Gray Associates: Optimizing College Program Portfolios

Higher education faces significant headwinds, including a declining number of new high school graduates in many areas, increasing pressure on tuition, rising costs, and uncertain or greatly-reduced state funding. As a result, many institutions are reevaluating their academic programs to increase enrollment, reduce cost, and sustain their mission.

Massachusetts-based Gray Associates provides curated data, systems, and processes to help colleges and universities understand their markets and decide which programs to start, stop, sustain, or grow. "With the right market data and systems, schools can determine which programs can grow while reducing costs by cutting outdated programs," says Bob Atkins, founder and CEO of Gray.

Gray's core offering is its Program Evaluation System (PES), which tracks over 1,000 academic programs and millions of data points on student demand, employment opportunities, competition, and degree level. PES is unique. For example, PES is the only system that includes up-to-date information on the programs students are interested in, including current student inquiries and Google searches by program and campus. Further, for each client, PES uses customized market definitions (e.g., a 30-mile radius around a campus) so the data corresponds precisely to the geographies in which they compete. Program scoring and ranking is customized to align with institutional priorities and goals. Using PES, institutions can compare and contrast markets for over 1,000 programs to identify the best programs for their school.

Similarly, clients can compare online or on-ground programs in a single market, across multiple markets, or nationwide. "The combination of precise market data on almost every program and objective scoring and ranking enables our clients to assess and improve the productivity of their program portfolio," explains Steve Probst, senior partner at Gray.