Engaging Learners for a Lifetime, Not a Single Enrollment

In an era of enrollment pressure, technological disruption, and shifting learner expectations, higher education faces a defining challenge: how to build lasting relationships with learners whose lives and careers no longer follow linear paths. 

In this piece, originally published in Inside Higher Ed, leaders at the Center for Academic Innovation argue that traditional, program-by-program recruitment funnels are increasingly misaligned with how learners actually behave today. Instead of making one high-stakes educational decision, learners return to learning repeatedly—upskilling, reskilling, and exploring new opportunities over time.

They make the case for a shift from transactional acquisition strategies to a lifetime-relationship approach rooted in trust, relevance, and clear learning pathways. By drawing on their experience in managing and promoting opportunities available on Michigan Online and across U-M, the authors explore portfolio-based marketing, integrated credential pathways, and relationship-driven infrastructure that support learners across stages of their lives and careers. The future, they argue, belongs to institutions that design for lifelong engagement—not just enrollment.