Taking Advantage of Your Hidden Data

Your support departments hold a wealth of rarely reviewed information which is both

interesting and valuable to your understanding of the school. Analyzing Admissions,

Facilities, Human Resources, and Business Office data is critical to understanding, for

example, the dynamics driving operating costs, enrollment and student turnover, and the long term financial and operating stability of the school.

Effective analysis, presentation, and use of this data result in a number of benefits

including by:

●Allowing the Board to develop better long-term financial and facilities strategies,

●Providing the information and opportunity to inform the community, increase

awareness of the school's decisions and direction, and improve its public image,

●Assisting the Director and leadership team in assembling the right faculty to

deliver the school's programs,

●Supporting the Director in developing the optimal staff compensation plan,

●Providing data to support the school's enterprise risk management program,

●Providing the information and tools to manage long-term costs.

Yet far too schools really take advantage of this important resource. Most are

accustomed to a few traditional reports which they have been generating for years.

Schools typically present the Board with enrollment reports listing application,

enrollment, and waitlist numbers. Perhaps the school even develops pie charts

reflecting its enrollment composition by nationality. This is certainly important

information, but it is limiting in terms of really understanding the student body.

Analyzing the student population by the number of years enrolled helps the school and

Board understand longevity and turnover. Further, showing student tenure by nationality highlights which populations remain enrolled longer and how changes in fees will affect revenues. Pulling address information into Google Maps allows the school to see the pattern in the location of its families.

Tracking parent and sponsor data can help the school to better understand enrollment

demand and inform decisions on tuition fee levels and practices. The Board might be

interested in the percentage of self-pay versus company-sponsored and how this is

changing over time, as well as to understand the economic sectors (e.g. banking,

manufacturing, retailing, consumer goods) employing the parents. Information like this

is usually available in one or another school system. Good analysis of enrollment data

also provides vital information for facilities planning and valuable data for fundraising

purposes.

It can be in the school's interests to provide parents with demographic information on

its faculty. For example, teacher tenure, diploma types, nationality, and even average

age. This, and a further breakdown by academic division, allows the school to develop

and monitor a strategic staffing plan and informs recruiting decisions.

Your Human Resources/Business Office should develop average costing for different

"categories" of teachers such as single, married, and families. School directors should

be provided with an expected total cost for a hire in each of these categories. Those

who are recruiting faculty decisions can be given a hiring budget based on these costs.

Practices such as these provide tools for managing staffing costs.

An annual analysis of the average cost per teacher for health insurance, dependent

tuition remission, housing, home leave, and other benefits provides the opportunity to

focus on costs which are increasing at a faster rate than tuition. Any category of costs

increasing faster than tuition requires reducing some other expense and should be

carefully scrutinized.

Most schools provide some number of free or discounted tuitions for employee

dependents. Tuition remission is an expensive benefit but a hidden cost that should be

consciously managed.

Managing this cost requires, at a minimum, tracking the total number of enrollment

seats occupied for this benefit, the number by grade level, and the percentage of

enrollment not available for paying parents. This should be done annually and tracked

over time. School directors and Board should be aware of whether the use of this

benefit is growing, stable, or decreasing.

The costs of tuition remission can often be managed through the hiring process though

sometimes it requires the more difficult step of changing benefit policies. In any case, a

tuition remission/dependent count budget should be established and monitored as part of cost management.

Benchmarking financial and operating data among peer schools can help identify a both a school's unique qualities for marketing purposes as well as areas which need

addressing. An annual analysis of the total average cost of attendance will identify your

school's placement in the market which is critical to pricing strategy.

Tracking this data over time allows a school to determine if it is becoming more or less

price competitive. Separate analyses can be developed for schools in the same city,

country or schools which families often arrive from or leave for in other countries.

The presentation of this information must be in an easy-to-understand format. Viewers - Board members, school staff, parents and sponsors should be able to grasp the

meaning and importance of the data without a lot of narrative. Deciding on the best

graphical view to achieve this requires research and experimentation.

Making use of your data in these ways does require thoughtful review and even a fair

amount of staff time. New AI tools are available which can be employed to facilitate the

collection and analysis. We are confident that it is worth the effort.