Leveraging Student Success Initiatives to Drive Gen Z Enrollment

For years, college recruitment messaging leaned heavily on the front end of the student experience: vibrant campus culture, historic architecture, expansive major listings, and institutional prestige. While student support services operated quietly in the background as a reactive safety net designed for students to seek out only when they encountered academic or financial distress.

Today, Gen Z is redefining that journey, forcing a shift in higher education enrollment initiatives. Navigating their education against a backdrop of economic volatility, an AI-accelerated workforce, and post-pandemic landscape shifts, this generation has emerged as highly pragmatic and intensely focused on the return on investment (ROI) of a degree. For them, a college education is a major financial and personal decision that requires a clear sense of security. Gen Z students want to see the support system waiting for them on the other side before they ever submit a deposit.

In a recent webinar hosted by Kaplan, higher education leaders gathered to discuss why student success and career readiness have moved to the frontline of higher education enrollment initiatives and how they are using proactive support as a primary recruitment differentiator. Panelists included Chantelle Thompson, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Strategic Operations for Student Affairs at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; Ronda Westry, Assistant VP of Student Affairs at Alabama State University; Michael Strysick, Chief Strategic Communications Officer at Kentucky State University; and Cristina Sanchez Wayton, Associate VP of Undergraduate Admissions at Cleveland State University.

Reframing the Value Proposition and Moving Support to the Frontline of Gen Z Recruitment

To effectively recruit Gen Z, institutions must be outcomes-focused. If you position tutoring, counseling, or financial advising as emergency resources, you inadvertently create a stigma around using them. Forward-thinking universities are instead integrating these services directly into the marketing for their day-one student experience to drive their higher education enrollment initiatives.

At the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, this approach is formalized through an intentional structural framework.

The school anchors this strategy in its CARE framework, which ensures the student experience is coordinated:

• C – Communication & Collaboration: Ensuring internal departments and external partners communicate transparently so no student falls through the cracks.

• A – Accessibility & Accountability: Providing friction-free access to resources while holding both the institution and the student accountable for driving positive outcomes.

• R – Relationships & Responsibility: Cultivating deep human connections that empower students to take charge of their own destinies.

• E – Excellence & Eminence: Striving to help students and staff become the absolute best versions of themselves.

By embedding this framework into early recruitment messaging, student success ceases to be an abstract secondary benefit. It becomes the defining, visible hallmark of the institutional identity.

Similarly, Cleveland State University is intentional about its institutional messaging by ensuring support is never treated as a late add-on. Cristina Sanchez Wayton noted that while colleges excel at listing what features they offer, they frequently fail to explain the why or the how to prospective families.

To bridge this gap, Cleveland State transitioned from a traditional academic advising model to a holistic academic coaching model. These coaches do not simply look at a student’s course schedule; they monitor financial aid status, connect students with mental health counseling, and assist with on-campus employment. By showcasing this holistic care up front and connecting how these services will change the outcomes for students, the university reassures pragmatic Gen Z students and anxious parents that the institution is actively invested in the student’s total well-being.

Proactive Pre-Enrollment: Engaging Families Before Move-In Day

One of the new approaches emerging from modern higher education enrollment initiatives is the concept of pre-enrollment success programs. Rather than waiting for the fall semester to begin, institutions are engaging Gen Z students and their families months before they ever step foot on campus.

Alabama State University (ASU), an HBCU in Montgomery, Alabama, pioneered multiple initiatives designed to address student challenges before they arrive. Following the learning disruptions of the pandemic, ASU utilized state grant funding to expand its traditional tiered summer bridge program into a broader initiative called Summer Bridge PLUS (Promoting, Learning, and Upgrading Skills), making proactive academic prep available to a wider population of incoming freshmen.

Building on that momentum, ASU launched Success Before the Nest, a nod to its mascot, the Hornet. This six-month virtual pre-enrollment workshop series is dedicated to incoming students and their families.

In order to secure family buy-in to engage and commit to six months of workshops, ASU offers an incentive of a $100 refund on mandatory new student orientation. Within the series, they talk about the importance of career readiness and participants complete assessments.

These intentional programs directly answer the core questions parents ask: Will my child be supported? Will they finish on time? And will they graduate with a clear path toward workforce readiness?

Telling the ROI Story: Integrating Career Readiness Directly into the Pitch

Gen Z’s hyperfocus on career outcomes has forced marketing and enrollment professionals to reimagine the traditional career services model. A brick-and-mortar career center siloed in the student union that helps seniors polish resumes is no longer a viable recruitment asset. Instead, career readiness must be dynamically woven into the curriculum and showcased as a proactive enrollment tool.

Cleveland State is addressing this demand through the creation of a dedicated Talent Hub that is launching soon. This hub is intended to fundamentally redesign how the university prepares students for the modern workforce, moving away from isolated career offices and toward a dynamic, multiyear ecosystem. The Talent Hub serves as both a direct pipeline for local employers to connect with the university and a structured pathway for students to secure work-integrated learning opportunities that foster true workforce readiness.

When enrollment teams pitch the Talent Hub to prospective students, they are selling a tangible network and a multiyear partnership with employers, effectively cutting through the modern noise of job hunting.

To ensure academic relevance, Cleveland State faculty members collaborate directly with industry leaders to identify the skill sets employers need. This feedback loop resulted in the launch of 12 new integrated degrees that blend traditionally disparate fields to match market demands. For example, rather than offering a stand-alone computer science degree, the university offers Ethics + Computer Science B.S., to prepare students directly for the realities of an AI-driven workforce.

At Kentucky State University (KSU), a 140-year-old land-grant HBCU, workforce readiness is deeply tied to institutional identity and strategic storytelling. Michael Strysick emphasizes that for a largely first-generation student demographic, showing an immediate, undeniable return on investment is paramount.

To deliver on this promise, KSU leans heavily into undergraduate research as a vehicle for career readiness. Backed by substantial federal grant funding from agencies like the USDA, NSF, and Department of Energy, KSU maintains the third-largest research portfolio in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Notably, these research opportunities are not reserved solely for graduate students; they are open to undergraduate students too. Enrollment marketers leverage these high-impact research opportunities to demonstrate to prospective families that students will gain hands-on technical skills in their academic journeys.

Removing Hidden Barriers to Success

Even the most ambitious and talented students can find their career goals derailed by the hidden costs of higher education. Academic preparation, professional credentialing, and post-graduate exam prep (such as the MCAT®, LSAT®, NCLEX®, or FE exams) regularly act as socioeconomic barriers, especially for low-income or first-generation college students. If a student cannot afford thousands of dollars for test preparation resources, their path to medical school, law school, or senior engineering roles may be cut short.

To address this gap, all four featured institutions have integrated comprehensive, high-quality professional test prep, licensing preparation, and workforce skill courses directly into the university ecosystem at no out-of-pocket cost to the student through partnerships with Kaplan’s All Access License®.

The course offerings vary by campus, illustrating how institutional scale can be customized to align with school needs, while driving access to workforce readiness. At the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, funding is through support of the state, removing barriers at scale and sending a profound signal to prospective families that the institution is committed to outcomes long after admission. Describing the need of this program, Chantelle explains that students “are wonderful, talented, and have so much opportunity that needs to be unlocked…access should not be the limiting factor.”

At Cleveland State, a high percentage of its student body are Pell-eligible and it’s about leveling the playing field. The school uses the program to demonstrate to students that it is invested in their students’ success. For applicants in fields such as pre-med, they will automatically be assigned an academic coach who will walk them through the medical school process. This is then paired with the free access to test prep so they know up front they don’t have to worry about the added cost.

When speaking with parents of prospective students interested in medical school or law school, Christina shares that Kaplan’s All Access License “has been a game changer in those conversations.”

Alabama State is taking a holistic approach and integrating some of the career readiness courses into their Hornet Flight initiative, in which students will be required to participate. And the reaction Ronda had when she found out this offering would be available to her students? “This is an answer to my prayers!”

Similarly, KSU also has a high population of Pell-eligible and first-generation college students. Focused on how to best serve their demographic, the university sees this program as intentionally eliminating the financial surprises that may catch students off guard when transitioning from undergraduate studies to their next step. It aligns to KSU’s mission of access and opportunity.

By eliminating these financial friction points, enrollment leaders can confidently say to prospective Gen Z students and their families: Your next professional step will depend entirely on your work ethic and talent—not on whether you can afford the exam preparation. It transforms the enrollment conversation into a bold declaration of institutional belief in the student’s future.

Outcomes are the New Front Door

The insights shared by these four distinct institutions point to an undeniable reality: Student success and career readiness initiatives are no longer backend retention strategies; they are the front door of enrollment. Gen Z has forced higher education to shed its legacy silos. Marketing and communications professionals must become the chief storytellers of student impact. Admissions leaders must confidently articulate structural value and comprehensive care pathways from the first point of contact. Academic and student affairs teams must collaborate seamlessly to ensure that promises made during the recruitment cycle are robustly delivered upon arrival.

By treating mental health support, academic coaching, financial literacy, and comprehensive tools like Kaplan’s All Access License as foundational pillars of modern higher education enrollment initiatives, colleges and universities can successfully cut through enrollment anxieties. Proving to Gen Z that you are completely invested in their ultimate workforce readiness is one of the most powerful, authentic, and effective recruitment tools.

Turn proven student outcomes into an enrollment driver by providing students with career readiness tools through Kaplan’s All Access License.