New Research Calls on Institutions to Own Their "Brand Neighborhoods" to Strengthen Enrollment

The Latest Report From Eduventures® Research Reveals Essential Brand Strategy for Colleges and Universities to Thrive Amid Current Higher Education Landscape Challenges.

BOSTON, Oct. 16, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Encoura®, an industry-leading educational technology and research organization, announced today the publication of its report, What's Your Brand Neighborhood? The report – a first of its kind for Eduventures Research – unveils a new framework for assessing an institution's Brand Neighborhood. This analysis empowers college and university leaders to embrace and strengthen their institutional identities to survive in a shrinking student market.

The imminent enrollment cliff demands a shift from institution-centric to student-centric brand positioning. How, then, should colleges adapt and communicate their brands? What aspects of a collegiate brand most resonate with students in its most promising markets? Understanding a college's or university's Brand Neighborhood – its levels of distinction and differentiation – becomes critical for winning market share.

Derived from Eduventures' Prospective Student Brand Research™ data, the report categorizes colleges and universities across the country into Brand Neighborhoods based on each institution's primary brand identity and secondary characteristics – resulting in four public institution neighborhoods and four private institution neighborhoods.

These neighborhoods include:

Four-Year Public Brand Neighborhoods

• ACCESSIBLE (Not only affordable, but also serves underserved students): 38%
• AFFORDABLE (Known for low price, lower quality perceptions): 34%
• SPIRIT (Athletics contribute to the experience): 19%
• ACADEMIC (The high academic quality perception): 9%

Four-Year Private Brand Neighborhoods

• VALUE (Quality and affordability are perceived in balance): 35%
• BALANCE (No one dimension dominates): 35%
• ACADEMIC (The high academic quality perception): 20%
• CAREER (Focused on driving industry-specific career paths): 10%

"In a shrinking market, the institutions that thrive will be the ones who understand their neighborhood and outperform their closest peers on outcomes," said Kim Reid, Eduventures Principal Analyst and author of this study. "The smartest strategy isn't to chase a prestige brand position. It's to benchmark against your true peers and close meaningful gaps in outcomes like graduation rates and debt-to-earnings ratios. Enrollment success comes from knowing your neighborhood and relentlessly improving within it."

Institutions seeking to achieve enrollment goals in the current climate should stop asking, "Who do we want to be?" and start asking, "How can we serve our students better than anyone else in our neighborhood?" This latest research from Eduventures shows colleges that in a contracting market, clarity and focus — not brand reinvention — will separate the institutions that survive from those that struggle.

About Encoura
Encoura is an educational data science and research organization serving over 2,000 member institutions comprising public and private colleges and universities across the nation. Since 1972, Encoura has been a leading provider of data science, technology, and programs serving students, high school educators, colleges, and universities with offices in Austin, TX and Boston, MA. These solutions represent the link between students making important life decisions and those providing the resources and information students need to succeed in their postsecondary educations and careers. For more information, visit https://encoura.org.

Members of the media who would like to speak to the author of this report or obtain a copy of the report can contact Todd Boullion at [email protected].

SOURCE Encoura