Dive Summary:
- Ozarks Technical Community College is taking aim at for-profits with a new marketing campaign comparing its annual tuition to that of Bryan College, ITT Tech, Everest College and Vatterott College, saying that "the numbers speak for themselves" when making a comparison.
- An aggressive ad campaign from the community college sector is rare, but the Ozarks ad may be representative of a change as the desire of community colleges to demonstrate return on investment to the public increases.
- Enrollment at Ozarks is strong, and Chancellor Hal L. Higdon says for-profits haven't been a major threat, but students who enroll at Ozarks after previously attending for-profits come with large debt loads that affect the school's student loan default rates, and the ads are in the interest of providing better information to prospective students and their families.
From the article:
Ozarks Technical Community College is naming names in a marketing campaign that touts how its tuition stacks up against for-profits. A TV commercial the college unveiled last week compares the $3,300 annual cost of tuition, fees, books and supplies at Ozarks to $32,000 at Bryan College, a small Christian for-profit, $18,000 at ITT Tech and roughly $14,000 at Everest College and Vatterott College. ...