The Illinois Community College Board (ICCB) embarked on a coordinated statewide capacity-building system initiative to support 75 adult education provider organizations across the state including community colleges, school districts and community-based organizations. The initiative led to an overall increased student enrollment in fiscal year 2022 that was 40.5% higher than the total enrollment in fiscal year 2021.

The Adult Education Market

Economic outcomes for adult learners are intricately tied to educational attainment, making adult education a crucial on-ramp to middle-skill jobs and economic mobility.

Put simply, receiving a minimum of a high school diploma increases employment and earning potential by 15 percentage points; it is a pathway to economic mobility.

Those in the adult education space understand that a four-year degree is not an option for everyone. Not every person in America has the resources or the desire to achieve this level of education. Many adults want to return to school to gain new skills to improve their situations but have responsibilities at home and work, coupled with family priorities and time and money constraints. Adult education is a viable alternative to building a better life and finding various pathways into new careers that are in demand and offer economic mobility.

Educating motivated students with the skills that companies need can provide qualified candidates for hard to fill positions. Adult education supports employers by preparing existing workers with competing life and family responsibilities with the skills that companies need through flexible classrooms and curriculum.

Prior to the pandemic, adult learners, constituting 38% of the undergraduate market, were already facing declining enrollments. The pandemic exacerbated the issue, causing average enrollment to decline of 22% from 2020 to 2022, leaving many states with the arduous task of getting students back into education and training.

Illinois Market Challenges

While Illinois educational attainment is average among U.S. states, the Illinois Community College Board (ICCB) recognized the trends and wanted to be proactive in finding solutions to the declines in adult learner enrollments.

In Illinois, educational attainment gaps of the percentages of those populations with a high school diploma or less included the white majority population (32.4%), Latinx (64.1%) and African American (42.2%). While the educational attainment gaps in the state had been decreasing, the pandemic played a role in reversing that trend as Latinx and African American populations were among the hardest hit by the economic impact.

In those areas of high African American populations (Metro Chicago, Metro St. Louis, and the southern parts of the state) and Latinx populations (northeastern and some parts of central Illinois), the need for adult education became even greater with higher percentages of residents needing English classes, their high school equivalency, or both.

By far, the greatest need for English language acquisition was for native Spanish speakers, but pockets of need existed for addressing the more than 50 different languages represented within Illinois.

Illinois has diverse entry points for adult learners offering a multitude of programs that serve diverse populations and geographies within community colleges, school districts and non-profit organizations. The challenges faced by organizations serving highly rural central and southern Illinois are in many ways dissimilar to the school district or community organizations serving urban/suburban populations around Chicago.

For example, it can be more challenging in some parts of the state for adult schools to develop pathway programs that lead to careers for adult learners because baseline educational levels are lower than in other parts of the state. Additionally, community colleges are often more equipped with resources and staff to conduct outreach than a stand-alone adult school.

It was against this backdrop that the ICCB and its partners developed coordinated outreach systems, coupled with a statewide outreach campaign to increase student enrollment and to give adult education providers the tools and resources needed to implement the campaign in their communities.

Given the unique regions of Illinois and the varying configurations of marketing structures and expertise, there were several key objectives for the project:

1. Considering the various diverse regions of the state, create a campaign framework that allowed for all types of adult education providers the ability to tailor it and achieve success within their local markets.
2. Build the capacity of adult education providers to understand the components of an integrated marketing strategy and provide the communications tools for them to execute successfully.
3. Support local efforts by deploying a statewide digital campaign that delivered leads to adult education providers to contact and move them through the enrollment funnel in a systematic way.
4. Creating a strong brand presence across the state through the campaign framework with consistent messaging about the value of adult education.
5. Integrate Illinois’ existing adult education outreach networks to develop a coordinated, sustainable system for ongoing campaigns that address enrollment declines.

The Playbook

Because outreach in today’s post-pandemic world requires a more complex approach beyond traditional tactics, Full Capacity Marketing (FCM) applied its data-driven, customer centric methodology to first identify students likely to enroll in adult education, while simultaneously building the capacity of practitioners to engage in the campaign for long-term success.

The campaign included four phases:

1. Market Research – applying psychographic and demographic data to create market segments of various adult learners that would likely enroll in adult education opportunities across the state.
2. Campaign Themes and Messaging – developing personas of the various market segments and testing multiple campaign themes and messaging that would resonate and engage potential adult learners to take a specific call to action.
3. Field-Directed Communications Plan – based on mediums that resonated with the various market segments, identify the toolkit items needed for the field and the statewide campaign, along with key performance indicators to measure success.
4. Capacity-Building & Evaluation – create learning outcomes for a series of professional development webinars that directly align with the campaign KPIs and provide the necessary training and support for the field.

The Illinois statewide campaign stands as a testament to the transformative power of collaboration and strategic planning in adult education. With its success, it provides a blueprint for other regions and states seeking to rejuvenate adult education programs and empower learners for a brighter future.

Download the case study and playbook.