelling moment of his physics major was learning about Gandhi."

An advertisement in the same magazine for Great Basin College in Elko calls that institution the "Best in the West." And in its ad, the Nevada State College at Henderson urges students with a "pioneering spirit" to join its first class.

The cost of those ads runs between $1,300 and $3,000 per edition, but the cost is worth it, said Earnest Phillips, UNLV's director of marketing and community relations.

"An ad doesn't recruit a student but it may pique their interest," Phillips said.

Recruiting is more important than ever to college officials, considering the rate of Clark County high school graduates moving on to Nevada colleges and universities dropped from 45.8 percent in 2000 to 41.3 percent in 2001, according to a recent report.

These ads, officials say, aim to encourage high school students to envision themselves getting a college education. So, whether the message is one of joining a new institution or pursuing an education to get a good job, Cummings said, the point is to get the message out.

"We need to send that message that we are the ticket to the American dream and by the way, when you get here, we'll teach you what the American dream is," Cummings said.