Nice story, Now Show Me the Data: Statistical and Data Analysis Tools for Enrollment Leaders

Enrollment leaders are called upon frequently by their Presidents, Senior Leadership, and Boards of Trustees to provide reports, updates, and forecasts with data to direct institutional decision-making. Oftentimes, these reports and presentations take advantage of summaries of applications, admits, deposits, and enrollment activity on new and currently enrolled students. However, increasingly, Enrollment leaders also are asked to provide more than just data summary – they are asked to provide data synthesis. With a wide range of free and open-source statistical and data analysis programs on the market, enrollment leaders now have a broad selection of sophisticated tools at their disposal to organize, summarize, analyze, and strategize the use of enrollment data. This session will workshop a few examples of how enrollment leaders can use free data analytics packages to conduct statistical research of scholarship awards, calculate net present value for new program development, and use open source programming language to compare institutional data against IPEDS peers. Gaining insights through effective use of data analysis can help enrollment leaders and senior leadership teams engage in a more enhanced process for effective institutional decision-making.