Digital Onboarding Comes To Higher Education

Universities are getting schooled in “pandenomics” — a portmanteau of “pandemic” and “economics” coined by PYMNTS to describe manifestations of COVID-era financial change in different verticals. Higher education is not immune from pandenomics, and is undergoing its own reset as institutions of higher learning synthesize new market conditions.

For colleges, those new conditions center on remote registration and distance learning.

“The shift to remote learning has crafted new challenges for universities, from dealing with overloaded video platforms to onboarding incoming students both swiftly and accurately,” according to PYMNTS’ September Digital Consumer Onboarding Tracker® done in collaboration with Melissa.

Observing that “onboarding does not stop after students have been accepted to their chosen universities,” there remains financial aid, housing, course selection and numerous other details to manage. “A number of these steps were traditionally done on campus or through paper documentation, such as disbursing refunds for housing costs or financial aid with physical checks,” the Tracker notes.

With campus visits all but nonexistent this year, remote onboarding for small colleges or university centers is the province of digital, and that process must be safeguarded.

Matriculating from a Distance

“The COVID-19 pandemic did not create the need for digital education solutions, but it has fast-forwarded their uptake and use as never previously imagined,” the Digital Consumer Onboarding Tracker®  states. “Universities must work swiftly to ensure they can keep up with both the needs and the growing expectations of a new, digital generation of students.”

That’s a moving target at best right now, as schools balance partial reopenings with virtual class offerings and a patchwork of solutions, all set against the backdrop of campus COVID hotspots. It’s forcing educational institutions to radically rethink the process end-to-end.

“Universities must also make sure they are able to easily authenticate their incoming students, especially as a majority switch to some form of remote or virtual learning. There has been a jump in interest in identity verification solutions for institutions needing to verify that users signing onto video platforms or eLearning portals are meant to be there,” per the Tracker.

More colleges and universities are counting on identity and access management (IAM) software to help. “IAM can help verify students who sign on to look at their grades or financial aid status as well as enable easy access to online classrooms, for example. One recent report found that the IAM technology market is predicted to grow from $7.6 billion this year to $15.3 billion by 2025.”

Testing Limits, Pushing Boundaries

It’s known that many colleges and universities would fail their final when it comes to online security and fraud defenses. That’s got to change if remote onboarding is to remain viable.

For this reason, the new Tracker states that “universities looking to onboard students as well as offer virtual classes and resources must … ensure that their cybersecurity measures are up to the task. Accomplishing these activities at scale requires access to systems that can swiftly handle and verify large data volumes.”

That involves partnering with financial institutions (FIs) and FinTechs that are specialized in higher education, and have been working overtime on payments fixes for a tough situation.

“Adjusting … final onboarding steps for digital completion represents a larger challenge for higher education entities, however, as many are simply not set up to do so,” notes the Tracker.