Countless conversations over the holiday season will look toward the future, and many will examine higher education as a means of improving that future. A consortium of Tennessee’s public universities has coalesced behind the “Four the Future” campaign, an awareness and educational program designed to boost four-year college attendance.
The schools say they also hope to use the initiative to dispel some persistent undertows dragging down enrollment, including high costs and the related debt burden. Public institutions, they counter, are affordable and position graduates for better salaries and career paths.
This is not new messaging, but highlighting the value of a four-year degree is something that makes good marketing sense right now, officials at the participating universities say.
“[Four the Future] fits with our institution mission,” says Jess Vodden, chief marketing and communications officer with East Tennessee State University (ETSU). “We were founded in 1911, and our unchanged mission is to improve the quality of life for people throughout the region and beyond.
“This is a story we can tell about our impact, and I think that’s true for any of the other institutions taking part,” Vodden continues. “It’s allowing us to educate not only potential students, but the general public in a way that drives our communities forward.”
“We wanted to be part of any discussion that reinforces the value we bring to the communities we’re in,” says Andrew Oppmann, vice president and spokesman, marketing and communications, at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro. “We recognize that state universities do so much to make the quality of life better for every Tennessean. Every university that’s part of this consortium has a similar story to tell about what it does, and we’ve never had any opportunity to join together and say that in unison.”
“We’re tackling a dangerous narrative that a four-year degree doesn’t really matter,” says Bill Persinger, executive director of public relations and marketing at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville. “We’re referencing some specific numbers in this campaign, such as how someone with a four-year degree can make $36,000 a year more than someone with only a high school diploma. Those are real numbers.”
How it began, will unfold
Four the Future will run for several years and spread its message across the state’s 95 counties in hopes of peak saturation. The first phase carries a price tag of $1.5 million, with participating schools contributing funds based on their enrollment.
Ads will bear the tagline, “Tennessee universities support Tennessee communities,” and Four the Future’s components will include advertising, digital media, earned media and community meetings to showcase the advantages the universities offer to individual students, as well as their respective communities.
“Our four-year presidents, as a group, have been a little frustrated with some of the narrative around higher education,” Vodden says. “They realized that we needed to do a better job of telling our stories: why we’re here, what our purpose is.
“For instance, how we work hand in hand with the community in many ways, and how we’re at the table and collaborative on many shared goals. We want more people to know who we are, and what we’re all about.”
“There’s been a nationwide decline in college enrollment, and that has affected all of us,” Persinger says. “And there’s a narrative that we’re all seeing, one that questions the importance of college, and so that sparked all this.”
Connecting town, gown
The multifaceted effort will have a distinct focus on how universities serve their communities. That’ll be done, in part, by calling out specific outreach ventures that aren’t student-focused at all, but rather designed to pull in area residents for education, training and other programming.
“We like to say that even if you never set foot on the ETSU campus, we are still striving to make your life better,” Vodden says. “We’re supporting small-business owners, driving innovation through research, or providing services and health care to the larger community.
“Our state universities are economic engines,” Vodden continues. “We have programs here at ETSU like our STRIVE entrepreneurship program for veterans, reservists and National Guard members, which helps them start a business through training and support. That’s beyond what we do for students, but it’s our faculty and staff making a difference every day in the community.”
“We are about 40% nontraditional in our student makeup,” Austin Peay’s Persinger says. “We’re the largest provider of education to military-connected students in Tennessee; they’re about 2,600 people, or a fourth of our student population. That audience sees a four-degree as a means toward advancement, from moving to being an enlisted soldier to an officer or moving on to some other type of career after the military.”
“Clarksville is a fast-growing city and has been for many years,” Persinger points out. “Industries are growing here and coming here. They need people who have certain skill sets. Some of those needs can be met by our community colleges, but others are going to require a four-year degree or more. Also, even if you’re in a good job with a two-year degree or less, you’re going to want that four-year degree to move to the next level. We’re providing a creative and challenging opportunity that will pay off eventually and will also continually improve our society.”
MTSU’s large population of first-generation students, roughly a third of its total enrollment, also is a meaningful metric that the school highlights to show its value, Oppmann says.
“We have a very large adult-learning program, and specific programs like outreach for veterans through the Charlie and Hazel Daniels Veterans and Military Family Center,” he says. “We’re really focused on getting all our students into careers. About 70% of our graduates stay in Tennessee, and most stay around Middle Tennessee, so they are taking jobs and creating the workforce right here.”
Counteracting cost narrative
That positive spin is needed pushback against a loud, national narrative of college graduates carrying crushing debt for years, if not decades, the program’s participants say. They are quick to note that college has costs, however, and equally quick to note that state schools have affordability positives that set them apart.
“There is a lot of negative stuff out there to be counteracted,” Vodden says. “There’s a lot of information, or misconceptions, around the value of a four-year degree. We’ve all heard the horror stories of students graduating, or even worse not graduating, and being hugely in debt and not able to find a job that pays the bills.
“The reality is that most ETSU students, and this is true across Tennessee’s public universities, graduate with no debt at all, or if they do have debt it’s manageable and they can recoup that investment within a few years,” she continues. “The cost of college is always a concern, and we don’t want to understate that this is a significant investment for most families, but our message is that it pays off – and we have resources here that can help you afford that investment.”
“There are reports from the Boyd Center for Business & Economic Research at UT Knoxville that show how people highly value our in-state universities and want their child to go to a four-year school,” Vodden says. “But those same reports showcase a concern over affordability. What we want to do is increase knowledge about the resources available to help pay for that education, and show the smart ways to get out of school without a ton of debt.”
Like his counterparts, Oppmann says a key message from Four the Future is about the affordability of state universities – “more affordable than you might think,” he says – adding that “our tuition is also pretty low. You can go to MTSU for a little below $10,000 a year, which is a lot more reasonable than other options out there. And we’ll work hard with you to find all the available grants, loans and scholarships out there.”
“We want to have that conversation with people who think college is out of reach,” he continues. “The Tennessee Promise program has done a strong job of encouraging high school seniors to attend community colleges at little or no cost after graduation. We want to see them finish there, then matriculate into a four-year program.
“Beyond that group, we want to talk to anyone and resist that default of saying they can’t afford college. There are opportunities that bring it within reach, and we want to connect them to those options.”
That’s why universities should lean into conversations about costs and the cost-benefit equation, Oppmann says.
“There are a lot of opportunities for support in this area, and many students are not instantly aware of them,” he says. “For instance, 83% of our population at MTSU gets some kind of financial aid. Almost everyone in the consortium has scholarship programs. Because we have so many first-generation students, we’ve gotten really good at tapping into federal financial aid for students, some of it in grants versus loans.”
“The debt question is important, and what we as state schools can say is that we’re much more affordable,” Persinger says. “Less than half of our student body finishes with college debt. It costs less in general to attend a state school, especially if you’re an in-state resident. That’s a major consideration people should ask themselves when they are considering college.”
Filling workforce pipeline
Another of the campaign’s messaging tentpoles is the need for four-year graduates in the state’s workforce – now and in the future. It’s a direct economic development play, and one that shows how a degree can translate into higher earnings right away, proponents say.
To back that up, they point to a Boyd Center survey from 2022 that says 70% of the state’s business leaders say there are not enough appropriately trained workers for their needs.
“We need more students completing four year- degrees, because we are facing a workforce shortage of skilled workers,” Vodden says. “There are a lot of jobs that require a four-year degree or even higher, and if we’re not competing in that arena that’s going to stifle the entire state’s economy. That’s also a message that resonates with people and is helping to move the needle when it comes to awareness and perceptions of our state universities.”
The four-year colleges also are making sure they collaborate with their two-year brethren to capture students who have taken advantage of Tennessee Promise, the program that provides two years of tuition-free attendance at a state technical or community college.
They also want to reach adults who have returned to school through the Tennessee Reconnect Act, a last-dollar scholarship to community college, which is a part of the Drive to 55 initiative, the goal of which is to get 55% of Tennesseans equipped with a college degree or certificate by 2025.
“We get a good number of transfers from community colleges,” Persinger says. “There are a lot of people who are getting that two-year degree and then wanting to move over to a four-year program and finish that as well.”
“Talking about the pipeline of workers is crucial,” Oppmann says. “The more we have to offer in terms of an available workforce, the more attractive we are to not only our current stable of employers, but also the future ones that can be brought in. The more marketable Tennessee becomes, the better for our students and our population in general. That’s why we focus acutely on educating Tennesseans who will stay in Tennessee, to become part of the state’s economic engine, and contribute to the economy here.”
Rivals shared the message
Four the Future is groundbreaking because collaboration versus competition is new for these universities, especially in a time of dwindling enrollment. But a joint effort, they say, will help them all do better more quickly than going it alone.
“It’s been really refreshing to see all these schools come together to push this out,” Persinger says. “We’re competing for students in a lot of ways, but we’re also here to elevate and promote our mission of helping people achieve higher education.”
“We really are friendly rivals,” Oppmann says. “So much of our individual marketing and outreach is about our specific school, but there’s a lot of similar messaging. To see our university presidents come together on something like this, which I’m not aware of ever being attempted before in Tennessee, shows that we can have a diverse group of entities from across the state come together around a shared message.
“We want to tell people that they would go to school where they want to go, to find the right fit. We want them to tour our universities and hopefully choose us. But more than anything, we want them to just go.”