Are There Better Ways to Subsidize Athletics?

The cost of higher education sometimes includes fees that pay for intercollegiate athletics. While sports are a valued part of campus life, what would students select if they were given the choice between sports and tuition discounts?

“I have no idea, but I’ve been pondering this question as I consider the cost of running a sports program weighed against the cost of college to students,” John Warner wrote for a blog post for Inside Higher Ed. “Student-loan debt threatens the future prosperity of a significant proportion of college graduates—not to mention those who get loans, but don’t graduate—and it doesn’t take a crystal ball to see the potential for this to be a larger drag on the economic health of the nation.”

Based on data from USA Today, Warner postulated that erasing athletic subsidies could provide each student a discount of as much as $1,600 each year, decreasing their average student-loan debt by 25%. Research from the Urban Institute found that self-sustaining athletic programs would provide more than 680,000 Pell-equivalent scholarships.

One method that might work is through private donations and additional state funds. Clemson University used that combination to pay for its $55 million football facility, while the University of Alabama-Birmingham saved its football program through private donations.

“I like sports,” Warner continued. “I think schools would be diminished places without athletics, but when so many aspects of our public institutions are already impoverished, I believe we have to put every option on the table.”

Gen Z Looking at Info on Majors/Minors

Generation Z is often described as pragmatic and cost-conscious. A 2017 study showed just how pragmatic those students are.

EAB Enrollment Services’ The New College Freshman Survey found that 70% of the 4,800 college freshmen surveyed said they visited college websites to find information about majors and minors, up 4% over the results of the 2015 poll. College costs came in a distant second (45%), followed by information on scholarships (25%), financial aid (24%), and general information about the school (21%).

The report also noted that students checking out college ads on social media sites are still very interested in information relating to majors and minors offered at the institutions. Just over 40% of the students said information on majors and minors was the most useful part of their social media search.

Other studies by EAB have found that Generation Z students select majors and minors that will have a stronger impact on their job prospects. That fits with a rise in the number of engineering and business majors that many colleges and universities are reporting. A study by New York University found that 12% of students switched to another field of study when presented data on what majors actually earn once they enter the workforce.

“One ‘so what’ of this New College Freshman Survey finding, and from the return-on-education phenomenon overall for that matter, is that colleges and universities should be thinking more deeply about the enrollment impact of their program portfolio choices,” Anika Olsen, an EAB consultant, wrote in a blog post. “We find that as many schools review their academic programs and make changes, they too seldom and too narrowly factor in market information from enrollment managers.”

Students Aren't Spending as Much on Books

The news is full of reports on textbook costs in higher education. OnCampus Research, the research arm of the NACS, found student spending on course materials actually decreased during the 2016-17 academic year.

Student Watch, Attitudes & Behaviors toward CourseMaterials, a survey of more than 20,000 college students, noted that average spending on 10 required courses was $579 per student, down $23 from the previous year and $122 from 2007-08. Students also said they spent another $500 on technology and school supplies.

The report found an increasing number of students cut their course materials costs by borrowing, sharing, or downloading free information needed for class, and by using formats such as open educational resources. A quarter of the students reported using free course materials, up from 19% in spring 2016 and 15% from spring 2015.

When obtaining course materials, 82% of students purchased and 57% rented from their campus store. Nearly three-quarters bought new textbooks and 70% said they purchased used copies. Just 23% bought digital, but that was an increase of 8% over fall 2015. On average, the campus store was the main source for students' course materials.

The cost of the Student Watch report is $199 for NACS store members and $999 for everyone else, and includes the final report along with data tables from both fall 2016 and spring 2017 surveys. To purchase, email mmeyer@nacs.org or go to the Insights link at oncampusresearch.com. 

Taking Back Textbook Sales

There are plenty of reasons for college stores to consider offering a virtual online solution for course materials. The model can reduce costs while providing guaranteed commissions to make up for some of the lost revenue. The newfound space created by the absence of textbooks can also be dedicated to merchandise that produce higher margins.

The Florence O. Wilson Bookstore, The College of Wooster, Wooster, OH, gave the hybrid model a try, but soon discovered that a virtual solution was actually keeping students away. After two semesters, the store decided to offer textbooks again because a branded website with competitive prices simply became another place for Wooster students to search instead of the place to go for course materials.

“College stores have long provided value, serving faculty and students in equal measure with technology, processes, and expertise to support the academic needs of the institution,” Director Kevin Leitner, CCR, wrote in a LinkedIn post. “The hybrid model, while it offers some advantages, puts a college store in danger of disintermediation and irrelevance, the ultimate danger to a college store.”

Editor’s note: The CITE will be on hiatus as the NACS offices and warehouse in in Oberlin, Westlake, and Cincinnati, OH, as well as in California and Washington, D.C., are closed the week of Dec. 26-Jan. 2. Look for the next post to appear on Jan. 4, 2017. From all the staff of NACS Inc., have a safe and happy holiday season.

ED Announces New Rules for Online Schools

New rules for institutions providing distance education have been proposed by the Department of Education, that would require those schools to get authorization in each state in which they wanted to market their online programs to students.

Institutions already have to have state authorization in the states where they are located, but there are no federal requirements when instruction is being offered to students outside of that state.

“These proposed regulations achieve an important balance between accountability and flexibility, and, in so doing, create better protections for students and taxpayers,” U.S. Undersecretary of Education Ted Mitchell said in a press release. “Additionally, these regulations promote and clarify state authorization procedures, further strengthening the integrity of federal financial aid programs.”

The proposed rules don’t require schools to acquire program accreditation in all states where they want to do business and the disclosure form could be buried in the enrollment contract, according to a report in eCampus News. The student’s home state was also not given authority to resolve consumer complaints, prompting a call to make that state power clear from the Consumers Union, the policy and advocacy division of Consumer Reports.

“Some for-profit career colleges have a history of enrolling students in online courses that mire them in debt without providing the education they need to get a license in the state where they live,” said Suzanne Martindale, staff attorney for Consumers Union. “The Department of Education should strengthen its proposal by requiring accreditation for all specific programs offered to ensure students aren’t pushed into signing up for programs that won’t meet their needs.”

New Generation Same as the Old, But Not

Generation Z, the latest age group to enter adulthood and college, is fundamentally not all that different from previous generations at the same point in life, though there are a few distinctions.

McCann Truth Central interviewed 33,000 people around the world to find out what sets each generation apart. The study discovered young adults in every generation “are focused on finding themselves, finding their people, and finding their place in the world,” said a report in Ad Age.

Gen Z, however, does exhibit a few characteristics of its own. Like previous generations, this age cohort regards their friends as their real family, but the new twist is that this group is able to literally stay in constant touch with friends through cellphones and social media.

“Teens today are also used to connecting with friends all the time with raw, in-the-moment content using platforms like Snapchat, Twitch, and Periscope, which means brands have to start understanding Gen Z’s hunger for on-the-ground immersive perspectives,” said Laura Simpson, executive vice president and global director of McCann Truth Central.

When it comes to issues, this age group is highly supportive of social equality—such as racial equality, women’s issues, and LGBT rights—whereas adults over 50 voice more concern for individual freedoms (such as political freedom) and curing diseases. The Z’ers feel major companies and brands should use their power to effect change.

“The study also showed that the word ‘adult’ used to be a noun, but is now used as a verb by Gen Z and young Millennials, such as ‘adulting,’ which is about ‘putting your life into little moments or little snaps,’” according to Ad Age.

Tablet Sales Are Falling Flat

On the sixth anniversary of the Apple iPad’s debut, it appears that the tablet revolution predicted has fallen well short of expectations. In 2011, there were estimates that annual tablet shipments would be more than 300 million units by 2015.

Apple has sold more than 300 million iPads, but it’s taken six years to reach that mark. In fact, market research from International Data Corp. (IDC) shows that Apple only sold 50 million of the estimated 207 million units it shipped in 2015.

Bigger smartphones have proven to be a competitor with tablets. More than one billion of the devices were sold last year, many with large enough screens to make the purchase of a tablet unnecessary. In addition, consumers have shown they aren’t as willing to upgrade their tablet devices as often as their smartphones.

“I fit that demographic exactly: I bought an iPad Air in late 2013 that I still use daily and don’t anticipate an upgrade this year,” Arik Hesseldahl wrote in an article for re/code. “I will, however, probably upgrade my iPhone. I bought my last Mac in 2011.”

The other challenge for tablet computers is the popularity of detachables—tablets that are essentially a laptop with a removable touchscreen. One out of every five tables sold in Europe in the fourth quarter of 2015 was a detachable device.

“Detachables are proving so popular that IDC reckons by 2020 they’ll account for about one-fifth of the entire market for what it calls ‘client computing devices,’ which includes both tablets and PCs,” Hesseldahl said. “It may not amount to the radical revolution that the overly eager analysts of 2011 had called for, but it will do.”

Are Fitness Bands a Security Risk?

A new report found that most of the popular fitness trackers do a bit more than just count the number of steps the user has taken. They let others in on your progress as well.

In the early draft of Every Step You Fake: A Comparative Analysis of Fitness Tracker Privacy and Security, the Canadian nonprofit Open Effect said that all the devices it studied transmitted a unique Bluetooth identifier that can be tracked by beacons that many retailers are using to recognize their customers. Only the Apple Watch had a technique to block the beacons, according to a report in PC World.

The bands can be tracked even if they’re not paired with a smartphone, according to the researchers. Companion apps for the wearables also leak login credentials, allowing users to submit fake tracking information.

“In the course of our technical investigations into transmission security, data integrity, and Bluetooth privacy, we discovered several issues that confirm concerns about the potential uses of fitness-tracking data beyond the typical case of a user monitoring their own personal wellness,” wrote the authors of the report. “The fitness data generated by several wearable devices can be falsified by motivated parties, calling into question the degree to which this data should be relied up for insurance or legal purposes.”

Phablets Surge in Holiday Activations

Phablets were the technology gadget of choice for many holiday gift-givers. Flurry, a firm that provides mobile advertising solutions for marketers and monetization solutions for app publishers, reported that the large-screen smartphones made up 27% of all device activations during the week leading in to Christmas, up from a 4% share of the market in 2013.

Nearly 50% of all device activations during Christmas week were of Apple products, with its phablet—the iPhone 6s Plus—accounting for 12% of the total. Samsung’s share of device activations was 19.8%, while Nokia finished with a 2% share.

The Apple activation share was actually down 2.2% from 2014. Flurry added that more than half of all Android activations were completed on phablets, such as the Samsung Galaxy Note or those devices popular in Asian markets. Samsung’s activation share rose 2.1% in 2015.

“This year, the larger trend Flurry uncovered was what it dubbed the ‘death of small phones,’” wrote Sarah Perez for TechCrunch. “That is, for the first time in 2015, consumers appear to be opting for phablets over smaller-screened phones. And phones with a screen smaller than 3.5 inches (e.g. most Blackberry devices) are practically extinct.”

E-Book Readership May Be Hard to Track

Are e-books gaining on print books, or losing steam? It appears to depend on who you ask.

Not long ago The New York Times kicked off the debate with an article based on sales data from the Association of American Publishers (AAP), which purported to show that e-book sales drooped by 10% in the first five months of 2015. “E-books’ declining popularity may signal that publishing, while not immune to technological upheaval, will weather the tidal wave of digital technology better than other forms of media, like music and television,” The Times claimed.

But wait, said The Digital Reader. Its piece noted the AAP’s sales figures failed to take into account some $1.79 billion worth of e-book transactions. “While the majority of the AAP monthly data about e-book revenues comes from the Big Five U.S. trade publishers, the majority of the non-AAP e-book revenues goes to self-published e-books and indie-published e-books,” The Digital Reader said.

For its part, The Wall Street Journal did report that the Big Five saw dwindling e-book sales after they negotiated new agency contracts to set higher retail prices.

A new Pew Research Center report indicated more readers are borrowing e-books from their local libraries. In a survey of library patrons aged 16 and up, 27% had downloaded or borrowed at least one digital book in the previous year, compared to 22% in 2012.

The Bookseller cited a YouthSight survey of 1,000 respondents aged 16-24, which found 64% preferred to read print books over digital ones. Surveys of college students, conducted by NACS’ OnCampus Research, also indicate they’d rather be reading on paper, but they’ll buy e-textbooks if the price is substantially cheaper or to fill an immediate need.

E-book subscription services, often touted as a NetFlix for e-book readers, have had trouble getting off the ground and a couple of high-profile companies recently closed, as chronicled by Mashable. The problem there, though, wasn’t a lack of readers; it boiled down to publishers not agreeing to terms that left enough margin to sustain the services.

More Shoppers Consult Amazon First

When it comes to searching for products on the web, many consumers treat Amazon like a regular Internet search engine.

In a new Survata study of American consumers, a sizable 44% indicated they head straight for Amazon’s website when they want to shop for a particular product. That means other retailers—especially smaller, independent ones—don’t even get a chance to compete for those shoppers online, unless somehow Amazon doesn’t carry the item.

Amazon’s personalization technology received high marks from respondents, with 75% saying other online sellers don’t come close and 87% indicating they’d rather do business with a site capable of ascertaining their needs and guiding them to suggested products.

Retailers have a little more opportunity to snag a sale with 34% of the survey respondents who said they look for products first on the major search engines, notably Google, Bing, and Yahoo. Just 21% of survey-takers habitually begin their search for products at a specific retail merchant.

Of consumers who use their smartphone to shop, the biggest reason (given by 47%) was to obtain information on products and prices.

Younger Adults Use More Social Media

In case there was any doubt about it, a newly released Pew Research Center study confirmed younger adults are more likely to be active on social media—except for LinkedIn—than any other adult age group.

The research report said the survey was conducted by phone in March and April of 2015. Only adults aged 18 and up were included.

Facebook is still the big kahuna among all social-media sites. Although its growth has flattened in recent years, the site still commands active use from 72% of all online adults and 82% of those aged 18-29. That age bracket also dominated users of Instagram (55%, almost double the percentage of all adults), Pinterest (37%), Twitter (32%), Tumblr (20%) and online discussion groups such as reddit or Digg (20%).

Only on LinkedIn do the numbers of younger adults falter. They account for just 22% of users, compared to those 30-49 (32%) and 50-64 (26%). That’s not surprising, given that LinkedIn is aimed at working professionals.

Overall, in relation to Facebook, adult usage of the other major social-media sites is still low but growing at a rapid pace. “The proportion of online adults who use Pinterest and Instagram has doubled since Pew Research Center first started tracking social media platform adoption in 2012,” the report said.

The survey also looked at adult use of messaging apps, such as iMessage, WhatsApp, and Kik. Again, the 18-29 group topped the others, with 49% using such apps to exchange text messages via Wi-Fi to avoid using up data on a cellphone plan.