The long-predicted demographic dip has started to hit campuses. The enrollment cliff is here.
At the same time, families are evaluating institutions in completely new ways. Think prompting ChatGPT or swiping through “day in the life on campus” videos on TikTok. Visibility has become the foundation of enrollment strategy with discovery and decision making now happening in the AI-generated summary, the scroll, or the search result.
If your institution’s digital strategy still assumes that prospective students will “click to learn more,” it’s time to update your playbook. Here’s 5 shifts you need to make as you plan for 2026.
Shift 1: Prioritize Search Visibility
Gen Z students are using TikTok and Reddit as search engines. Google’s AI Overviews are answering questions directly at the top of the results page with nearly 60% of Google searches now ending without a click. This means families are forming impressions and narrowing options without ever visiting your website.
For marketers, this shifts the conversation from “How do we get traffic?” to “How do we stay visible where these decisions begin?” Your institution must show up in the right context in AI summaries, local search panels, social feeds, and Q&A results as a trusted, credible voice.
Shift 2: Prepare for Zero-Click Searches
Generative AI is changing what it means to be “searched.”
When a student asks Gemini “best nursing schools in New Jersey,” the AI doesn’t display ten blue links: it delivers an answer. The institutions that appear are those whose content and credibility have trained these systems to trust them.
Institutions that publish expert-led, first-hand, structured content like program comparisons, faculty insights, outcomes data are more likely to be cited and surfaced by AI. The goal is no longer just ranking high on Google but owning the answer across all forms of search.
Shift 3: Manage Brand Perception in Search
What families see when they search your institution’s name (e.g. reviews, Reddit threads, YouTube vlogs, and AI summaries) now carries as much weight as your website. Search results are now those early touchpoints with your institution, and every snippet shapes perception. What’s seen in those early searches is often the difference between being researched and being ruled out.
Marketers need to consider how earned media, SEO, social and overarching storytelling reinforce each other to build trust at scale. Because the moment someone searches your name, their impression of your institution is already forming.
Shift 4: Strengthen Local and Regional Relevance
For regional and community institutions, the next wave of enrollment growth will come from proximity and precision. Families are searching “colleges near me” and “best business programs in [city]” at record levels. These queries carry intent, and they’re increasingly answered algorithmically vs. through traditional ads.
Marketing leaders should ensure geo-targeting, local SEO, and paid search strategies align with how real people express intent as local discoverability has increasingly more enrollment impact.
Shift 5: Align Budgets with Audience Behavior
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: most institutions’ marketing budgets still prioritize tactics that chase clicks, even as audience behavior has moved far upstream.
To influence enrollment in this new landscape, budgets should align with where families actually make decisions: in search, in feeds, and inside AI-driven discovery tools. That means:
- Shifting from click-first to story-first campaigns that build mental availability
- Funding traditional and AI search as enrollment critical, not optional add-ons
- Tracking leading indicators like branded search growth, organic mentions, and local visibility as precursors to conversion
When your marketing plan follows behavior, you’re not spending to chase attention bur rather investing to earn consideration.
Making the Case to Leadership: Visibility Is Enrollment Strategy
For many marketers, the next challenge isn’t understanding these shifts—it’s getting buy-in to act on them.
To make the case, connect these digital realities directly to enrollment metrics your leadership cares about: visibility drives inquiries, perception drives yield, and trust drives retention. The data is clear: the majority of students’ decision-making now happens before they ever complete a form or schedule a visit.
This is no longer “marketing spend.” It’s enrollment infrastructure and the digital foundation that ensures your institution remains discoverable, credible, and competitive in a shrinking market.
The enrollment cliff may be unavoidable. But how your institution navigates it? That’s strategy.
How to Get Started
Every institution is somewhere on the curve when it comes to AI search and digital visibility but most don’t know exactly where.
Getting a clear view of your current state and how you stack up against peer schools helps uncover the biggest opportunities: where you’re missing from key search results, where competitors dominate, and where your story can work harder.
From there, you can prioritize the right mix of traditional search, content, PR, social and brand building to close gaps and strengthen visibility in the channels shaping tomorrow’s enrollment decisions.
We’re compiling AI Search Assessments and Action Plans for clients across industries to help them do just this. Give us a shout to get in our queue!