This essay is excerpted from a new Chronicle special report, “The Home Stretch of Student Recruitment,” available in the Chronicle Store.
In this era of shrinking enrollment, ballooning costs, and rising political hostility to our sector, colleges and universities are in a fight not only for enrollment, but for relevance. As we strategize to recruit, yield, and retain students, we must ask ourselves: What if one of our most powerful tools is not new technology or a slick marketing campaign, but the human-centered practice of hospitality?
When I served as a dean of admission, I used to tell my team: We may not be able to outspend or out-prestige other institutions, but we can beat them on how we make people feel. That mind-set helped us build a culture of care and belonging — one that students and families remembered long after their visit ended. And in a world where students crave belonging and families want to be acknowledged and valued, that emotional connection matters more than ever.
Maya Angelou captured this truth perfectly: “People will forget what you said, they will forget what you did, but they will always remember how you made them feel.” That quote has guided my leadership throughout my career, and it’s never been more relevant than it is today. In fact, when I was an admission dean, I had it laminated and gave it to every member of my team as a daily reminder of our charge. In a competitive, uncertain environment, students aren’t just looking for academic fit or financial-aid packages — they’re looking for human connection. They’re looking for home.
Creating a culture of hospitality isn’t about being nice or offering perks. It’s about intentionality. It’s about recognizing — as restaurateur Danny Meyer writes in Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business — that “everyone is walking around with an invisible sign that reads: Make me feel special.”
In the enrollment game, that sign is hanging around the necks of prospective students, their parents, current students, and even our faculty and staff members. Hospitality isn’t a department — it’s a mind-set. Hospitality in college admissions means moving from a one-size-fits-all mentality to ultra-personalization. Every student should feel like the institution is creating experiences specifically for them.
How? These four steps are a good place to start:
- First, we must train for it. Just as we prepare teams to handle applications or conduct interviews with prospective students, we must build training programs that equip all of our people — admissions officers, faculty members, financial-aid counselors, and even student workers — with the tools to practice empathy and read emotional cues. Are we training staff members to anticipate needs rather than simply respond to them? Are we creating a sense of welcome that transcends departments and internal silos? Everyone should understand their role in this culture change.
- Conduct a hospitality audit. Walk through your student experience from inquiry to enrollment to orientation. Where are the friction points? Where might a student feel invisible or overwhelmed? Small details — unclear signage, rushed interactions, or inaccessible information — can erode belonging. But with intention, those same moments can become opportunities for connection.
- Invest in formal hospitality training. We can train our admissions staff internally on how to make families feel special, design a wonderful tour, or create an effective admitted-student day. But if you really want to differentiate how you make students and families feel, and have the resources to do so, investing in professional hospitality training can be a game changer. Form partnerships with experts in the restaurant, hotel, and service industries — those who have long mastered the art of making people feel valued. I once attended a training called Creating Raves that fundamentally shifted how I lead organizations. It reminded me that we all work in the service industry — and like any service sector, higher education’s success depends on the emotional resonance of the experiences we deliver.
- Reward it. Celebrate the people who go above and beyond to make others feel at home on the campus. Make hospitality a value that shows up in performance reviews, recognition programs, and leadership messaging. When you reward what you value, you build a culture that sustains it.
Hospitality has the power to surprise and delight. It isn’t just about comfort — it’s about creating moments that elicit emotion, spark joy, and foster deep belonging. I’ll never forget an admitted-student day when, without warning, a big group of us (including the president) launched into a flash mob on the quad. The prospective students were in awe. There was laughter, cheering, and a contagious energy that filled the air. That moment may not have been the only reason my enrollment numbers went up that year — but I have no doubt it helped. Those prospects felt something. They felt joy. That’s the kind of emotional memory that stays with someone long after they leave the campus. Bring the joy.
Will Guidara, in his transformative 2022 book Unreasonable Hospitality, describes hospitality not as a service transaction, but as an act of emotional generosity. “Service is black and white,” he wrote. “Hospitality is color.”
In higher education, we’ve mastered the service checklist — information sessions, campus tours, academic-advising appointments — but, too often, we miss the opportunity to infuse those moments with the color of hospitality. Hospitality, when done right, becomes a differentiator. It’s what turns a campus visit for an admitted student into a moment of belonging. It’s what makes a first-generation student feel like college is for them. It’s what keeps a struggling sophomore from transferring. In short, it’s what keeps the heart of our institutions beating.
Research supports what many of us have long observed anecdotally: We can train our staffs internally on how to make families feel special, how to create a wonderful tour or admitted-student day, but if you really want to differentiate how you make students and families feel, and have the resources to do so, investing in formal training can be a game changer. Admitted students who feel a strong sense of belonging are more likely to commit to the college, persist and graduate. As The Chronicle reported in 2023: “Research shows that college students who feel that they belong at their institutions get better grades and fare better on persistence, engagement, and mental health.” Similarly, the Institute for Higher Education Policy highlights belonging as a key contributor to academic success, particularly for students of color and first-generation college-goers. Hospitality isn’t just nice — it’s strategic.
Yet too often, hospitality is misunderstood as the responsibility of the admissions office or student affairs. That’s a mistake. A culture of hospitality must permeate every corner of the campus. It must show up in how financial-aid offices explain award letters, how professors interact with students during office hours, how facilities staff members greet passersby on the quad. Everyone is part of the welcome committee, whether they know it or not.
And just like in the restaurant industry, hospitality in higher education requires training, intention, and practice. In Setting the Table, Meyer talks about “enlightened hospitality,” where putting your team first allows them to better serve others. The same principle applies on our campuses. If we want our staff and faculty members to exude warmth and care, we must first extend that same hospitality to them. Leadership must model it — and reward it.
One of the most compelling moments I ever witnessed as a campus leader came from a custodian. A family had arrived early for a tour and wandered into a quiet building. The custodian, seeing them looking a bit lost, stopped, smiled, and offered to walk them to the admissions office personally. That family later wrote to me, saying the moment sealed their decision: “We knew this was a place that would take care of our child.” That is the power of hospitality.
Imagine what might change if we all saw ourselves as hosts — if everyone who worked at your college understood that part of their role was to make other people feel welcomed, valued, and special. It requires us to slow down, to be present, to center human experience in environments often driven by metrics and efficiency.
Some might argue that hospitality is a luxury we can’t afford in the face of public skepticism, federal budget cuts, and enrollment challenges. I believe the opposite: It is a necessity we cannot ignore. Because at its core, hospitality is about human connection. And that — more than prestige or rankings — is what drives student success. What I learned in my years as an admissions dean is that it wasn’t the most selective or prestigious institutions that won over students. It was the ones that made them feel seen.
Some colleges and universities have already begun to go “all in” on hospitality. For example, Quinnipiac University, Robert Morris University, Southern New Hampshire University, and the University of Utah have hired a “chief experience officer.” They know what businesses have known all along: that we live in an experience economy, and those who focus on how their customers feel will outpace everyone else. This is why the first position I hired when I became head of the National Association for College Admission Counseling was a chief experience officer.
If we are to thrive in the years ahead, we must not only welcome students, but also build a campus culture in which hospitality is the default, not something reserved for special occasions. We must remember that education, at its best, is not just about knowledge — it’s about belonging.
And belonging begins with how we make people feel.
