HOWDY, PARTNER: Pearson Education has ventured into new territory through a partnership with Cincinnati State Technical and Community College to handle the college’s marketing, recruitment and student services.
The agreement sets a 10-year partnership in which Pearson is responsible for increasing student enrollment by 30 percent. Improving persistence and completion rates are also goals, though “we didn’t put a number on those,” Todd Hitchcock, chief operating officer of Pearson Embanet, tells Inside Higher Ed. Cincinnati State will pay service fees to Pearson according to a tiered tuition-sharing model of up to 20 percent of tuition revenue from new students.
Cincinnati State has seen its enrollment fall by 12 percent from 2010 to 2015. It’s also responding to a changing political landscape that includes a state-mandated tuition freeze and transition to a performance-based funding system. This type of partnership is new for Pearson, which touts its marketing expertise, though the company has had a prior relationship with the college as one of its content providers.
