Driving Transformative Change
Through Data-Driven Insights and Solutions

Higher education institutions face growing pressure to navigate complex challenges, from enrollment shifts and student success initiatives to technology transformation and long-term financial sustainability. To help colleges and universities meet these demands, EAB Global, Inc. (EAB) partners with institutions nationwide, providing data-driven research, strategic insights, and technology-enabled solutions designed to support institutional goals.

Drawing on decades of experience serving higher education leaders, EAB combines extensive research, best practices, and collaborative partnerships to help institutions make informed decisions and drive meaningful change. Through its work with presidents, provosts, enrollment leaders, chief information officers, and other campus leaders, EAB supports efforts to strengthen student outcomes, improve operational effectiveness, and advance institutional success. “At EAB, we start from the premise that students experience institutions as a single ecosystem, even though colleges and universities are often organized into separate offices and functions,” says Scott Schirmeier, EAB President, Student Success and Analytics. “Enrollment teams, advisors, faculty, advancement officers, and institutional researchers may have different responsibilities, but they are all contributing to the same student journey.”

“The connective tissue is the commitment EAB shares with all types of institutional leaders at our 2,800 partner institutions—a commitment to turning data-informed insights into action,” continues Schirmeier. “Whether we’re helping a university recruit prospective students, support persistence, improve operational decision-making, or strengthen alumni engagement, the underlying mission is the same: tailor our portfolio of research, technology, and marketing and enrollment solutions to meet the unique needs of every leadership team, as well as the students and employees they serve.”

Instead of focusing on a single project or technology platform, Schirmeier says the most effective partnerships involve a shared understanding of institutional priorities and a coordinated effort to address them. “In practice, that might mean an institution using research and advisory services to shape a strategic plan, building a data infrastructure to create a more trusted view of institutional performance, deploying student success technology to support retention goals, and engaging marketing and enrollment services to strengthen recruitment. Each component reinforces the others. When that integration happens successfully, leaders spend less time reconciling information from different systems and more time acting on what they learn.”

“For Edge members, cooperative procurement changes the access equation in three ways. First, it can reduce administrative burden. Second, it creates pre-negotiated terms and pricing structures. And third, EdgeMarket can make it easier to pursue broader institutional partnerships by allowing leaders to evaluate multiple EAB solutions within a single cooperative framework. EdgeMarket reflects a shared commitment to helping institutions access high-quality solutions more efficiently. Ultimately, cooperative procurement helps institutions spend less time navigating processes and more time implementing solutions that support students and advance strategic goals.”

– Scott Schirmeier
President, Technology
EAB

Boosting Engagement Across the Student Journey
Through their partnership with Edge, EAB offers a full suite of solutions to member institutions via EdgeMarket, including Navigate360, Starfish, Edify, Enroll360, and Strategic Advisory Services. Navigate360 is EAB’s scalable, enterprise-wide student success CRM, offering a complete set of early alert, intervention, and analytics features for all institutional stakeholders. The cloud-based SaaS solution hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS) has a comprehensive framework that establishes a Coordinated Care Network across campus offices and combines communication, case management, early alerts, intervention tracking, and analytics within a single system. Navigate360 can be accessed securely from virtually any internet-connected device, giving campus stakeholders the flexibility to support students wherever they are.

“Navigate360 is especially compelling for institutions looking to connect recruitment, onboarding, advising, student engagement, and persistence in a more unified environment,” explains Schirmeier. “Navigate360 recently expanded to include enrollment and advancement CRM capabilities, making it a full student lifecycle platform. This solution also has more robust student-facing features, including a mobile app, that offer structure and guidance along the student journey.”

The Starfish platform is more tightly focused on retention and student success and emphasizes early alerts, case management, Core Student Success, Operational Analytics, Strategic Analytics and Degree Planner. Designed to remove complicated redundancies and barriers to modernize campus, Starfish makes student intervention easy and integrated. “The Starfish platform may be a strong fit for institutions that already have enrollment systems in place but need to strengthen advising coordination, early intervention, and persistence infrastructure,” says Schirmeier. “Our technology and services enable campuses to become student-ready, scale student support, and measure results.”

When evaluating Navigate360 and Starfish, Schirmeier emphasizes the importance of focusing on institutional goals rather than individual product features. “Some institutions are looking for an enterprise-wide coordinated care model that connects advisors, faculty, student affairs staff, and administrators around a common student success framework. Others are focused on strengthening advising workflows, improving intervention strategies, or creating a more student-ready experience without fundamentally changing existing structures.

“Culture matters as much as technology. The right solution is the one that aligns with how an institution makes decisions, supports students, and manages change. In some cases, institutions have a clear preference for one platform based on their operating model and long-term strategy. In others, leaders are exploring how different capabilities can complement one another. Our role is to help them evaluate those choices through the lens of student outcomes, staff capacity, and institutional readiness.”

Navigate360: Scalable, enterprise-wide student success CRM, offering a complete set of early alert, intervention, and analytics features for all institutional stakeholders.

Starfish: Cloud-hosted SaaS platform that centralizes student data and enables proactive, just-in-time intervention and cohort management, to help modernize student support, reduce operational complexity, and scale services.

Edify: Education Data Platform (EDP) that provides a user-friendly and extensible platform to unify and democratize access to institutional data and reporting.

Enroll360: Brings together marketing campaigns, proprietary recruitment platforms, and AI-powered personalization to maximize inquiries, improve yield, and increase enrollments for an institution.

Transfer Portal: Offers prospects credit estimates immediately, recommendations for their best-fit majors, and customized application support to guide them step by step through the enrollment process.

Adult Learner Recruitment (ALR): Combines proprietary data, personalized creative, and deep expertise in the graduate and adult education markets to attract, engage, and enroll right-fit students.

Advancement Marketing Services (AMS): Provides strategic, marketing, and analytical support to ensure schools can connect with alumni and donors in their preferred channels.

Learn more about these EAB solutions and more at edgemarket.njedge.net/home/eab-data-driven-insights-and-solutions.

Democratizing Access to Institutional Data
EAB’s best-in-class Education Data Platform (EDP), Edify, provides a user-friendly and extensible platform to unify and democratize access to institutional data and reporting. As a cloud-based data SaaS offering built on AWS infrastructure, Edify does not require additional hardware to install or run and is uniquely comprehensive and purpose-built for higher education. “For many colleges and universities, valuable data exists across dozens of systems that were never designed to work together,” says Schirmeier. “As a result, people spend significant time locating information, validating reports, or debating whose numbers are correct.

“Democratizing access to data means moving beyond that environment and creating a trusted foundation where decision-makers across campus can access timely, consistent information without needing advanced technical expertise or custom reports for every question. To accomplish this, institutions need strong governance, shared definitions, and confidence in the quality of the underlying data, as well as a culture that encourages people to use evidence in everyday decision-making. When those elements come together, data becomes a strategic asset rather than a technical challenge.”

In addition to the technology itself, institutions can access Edify professional services for assistance with data integration, analytics and reporting, data strategy, and other technical and consultative services that help institutions connect systems, improve data quality, and generate actionable insights. Edify also offers pre-built analytics and implementation accelerators that can help institutions achieve results more quickly and efficiently.

Unlocking Marketing and Enrollment Excellence
Colleges and universities are operating in a dramatically different enrollment environment than they were just a few years ago, requiring new strategies to attract and engage prospective students. “The enrollment environment today is significantly more complex than it was even a few years ago,” says Schirmeier. “Institutions are facing demographic shifts, changing search behavior, increased competition, and growing pressure to demonstrate value to prospective students and families. What has changed most is the expectation for agility. Institutions need partners that can help them respond quickly to market shifts while maintaining a long-term strategic perspective.

“As a result, EAB’s recruitment strategies have become more personalized, more data-informed, and more focused on demonstrating fit. Across Enroll360, Adult Learner Recruitment (ALR), and Advancement Marketing Services (AMS), we’re helping institutions engage the right audiences with greater precision. That includes identifying prospective students earlier, understanding how adult learners evaluate educational options, improving conversion throughout the recruitment funnel, and strengthening engagement across the entire constituent lifecycle.”

Powered by EAB’s Enrollment Ecosystem, Enroll360 aligns recruitment strategies with the college search and decision-making behaviors of today’s students and their families. By combining audience generation, behaviorally informed marketing campaigns, and advanced analytics, Enroll360 helps institutions identify, engage, and enroll prospective students more effectively. For institutions focused on expanding graduate and adult learner enrollment, ALR provides a comprehensive approach to reaching both traditional and non-traditional students. The solution combines strategic guidance, marketing expertise, and enrollment support to help institutions grow graduate and online program participation. On the advancement side, EAB’s AMS helps institutions deepen relationships with alumni and donors through data-informed outreach and engagement strategies. By applying proven marketing practices from both higher education and other industries, AMS supports more personalized communications, stronger engagement, and improved fundraising outcomes.

Connecting Research with Real-World Practice
EAB produces an enormous volume of original research each year, and those insights serve as a foundation for the technologies, services, and strategic guidance the organization provides to institutions. By connecting research with real-world practice, EAB helps colleges and universities apply proven strategies to the challenges they face today. “Research is foundational to everything we do,” shares Schirmeier. “Every year, our teams conduct thousands of conversations with institutional leaders and practitioners, analyze emerging trends, and study practices that are producing measurable results. Those insights do not stay confined to reports or presentations, but shape the design of technology, inform enrollment and marketing strategies, influence advising practices, and help institutions benchmark their performance against peers.

“Research allows us to identify what is working across higher education and translate those lessons into practical tools and services—which creates a continuous feedback loop. Research informs solutions, solutions generate new insights, and those insights help institutions adapt to changing conditions.” Those insights are drawn from a wide-ranging research agenda that examines everything from academic program planning and campus facilities to finance, inclusion, K-12 education, enrollment, and student success; helping institutions make more informed decisions across campus.

For smaller or under-resourced institutions, the challenges may look different, but the need for actionable insight is even greater. “Smaller institutions frequently operate with lean teams and limited capacity,” notes Schirmeier. “They need solutions that help staff focus their time where it can have the greatest impact. Our goal is to make proven practices accessible regardless of institutional size. That means combining research, technology, and services in ways that help institutions accelerate progress without requiring large internal teams or extensive new resources.”

Helping Institutions Access High-Quality Solutions
Through EdgeMarket, Edge members and participants can benefit from discounted pricing and favorable terms on select EAB solutions. “EdgeMarket creates a more efficient, trusted path for Edge members and other eligible cooperative participants to access EAB’s portfolio,” says Schirmeier. “EdgeMarket is not just a procurement channel, it is a way to reduce friction for institutions that need support but may not have the time, staff capacity, or procurement flexibility to run a full independent process for every solution. Edge’s purchasing co-op also helps EAB present a coherent suite of offerings rather than disconnected transactions. We value partnerships that reduce administrative barriers and allow institutional leaders to focus on strategic priorities rather than lengthy procurement processes. EdgeMarket can help institutions engage with solutions across research, data, student success, and enrollment with greater confidence and clarity.”

“For Edge members, cooperative procurement changes the access equation in three ways,” continues Schirmeier. “First, it can reduce administrative burden. Second, it creates pre-negotiated terms and pricing structures. And third, EdgeMarket can make it easier to pursue broader institutional partnerships by allowing leaders to evaluate multiple EAB solutions within a single cooperative framework. EdgeMarket reflects a shared commitment to helping institutions access high-quality solutions more efficiently. Ultimately, cooperative procurement helps institutions spend less time navigating processes and more time implementing solutions that support students and advance strategic goals.”

“Artificial intelligence is also part of that conversation, but the institutions seeing the greatest benefit are those that first establish strong data foundations and clear operational priorities. In that environment, EAB helps institutions bring structure and clarity to complex challenges—connecting data, research, and best practices so leaders can act with confidence. By translating insights into practical tools and strategies, EAB supports institutions in strengthening enrollment, improving student outcomes, and making more informed, strategic decisions throughout their organization.”

– Scott Schirmeier
President, Technology
EAB

Preparing for the Future of Education
Higher education has reached a pivotal moment, where institutions are facing financial pressures, questions of institutional value, and the rise of AI in teaching and operations. For Edge members, this raises several key challenges where EAB is well positioned to make an impact. “Institutions are navigating demographic changes, evolving student expectations, and increased competition,” says Schirmeier. “At the same time, student success and retention remain central priorities, with every institution focused on helping more students persist, graduate, and realize the lifelong value of a college degree. Colleges and universities are also under growing pressure to do more with limited resources, making data-informed decision-making increasingly critical. Leaders need trusted information that helps them allocate resources effectively, measure progress, and evaluate strategic choices.

Institutions typically recognize success when they can more clearly see impact in their outcomes, whether that’s improved student results, stronger operational alignment, or more informed decision-making. “Success starts with outcomes that matter to the institution itself,” states Schirmeier. “That could mean stronger enrollment, improved retention and graduation rates, more effective fundraising, better operational efficiency, or greater confidence in strategic decision-making. Our partners work with dedicated EAB staff to build partnership plans around their specific goals. That strategic partnership begins in implementation, but it extends beyond that with regular check-ins to make sure our solutions are aligned to our partners’ needs and priorities.

“What we see consistently is that the strongest results occur when institutions combine insight, technology, and execution. Research helps identify opportunities. Technology helps scale action. Partnership support services help sustain momentum. A large private university in the South sought a strategic partner that could help strengthen recruitment, improve yield, and support student persistence. With approximately 20,000 students and more than 150 academic programs, the institution needed solutions that addressed challenges across the entire student lifecycle.

“EAB partnered with the university to launch a coordinated strategy that combined undergraduate enrollment expertise with financial aid optimization, helping the institution attract and enroll more students while making more effective use of institutional aid. Building on the success of those efforts, the university expanded the partnership to include adult learner recruitment, leveraging EAB’s market insights and enrollment strategies to strengthen growth opportunities beyond the traditional undergraduate population. To complement its enrollment gains and protect long-term student success, the institution also implemented Navigate360 to drive engagement-focused retention efforts for continuing undergraduates. By bringing together expertise in enrollment management, financial aid strategy, adult learner recruitment, and student success, EAB helped the university address interconnected challenges through a unified, institution-wide partnership.”