Recruiting Notes

As we are speeding toward midterms and Spring Break, I wanted to follow up on some great information to share with everyone as we look toward increasing our enrollment for Fall 2020 and beyond. As a recruitment specialist here in CBT, I field many questions from prospective first time freshmen, transfer students as well as their families and friends. Here are a couple that are common, and I've provided a break down of some of my responses, as I'm sure you (as some of our most valuable recruiters) have probably heard these questions as well.

Why is a bachelor's degree valuable?

This tends to be one of the most common and indeed, one of the most difficult questions to answer, in my opinion. These are four specific items I mention whenever I can.

Earn More Money:

College graduates can earn around 85% more money than those without one, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Get a Better Job:

In the next 8 to ten years, some estimates state that nearly 70% of jobs will require a degree and there will be 19 million more jobs for educated workers than there are qualified people to fill them.

Expand Your Network:

Through services such as the CBT Career Center and the Center for Entrepreneurship and Rural Development, CBT Students have a wide range of professionals who work specifically to assist them in getting connected. Whether those connections are in a particular field, a particular company or with the skills needed to get that dream job, CBT provides the right assistance to all our students.

See the World:

Study abroad opportunities are a huge asset that students can take advantage of that create lasting friendships, personal and professional connections as well as the opportunity to see the world through a new global perspective. Check out what UNK has to offer with our international partnerships.

How are you going to ensure my student stays connected?

Student/teacher ratio:

Accessibility, flexibility and genuine care. We show this daily with smaller class sizes, and approachable and friendly faculty (and staff too!). This encourages our students to get to know our faculty, and also allows our faculty to create meaningful and relevant dialogue not only in the classroom, but beyond. From developing research partnerships to full mentoring of students, our faculty are the real deal.

Living Learning Community:

Specifically for first time freshmen, the CBT Living Learning Community will launch this Fall. Flyers should have been received in each department office, so please check in with the office associate if you want a few for your academic visits. I also have more in my office at 135C if you want to stop by! This community is built around first time freshmen who are all interested in a major in CBT, and creates a space where they live together, study together, and learn how to be a college student - all together. A housing scholarship has also been secured for this community, totaling to nearly half their housing costs for the academic year! It's definitely worth while to promote this incentive as well.

With built in peer mentoring and common courses, this unique opportunity has been proven to help students perform better academically as well as persist on in their degree pursuits. Again, this is a community specifically for first year freshmen students. The information can also be found on the website: Living Learning Communities

Student Organizations:

With over 150 registered organizations to choose from, it can be a little overwhelming especially for our first year and first generation students. So, in coordination with our CBT Living Learning Community, there will be a peer mentoring program adopted by the Fall of 2020 that provides these students with the necessary assistance to navigate college life side by side with an upperclassman who has been there.

From keeping connected with CBT events and campus events, it's also developing another resource for retention efforts. We start with what we know - and we know that our students are our best advocates and biggest experts on CBT success.