Why Private Schools -- Especially Independent Schools -- Are Failing to Achieve Their Potential

“Private schools lament that their business model is broken and therefore unsustainable. But, they follow some uncommon business practices and exhibit severe limitations in their thinking that literally threaten their existence.”

— Ian Symmonds

Let’s talk about market share for a moment. Did you know that private schools in America serve roughly 9.6% of the available school age children in a given metro area? And, what is more shocking is that independent schools serve roughly 1% of school age children in America. Most people are surprised to learn that independent schools barely scratch the surface of marketplace penetration, generally speaking. Why is that? And, what can be done about it?

Private schools lament that their business model is broken and therefore unsustainable. But, they follow some uncommon business practices that literally threaten their existence. Consider this nexus of business and see if you can make sense of it:

1. Price: Independent schools price themselves at the highest price point in the market where a tiny fraction of their metro area can afford them, therefore placing severe limitations on their marketplace.

2. Admissions: They also attempt to follow selective admissions, placing yet another limitation on their potential available market.

3. Marketing: They place undue pressure on their advancement and strategic enrollment management people to find “more full pay families” and have aggressive marketing campaigns to sustain their operations. Heck, there are even professional development seminars aimed at finding more full pay families.

4. Diversity: Even though they have severely limited their potential enrollment down to 1% or less of the school age children marketplace, they then try to thread the needle by trying to acquire more diversity in their enrollment.

It is a crazy business model, where price goes up, enrollment goes down, and, most importantly, the overall impact of the industry is severely limited. Honestly, how can you have a tremendous impact on the world through your products and services — and even claim to be somewhat diverse — by serving 1% of a marketplace? I used to call independent schools the “Swiss watch” of the education industry until I learned that Swiss watches serve, as a cohort, a larger segment of their industry than independent schools.

I used to be deeply concerned that we have too many private schools in mid-sized to large markets that are trying to do the same thing and competing for the same, full pay families. That was five years ago. Now, I am worried that independent schools - and, to some extent - all of the high tuition, small enrollment schools out there trying to live in that limited space - are on a path to irrelevance and extinction if they don’t start addressing this limitation in thinking and creativity.

The late management guru Peter Drucker reminded schools that they live and operate in the non-profit space. The mission of non-profits is transformation, not profit, as it is for corporations and not policy, as it is for governments. He would argue that the only reason a non-profit would grow is that you believe the world would be a better place if more people had access to your goods or services.

I have a simple thesis: if the independent school industry wants to thrive and create more impact in the world, it starts with developing best in class products and services that can be scaled and delivered to different audiences. And, if more people had access to independent schools through different modes, my guess is that their impact would indeed spread beyond their existing market share.

As independent school educators gather later this month in Las Vegas for the annual NAIS conference, I throw down an interesting concept: what if independent schools could increase their market share of school age children to at least 5% in a decade? Imagine the impact on the world. That vision starts with developing a different kind of thinking about the limitations of the business model.

I have often believed that independence is the greatest asset of independent schools. It is in their name. Independent schools, as well as most private schools, can choose their mission, their delivery mode, their access points, and the markets they choose to cultivate. Can we move beyond trying to “find full pay families” as the holy grail of their existence and this threading of the needle business model toward true relevance in the coming decade?

Axioms & Forecasts Have Arrived!

We've got some snazzy, cool content coming out this month!

As part of our commitment to curating content that is global, forward-thinking, industry relevant and easy to access, we will focus our blog on two critical themes in 2023:

Axioms | What tried and true axioms of our industry has nearly 20 years and 1200 clients of consulting work taught us?

Forecasts | Where is the world heading and how must education shift in order to meet the needs of the future?

Watch for the launch of our new series this month with weekly updates that are short (three sentences or less), timely and relevant.

The Serious Overhaul That is Seriously Overdue

A change in cultural context and a reshaping the needs of the workforce can really help to promote the reinvention of education. In order to explain, I’ll share a quick story.

About 25 years ago, a cohort of relatively small, private colleges and universities discovered an unusual competitive challenge.

At that time, US News and World Reports was busy doling out rankings to highly selective, well-endowed institutions in the Carnegie Baccalaureate category which — by definition — graduated a majority of their students in traditional liberal arts disciplines.

The rest of the world — and the workforce — were demanding students with integrated professional preparation in their academic program. This marketing conundrum catapulted the modern “theory vs practice” debate in the late 1990’s that drove curriculum development and revision.

More importantly, this dialogue and debate inadvertently launched a consortium of under-known colleges and universities to collaborate, redesign, and market their collective. The New American Colleges were born “as a collaborative network of institutions that purposefully integrate liberal arts, professional programs, and civic engagement.”

You read that right. A strategic opportunity for redefining the work of a university was born out of a disagreement in the purpose of education. Traditional liberal arts disciplines were actually declining in demand as the world had begun to favor professional preparation. And, as a result of the birth of the New American Colleges, traditional, highly selective colleges and universities began to redefine their professional focus, including everything from program development to delivery and price point.

I was working at one of these New American universities at the time. We were on the ground floor of redesign, developing new programs and redesigning education around workforce and students. It was simultaneously exciting and scary.

I share this story to create a parallel for what is happening in the world right now. Private education is again at a crossroads, a redesign of momentous proportions. No one school or college was ready for the pandemic. I have yet to find a strategic plan that included pandemic response plans included in their strategies. Yet, as we all know, COVID-19 is acting as an accelerant for preexisting issues in education. The advances and innovations that are in full swing were all in place before the pandemic.

On the other end of this crazy pandemic, a new private learning organization will be born. I am not sure if we will call them schools, academies, colleges, centers, hubs — we’ll find something that sticks. We need a new name. I see these new learning centers having eight distinct characteristics that will drive their resilience in the marketplace.

Here is how the new learning center of tomorrow will function and how private education will be reinvented. My sense is that we are on the verge of an explosion of innovation, one that will most surely democratize high quality education for the future.

Integrated Ecosystem of Delivery Platforms - These schools will offer an ongoing array of integrated place-based, virtual, and blended learning for the future. It will be the norm. This will allow them to offer different programs and delivery options for different consumers and learners, enabling greater enrollment capacity. There will be no judgement on which delivery system is better. They will be past that very old-school conversation.

Global Competitors and Collaborators for Student and Faculty Recruitment - These learning centers will understand that they no longer compete in a geography, but instead by a geofence. And, they will use their new global sphere to recruit faculty to teach, students to enroll, and resources to collaborate. I anticipate that we will see a new faculty type that will emerge as global adjuncts, teaching around the world in specialities.

Retooled Assessment and Credentialing - We know that seat time in class does not equate to learning, so why does it drive our tuition, finance, and assessment model? This train has already left the station but remains in place for many schools. The new learning center will scrap old school assessment and move toward proficiency-based, skill-based, and experiential learning to drive their programs. The Mastery Transcript is one example of this, but there will be many others. And, they will get involved in new credentialing endeavors, including short-time assessment, for the development of specific skill sets, credentials, and certificates.

Differentiated Price and Access Points - Accessibility has been the Achilles Heel of private education. Enrollment and demand has declined in America’s private primary and secondary schools because many have priced themselves out of the market and cannot find another business model to adopt. The learning center of the future will offer programs at different price and access points, using different delivery options, to ensure that their programs are accessible. And, the great ones will enroll more students and, as a result, have greater societal impact.

Redesign of Time and Schedule - We know that being in school from 8 AM to 3 PM does not equate to learning, but the model persists. Now that the parental work lives and schedules have been disrupted, the security of a full time, expensive baby-sitting school house will not be needed as much in the future. New learning centers will experiment with a combination of half-day learning, short-term learning cohorts and modules, and full-time learning to scale to the changed workforce. These learning centers will operate more than 8 or 10 hours per day and most certainly on the weekend, just like their higher education counterparts.

Reconfigured Physical Plant Capacity - We have learned so much in so little time about how to creatively reconfigure our classrooms, buildings, and outdoor spaces to promote learning in a pandemic. But, the really innovative learning centers will lean into this work, reinventing their existing space. Those that enjoy mild climates will move full scale into outdoor spaces, as well as retool their buildings to accommodate their new delivery models.

Leveraged Technology to Personalize Learning - In 36 months we will look back and understand just how limiting Zoom can be given the explosion of technology on the way. It is a great tool, but it is just the tip of the iceberg to where we are going. These new learning centers will use a blend of artificial intelligence and augmented reality to connect, compete, and collaborate globally. Think of the Mirror workout system in use for education in homes throughout the world.

Environmentally Adaptive Learning Organizations - Finally, these new learning organizations will completely redefine the classroom. They will think about creating strategic partnerships with organizations and employers in their local community for professional and field-learning experiences for their students before building a new building and passing the cost onto the consumer. They will be community-connected and an important learning asset in their local community.

This is our blueprint for reinvention in the private sector. The next five years will see schools and colleges rethink their strategic plans, their paths, and their existing systems and structures. And, one thing is for sure.

Education is on the path to reinvention. There is no going back to the past.

Is the Future of Education Transactional or Transformational?

Is the work of the academy a transactional or transformational enterprise? In a post pandemic economy, does education lend itself more to the quick click of a button, accessible, high volume, low cost credentialing model? Many fear that is where education may land. Or, will transformational learning thrive in the new normal, leaning on close relationships, small communities, authentic assessment, and real world learning?

It is a trick question that many schools and colleges are asking themselves currently. The question is designed to promote binary thinking, making us believe that education will either look one way or another. The truth is that the future of education will likely have space for both transactional and transformational learning. But, here is what we know to be true from other industries.

1. Market - The market will continue to push education to transactional learning as it appeals to lower cost, convenient access, and mass scale. Online education and hybrid learning models will thrive in this model. Technology will continue to do democratize high quality learning to the masses the way Amazon brought retail to rural communities.

2. People and Culture - The world will continue to thirst for transformational models of learning as it quenches the human spirit, the need for connection, the desire for relationships, and the building of communities. And, this model will undergo some pretty severe change in order to compete in the post pandemic economy, as evident through changing assessment, pricing, and use of time and space models.

We’ll discuss more on this topic later this week as we discuss the the differences between the two models and how, potentially, they may meet somehow in the middle. Next topic? The power of mentors.

An Era of Educational Democratization

The future will continue to witness an industry-wide leveling effect on education. There is no question that the pandemic clearly accelerated the preexisting educational trends and conditions in our industry 36 months ago. Before the pandemic, the higher education sector continued to point toward three major trends, including 1) accelerated and self-paced learning, 2) ubiquitous or flexible access points, and 3) new pricing strategies designed to reach new audiences.

Be ready for all of this to accelerate into a new era of democratization of education. We are learning that there is a strong correlation between learning flexibility and persistence/engagement. With the movement to hybrid and online learning, the average American family is realizing that they, too, can have access to high quality education.

If you are a school or college that gained incremental enrollment simply because your organization was physically open during the pandemic, expect that to be short-lived. The shifts that we will witness over the next several years will give rise to new competitors that will be in direct competition with full-time, place-based, high cost education.

The Consumer Reckoning: How Will Education Respond?

The pandemic will play the role of supercharging change in a stagnant industry with limited previous disruption. Education has remained in relatively the same place for some time, struggling with the same issues and failing to adapt an industry to changing pricing, delivery, assessment, and time variables. The consumer will demand something different from education in the future and that alone will hold schools, colleges, and universities more accountable for their systems and structures.

Education has been historically responsive and adaptive primarily to the systems that it has created. Systems, policies, and structures have been created mostly to ensure the sustainability of the organization and those who hold position of power within it. Chief among those include faculty, administrators, and board members. Only a small number of early adaptors have created the space for change - prior to the pandemic - that was necessary to be responsive to the market. Those with independent missions and the freedom and flexibility to adapt have had a greater opportunity to innovate and be responsive.

This will change in the coming months and years. The market will demand a more responsive educational system, both public and private. One that is more fluid, practical, accessible, and adaptable. One that meet students and their families where they need them, on their terms. The genie was let out of the bottle during the pandemic and it will not return. There will be an explosion of educational responses that will be focused on meeting the needs of students and families. The pandemic was the innovative disruptor. Schools and colleges will have to respond to a game in which the rules have changed.

Reinventing Private Schools - A Blueprint for Resilience

A change in culture can really help to promote the reinvention of education. In order to explain, I’ll share a quick story.

About 25 years ago, a cohort of relatively small, private colleges and universities discovered an unusual competitive challenge.

At that time, US News and World Reports was busy doling out rankings to highly selective, well-endowed institutions in the Carnegie Baccalaureate category which — by definition — graduated a majority of their students in traditional liberal arts disciplines.

The rest of the world — and the workforce — were demanding students with integrated professional preparation in their academic program. This marketing conundrum catapulted the modern “theory vs practice” debate in the late 1990’s that drove curriculum development and revision.

More importantly, this dialogue and debate inadvertently launched a consortium of under-known colleges and universities to collaborate, redesign, and market their collective. The New American Colleges were born “as a collaborative network of institutions that purposefully integrate liberal arts, professional programs, and civic engagement.”

You read that right. A marketing dilemma was born out of a disagreement in the purpose of education. Traditional liberal arts disciplines were actually declining in demand as the world had begun toward move to professional preparation. And, as a result of the birth of the New American Colleges, traditional, highly selective colleges and universities began to redefine their professional focus, including everything from program development to delivery and price point.

I was working at one of these New American universities at the time. We were on the ground floor of redesign, developing new programs and redesigning education around workforce and students. It was simultaneously exciting and turbulent.

I share this story to create a parallel for what is happening in the world right now. Private education is again at a crossroads, a redesign of momentous proportions. No one school or college was ready for the pandemic. I have yet to find a strategic plan that included pandemic response plans included in their strategies. Yet, as we all know, COVID-19 is acting as an accelerant for preexisting issues in education. The advances and innovations that are in full swing were all in place before the pandemic.

On the other end of the pandemic, a new private learning organization will be born. I am not sure if we will call them schools or academies — I hope neither. We need a new name. Maybe they are simply “learning centers”. But, I see these new learning centers having eight distinct characteristics that will drive their resilience in the marketplace.

Here is how the new learning center of tomorrow will function and how private education will be reinvented. My sense is that we are on the verge of an explosion of innovation, one that will most surely democratize high quality education for the future.

1. Integrated Ecosystem of Delivery Platforms - These schools will offer an ongoing array of integrated place-based, virtual, and blended learning for the future. It will be the norm. This will allow them to offer different programs and delivery options for different consumers and learners, enabling greater enrollment capacity. There will be no judgement on which delivery system is better. They will be past that very old-school conversation.

2. Global Competitors and Collaborators for Student and Faculty Recruitment - These learning centers will understand that they no longer compete in a geography, but instead by a geofence. And, they will use their new global sphere to recruit faculty to teach, students to enroll, and resources to collaborate. I anticipate that we will see a new faculty type that will emerge as global adjuncts, teaching around the world in specialities.

3. Retooled Assessment and Credentialing - We know that seat time in class does not equate to learning, so why does it drive our tuition, finance, and assessment model? This train has already left the station but remains in place for many schools. The new learning center will scrap old school assessment and move toward proficiency-based, skill-based, and experiential learning to drive their programs. The Mastery Transcript is one example of this, but there will be many others. And, they will get involved in new credentialing endeavors, including short-time assessment, for the development of specific skill sets, credentials, and certificates.

4. Differentiated Price and Access Points - Accessibility has been the Achilles Heel of private education. Enrollment and demand has declined in America’s private primary and secondary schools because many have priced themselves out of the market and cannot find another business model to adopt. The learning center of the future will offer programs at different price and access points, using different delivery options, to ensure that their programs are accessible. And, the great ones will enroll more students and, as a result, have greater societal impact.

5. Redesign of Time and Schedule - We know that being in school from 8 AM to 3 PM does not equate to learning, but the model persists. Now that the parental work lives and schedules have been disrupted, the security of a full time, expensive baby-sitting school house will not be needed as much in the future. New learning centers will experiment with a combination of half-day learning, short-term learning cohorts and modules, and full-time learning to scale to the changed workforce. These learning centers will operate more than 8 or 10 hours per day and most certainly on the weekend, just like their higher education counterparts.

6. Reconfigured Physical Plant Capacity - We have learned so much in so little time about how to creatively reconfigure our classrooms, buildings, and outdoor spaces to promote learning in a pandemic. But, the really innovative learning centers will lean into this work, reinventing their existing space. Those that enjoy mild climates will move full scale into outdoor spaces, as well as retool their buildings to accommodate their new delivery models.

7. Leveraged Technology to Personalize Learning - In 36 months we will look back and understand just how limiting Zoom can be given the explosion of technology on the way. It is a great tool, but it is just the tip of the iceberg to where we are going. These new learning centers will use a blend of artificial intelligence and augmented reality to connect, compete, and collaborate globally. Think of the Mirror workout system in use for education in homes throughout the world.

8. Environmentally Adaptive Learning Organizations - Finally, these new learning organizations will completely redefine the classroom. They will think about creating strategic partnerships with organizations and employers in their local community for professional and field-learning experiences for their students before building a new building and passing the cost onto the consumer. They will be community-connected and an important learning asset in their local community.

This is our blueprint for reinvention in the private school sector. The next 36 to 54 months will see schools rethink their strategic plans, their paths, and their existing systems and structures. One thing is for sure.

Education is on the path to reinvention. There is no going back to the past.

Seven Things That Will Happen in Education as a Result of COVID-19

We have had many requests for a repost of this article, which was widely circulated in April 2020 and served as the foundation for at least a dozen town hall sessions with educators across the globe. It provides an outline of critical shifts that will occur in education in the next 36 to 54 months. As a result, we have created an easy to download white paper in PDF file format for schools and colleges to share. You may download it here.

A Glimpse Into the Future

Education historically changes in an evolutionary, incremental way. And, as we have all seen, the pandemic has acted as an accelerant for change, creating new ways of operating and learning for schools and colleges. We have moved a decade forward in some areas of innovation in about six months. This is warp speed, radical change for educators.

It is important to remember that this is only the beginning. Long after the pandemic has left hold of culture, there is more change to come in the next ten years. A short list includes:

1. An intensifying civil rights movement;

2. Geographic migration to smaller communities;

3. Ongoing political polarization;

4. Demographic shifts, including the silvering of America, minority majority in most states, and Gen Z’s and millennials becoming the North American majority;

5. Global competition for most placed-based schools and colleges;

6. Enhanced technologically learning, from AI to AR;

7. The potential democratization and widening accessibility of high quality education.

We are at the tip of the iceberg in education. The pandemic is the accelerating step in a series of changes to the very ecosystem of education. There is more radical change to come. Best to start thinking and planning for a very different future.

Forecast of the Future Keynote

Monday, October 5th
10 AM Pacific | 1 PM Eastern

Join Ian for a high level, preview of where education is headed for the future. Ian will provide a systematic, data-driven forecast of the future of education using environmental scanning on post-pandemic trends. An expert with high accuracy in trends analysis, Ian will walk through the preexisting conditions of education prior to the pandemic and provide with clarity an outlook for the future of industry.

This one hour keynote session is ideal for college presidents, heads of school, division heads, enrollment managers, advancement heads, and board members.

Important Notes: Register now as there is limited space available. All registrations are final. Limit one connection per registrant. Registrants will receive the video recording of the session after the completion of the webinar.

Three Durable Truths That May Lead to a Better Future

While the world is being turned on its side and a new normal is being created, I think we are all longing for some durable truths that can serve to guide organizations moving forward. While so much seems so different and disrupted in our world, there are some truths about crisis that seem to be pretty durable, standing the test of time. I have found much solace in the following three pearls of wisdom and I hope you will, too.

Find Opportunity
Every crisis breeds heartache, challenge, and opportunity. We know there are many uncertainties and ambiguities in this crisis. The news cycle and social media merely serves to accelerate and amplify them. However, if we can find the strategic opportunity in crisis it can strengthen our long-term relationship with our clients. That might mean being a voice of reason or safe harbor in the health crisis storm. Or, it might mean being nimble and agile with your communication portals and online learning. This is a great time to seize the opportunity to calm and assure fears in your organizational functions, communication, and agility.

Foster Trust
For over a year I have stated that trust is likely the most important asset an organization can foster equity among stakeholders today. We know that there exists a generational erosion in trust among Millennials and Get-Z’s regarding big business, government, and institutions. The growing racial divide in America bears witness to a distrustful narrative and hurtful reality of our past and present. This health crisis has left people wanting consistent information and congruent solutions. This is an excellent time to build trust and, as a result, strengthen relationships. Consider what you can do that will foster trust and strengthen bonds during this disruption.

Remember Your Core Business
Volvo is not really about cars, but instead about safety, FedEx is not about package delivery, but instead in predictability. Starbucks is really not about coffee, but about building community. Each of these companies knows their core business. We must remember our core business. If our core business is simply providing education to students transactionally in a physical space, I think we have already lost the battle. If it instead is more about care for the community, nurture of the individual, flexible and learner-centric systems, and behaving as innovative organizations, then we are on the right track.

While disruption and fluidity in circumstances may be part of the future, this moment in time will pass. Our current circumstances don’t define us. However, I do I believe how we respond to our circumstances tells us a lot about how character - as organizations and as industry.

Seven Things That Will Happen in Education as a Result of COVID-19

We often use the term “new normal” to describe what happens after a cultural inflection point. It is meant to describe what happens to daily life in our cultural context after a major crisis occurs. And, “daily life” often means the changes to our work routine, personal and family access to goods and services, and other major facets of our living.

What will be the impact of the current COVID-19 crisis on education? And, what will be the new normal that will emerge as a result? We have at least seven observations that we anticipate will be in place in the next year.

Accelerated Change

Massive inflection points, such as the 911 terrorist attacks, 2008 global economic crisis, and current COVID-19 pandemic tend to accelerate existing changes already present in industries, rather than creating new change. For education, this means moving more rapidly and forcefully into online learning, competing globally for students and brand, and leveraging technology to collaborate and personalize learning. These are all trends that were in place in the education sector but moving at their own inertia. Now, they have heavy momentum as a result of a forced set of circumstances.

Ongoing Disruption

Disruption will be a constant in our new environment. We will become oddly accustomed to economic, environmental, and competitive disruptive forces that will continue to emerge. The schools and colleges that are confident, in leadership roles and have resources will respond by anticipating shifts and creating fluid solutions. Others will falter.

Fluidity in Strategy

Strategic planning will need to shift toward more stealth thinking and planning, placing fluidity at the core. Great schools and colleges will practice more fluid and real-time strategy and planning exercises and will respond with greater scalability in their business model. They will desire to ramp up or taper down resources according to their circumstances.

Ongoing Scenario Building

Great schools and colleges will become more accustomed to building scenarios, from enrollment to fundraising to investment planning. This will keep them in a more flexible rather than fixed mindset, understanding that it is our anticipation and response to circumstances that often determine our destiny.

Normalization of Change

In recent history, most North American schools and colleges have dealt with massive disruption every 8 to 10 years. This has included 911 terrorist attacks, Hurricane Katrina, global economic crisis in 2008, SARS, and now COVID-19. The education industry will start to expect disruption as normal, to be expected and anticipated, and less to be feared.

Contraction and Consolidation

There will be fewer private schools and colleges in the future, for sure. Before COVID-19, we have been predicting that there will be 20% fewer independent schools in 20 years. Adding the current crisis into the mix will merely accelerate that process over the course of the next few years, in which we will see many falter in the next year. We also expect public educational systems to be heavily distressed in service provision and funding mechanisms as they enter into this same new reality.

Diversified Ecosystems of Delivery

Finally, schools and colleges will be forced to do what they have only begun to consider in the past. They will begin to diversify their delivery platforms for learning, allowing hybrid approaches to teaching and learning. This might look like a mixed-model of delivery that includes three nodes or sessions of learning each day: 1) location-based school,, 2) experiential or real-world learning, and 3) online. Students might even rotate them through concurrent sessions or nodes, which could increase enrollment capacity and even...crazy idea here...bring cost down and make the school or college more accessible.

So, what does this mean? For starters, the early bird gets the worm. Those that anticipate, strategize, and plan for these changes will have the best opportunity for long-term impact and sustainability. It also means that, while things will change immensely, it is not all new change. Most of these things were already in motion before the crisis.

A good friend and colleague of mine, writer Bob Gray, reminded me of an important Bob Dylan lyric from the song “Mississippi”. I think it sums up where we are going.

You can always come back, but you can't come back all the way.